Lora of Two Worlds

Three days gone since her father and brothers left, and the moon was round.

The fourth brother took personal charge of the mansion’s Harvest Home feast, and made no small matter of his own consequence. Four at table, true — but four was still three generations, grandmother to granddaughter, and the proprieties would be kept entire.

Bows to the forebears in the little shrine; and outside the shrine, a candle-table set for the moon’s homage.

Supper done, Brendan walked grandmother and mother back to their rooms with his own hands. Then it was off to the tower chamber, to find his sister.

Lora was in the courtyard watching over the brewing of the hawthorn-blossom wine. The base spirit Tobias had distilled did beat their own homebrew hands down — some of the bite gone out of it. She had had a few jars brought home, to steep her hawthorn blossoms in.

”Sister — what are you fussing over now?”

The fourth brother put on a face of lively interest, twitched his nose, and craned in for a look:

”Strong wine-smell, this! What brew is it? Is our house opening a wine-shop, then?”

”You’re not out carousing — what are you doing in my yard? This hawthorn-blossom wine isn’t drinkable yet; you’ll wait for next Harvest Home.”

The fourth brother took the fan out of his sister’s hand and fanned the mosquitoes off her, laughing:

”Sister — when good things come your way, think a little oftener of your fourth brother. Look what all Hugo next door has gotten out of you. Them that know, say you’re generous; them that don’t, will say you’ve set your cap at the Fairfax boys and are just aching to marry into the house.”

”What’s wrong with doing cousin Hugo a good turn? He pays me my share of the dividends monthly — you think redeeming all those houses and farms cost us nothing?”

Lora rolled her eyes and snatched the round fan right back out of his hand:

”Fourth brother — you haven’t forgotten? The second brother left the hunt for Webb in your hands when he went.”

The fourth brother nodded. ”Forget it? I’m an Odenheim — the silver Webb made off with was mine too. Chase it I will. Only — I do wonder. The house was cleaned out to the bare walls that time; how did you conjure up so much silver, all in a breath? Fat Hugo hasn’t the reach for it. What he’s worth, every man in his circle knows to the copper...”

”Circle? What circle? Take me some day, won’t you — let me see the sights?”

A small unease crept over Lora. Keane at the Iron-Plate House — Brendan had surely marked it. And sure enough, Brendan came round to the Iron-Plate House:

”The other day I saw Keane at the Iron-Plate House... Isn’t he your man? How has he come to be manager there?”

”Exactly so. I furnish the iron-plate craft, cousin Hugo puts up the silver, and Keane stands in for me to teach the method. You could hardly have your sister showing her face at the front of the house, could you?”

”True, true. Whatever you need done, set an elder brother to it — better your own folk than outsiders.”

Lora looked him up and down, and laughed: ”Eh? Fourth brother — the day before yesterday you lay in bed groaning and whining, and in two days’ time you’re healed? And those gold beads I gave you back—”

”Bah! Look how much bitter medicine your elder brother swallowed, to buy one day out of bed and holding the fort... You enjoy yourself — your brother’s off to see some friends.”

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The fourth brother talked over the rest and made for the gate; going, he passed the wine-jars meant for burying under the tree, and pointed at them, laughing:

”Sister — next year, when the wine comes up out of the ground, remember to call your fourth brother in for a drink.”

Watching Brendan out the gate, Lora called Lilac over and gave her her instructions:

”The house is thin of hands now. From now on, Corin and his men stop going over to the household camp across the way — they lodge in the front court, in the guards’ and pages’ quarters. And our own strong-room, and the vault’s strong-room — both those places must have eyes on them through every one of the twelve watches.”

”The front court ought to be the Fourth Master’s charge — why didn’t you just now put it to him?”

”Because I waited two whole days — and watched him not care. So I arrange it myself. As for the vault: keep it from him for now. His heart is already out the door; once it’s fully out, there is no calling it back.”

The fourth brother was her own flesh, and that much she trusted entire. It was his dealings with the Salts that would not let her rest.

Since coming back to the Eastern Capital, Roland had put out feelers on the Salts: the house held shares in all three of the court’s monopolies — salt, iron, and wine — and the man himself, Cedric Salt, ran those monopoly lines through the marches in person, and often.

Licensed purveyors of the Crown were more than he alone; to carry a monopoly warrant in any march, a man truly needed good standing with that march’s own shire.

Set that beside it, and his earlier suspicious doings found their footing too:

The silver he had spent helping a marcher duke widen his borders — that he would be sure to win back, in time, out of his trade.

No proof to be had. She simply did not want her fourth brother near the man. But seeing how he dodged around the gold beads — there were money matters now that Lora must needs keep dark, even from her own brother.

The courtyard servants had all scattered. Lora went in and sat by the window; on the little table by the daybed stood two wine sets, and two dishes of harvest cakes.

No such thing as harvest cakes existed in this age — Lora had described them out of her own memory, and Lilac and the rest had fiddled half the day before the filled pastries came out right.

She turned her face up to the round moon in the sky, and thought of her father and brothers under that same round moon, laying Leon’s road for him.

A black silhouette slipped in through the open door. He set down the bundle in his hand, smiling:

”Back in the princely mansion, idling, I trained with the guards — all to wear myself thoughtless, so the night would take me the moment I lay down. Who would have thought: this life, night-raiding a lady’s chamber, and the training finds its use.”

”Last time — the Harvest Home of the fifth year of King Edmond IV — what happened in Augustburg?” Lora was curious.

All along, Leon had moved his pieces out of memory and never explained — at most, word had come to him, he would say. He opened the bundle now and set the brocade case in it before Lora:

”That Harvest Home nothing much came to pass. We all went to the Serene Palace to keep the Queen Mothers company over the moon-viewing, and a black cat dropped off a wall all of a sudden and startled my brother the King. That night the White Guard and the Plume Guard both had half a month’s pay docked.”

”And do you say that black cat will jump once more?”

Leon shook his head. This rebirth was his first — and whether every last thing would come round again, he could not be sure.

Lora had barely cracked the case before the glow came pouring out of it: ”Waah... a whole case of luminous pearls!”

”Lift it out.”

The pearls hung strung, one by one, in a net-bag woven of colored cord — eighteen in all.

”That day I heard you had gotten a luminous pearl, I minded my own string — hung before my bed-curtain in the old days, so that rising at night wanted no candle. Later, when the sleepless nights came, the physicians had me take it down. An old thing, no more — I hope you won’t turn up your nose at it.”

However far fallen, a prince ran richer than any ordinary official house by more than counting could count — small wonder every last one of them hankers after that seat.

”Turn up my nose? I’ll have them build a many-armed candlestand and perch the pearls on it — a night-light, no less. Tell me: haven’t I just the air of one of history’s great wicked queens?”

She meant old Catherine de’ Medici. Leon could not unpack the reference; he only gathered that the title was no lucky one.

And when Lora had finished — how Catherine de’ Medici had lived in what excess of luxury, and how her dynasty in the end was stripped and trampled under the barbarian hordes — his nose stung, a little.

He knew it for what it was: Lora putting him in mind of it. This Empire of theirs, that wore at present the very face of a restoration — it would not bear their squandering.

”I have it. Thank you for the reminding.”

Lora folded the luminous pearls away into their case, took Leon’s hand, and walked him to the doorway; then pointed up at the moon, laughing:

”Look — that is my gift to you. And then... abracadabra — change! The moon drops into the dish and turns into harvest cakes. So — you will eat every last harvest cake there is!”

Leon watched, smiling, the little woman waving her hands and putting on her ”magic”:

She had no need of luminous pearls at all. She was herself the brightest pearl in the sky.