Margaret Weis - Elven Star

Aleatha raised her eyes. She performed this motion slowly and languorously, knowing and enjoying full well the effect it had. The young elfmaid’s eyes were a clear, vibrant blue, but—shadowed over by heavy lids and long, thick lashes—they darkened to purple. Opening them wide, therefore, had the effect of seeming to completely change their color. Numerous elven men had written sonnets to those eyes, and one was rumored to have died for them.

“Oh, one servant has already been past,” said Aleatha without the slightest perturbation. “The footman. He’s been up and down the hall three times at least in the last half-hour.” She turned from her sister and began arranging the ruffles of her nightdress to show off her long, slender neck. Aleatha’s voice was rich, throaty, and sounded perpetually as if she were just about to sink into a deep slumber. This, combined with the heavy-lidded eyes, gave an impression of sweet languor no matter where the young woman went or what she was doing. During the fevered gaiety of a royal ball, Aleatha—ignoring the rhythm of the music—would dance slowly, in an almost dreamlike state, her body completely surrendered to her partner, giving him the delightful impression that without his strong support she would sink to the floor. The languid eyes stared into his, with just a tiny sparkle of fire deep in the purple depths, leading a man to think of what he might do that would cause those sleepy eyes to open wide.

“You are the talk of Equilan, Thea!” snapped Calandra, holding the handkerchief to her nose. Aleatha was spraying perfume over her neck and breast. “Where were you last darktime?” [10] The darktime is not truly dark in terms of night falling. It refers to the time during the cycle when shades are drawn and proper people go to sleep. It is also the time, however, when the lower, “darker” levels of the city come to life, and so has developed a rather sinister connotation.

The purple eyes opened wide, or at least wider. Aleatha would never waste their full effect on a mere sister.

“Since when do you care where I was? What wasp’s gotten into your corset this gentle-time, Callie?”

“Gentle-time! It’s nearly winetime! You’ve slept away half the day!”

“If you must know, I was with Lord Kevanish and we went down to the Dark—”

“Kevanish!” Calandra drew a seething breath. “That blackguard! He’s being refused admittance to every proper house over that affair of the duel. It was because of him that poor Lucillia hung herself, and he as much as murdered her brother! And you, Aleatha … to be seen publicly with him—” Calandra choked.

“Nonsense. Lucillia was a fool for thinking that a man like Kevanish could really be in iove with her. Her brother was a bigger fool in demanding satisfaction. Kevanish is the best boltarcher in Equilan.”

“There is such a thing as honor, Aleatha!” Calandra stood behind her sister’s chair, her hands gripping the back of it, the knuckles white with the strain. It seemed that with very little prompting, she might grip her sister’s fragile neck in the same manner. “Or has this family forgotten that?”

“Forgotten?” murmured Thea in her sleepy voice. “No, dear Callie, not forgotten. Simply bought and paid for it long ago.”

With a complete lack of modesty, Aleatha rose from her chair and began to untie the silken ribbons that almost held the front of her nightdress closed. Calandra, looking at her sister’s reflection in the mirror, could see reddish bruise marks on the white flesh of shoulders and breast—the marks of the lips of an ardent lover. Sickened, Calandra turned her back and walked swiftly across the room to stand staring out the window.

Aleatha smiled lazily at the mirror and allowed the nightdress to slip to the floor. The mirror was rapturous in its comments.

“You were looking for Paithan?” she reminded her sister. “He flew into his room like a bat from the deep, dressed in his lawn suit, and flew out. I think he’s gone to Lord Durndrun’s. I was invited, but I don’t know if I shall go or not. Paithan’s friends are such bores.”

“This family is falling apart!” Calandra pressed her hands together. “Father sending for a human priest! Paithan a common tramp, caring for nothing except roaming! You! You’ll end up pregnant and unwed and likely hang yourself like poor Lucillia.”

“Oh, hardly, Callie, dear,” said Aleatha, kicking aside the nightdress with her foot. “Hanging oneself takes such a lot of energy.” Admiring her slender body in the mirror, which admired it right back, she frowned, reached out and rang a bell made out of the shell of the egg of the carol bird. “Where is that maid of mine? Worry less about your family, Callie, and more about the servants. I never saw a lazier lot.”

“It’s my fault!” Calandra sighed and clasped her hands together tightly, pressing them against her lips. “I should have made Paithan go to school. I should have supervised you and not let you run wild. I should have stopped Father in this nonsense of his. But who would have run the business? It was sliding when I took it over! We would have been ruined! Ruined! If it had been left up to Father—”

The maid hurried into the room.

“Where have you been?” asked Aleatha sleepily.

“I’m sorry, mistress! I didn’t hear you ring.”

“Well, I did. But you should know when I want you. Lay out the blue. I’m staying home this darktime. No, don’t. Not the blue. The green with the moss roses. I think I’ll attend Lord Durndrun’s outing, after all. Something amusing might occur. If nothing else, I can at least torment the baron, who’s simply dying of love for me. Now, Callie, what’s this about a human priest? Is he good looking?”

Calandra gave a strangled sob and clenched her teeth over the handkerchief. Aleatha glanced at her. Accepting the flimsy robe the maid draped over her shoulders, Thea crossed the room to stand behind her sister. Aleatha was as tall as Calandra, but her figure was soft and curved where her sister’s was bony and angular. Masses of ashen hair framed Aleatha’s face and tumbled down her back and around her shoulders. The elfmaid never “dressed” her hair as was the style. Like the rest of Aleatha, her hair was always disheveled, always looked as if she had just risen from her bed. She laid soft hands on her sister’s quivering shoulders.

“The hour flower has closed its petals on those times, Callie. Keep longing uselessly for it to open again and you’ll soon be insane as Father, if Mother had lived, things might have been different”—Aleatha’s voice broke, she drew nearer her sister—“but she didn’t. And that’s that,” she added, with a shrug of her perfumed shoulders. “You did what you had to do, Callie. You couldn’t let us starve.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Calandra briskly, recalling that the maid was in the room and not wanting their affairs discussed in the servant’s hall. She straightened her shoulders and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles from her stiff, starched skirts. “So you won’t be in to dinner?”

“No, I’ll tell the cook, if you like. Why don’t you come to Lord Durndrun’s, Sister?” Aleatha walked to the bed, where her maid was laving out silken undergarments. “Randolphus will be there. He’s never married, you know, Callie. You broke his heart.”

“Broke his purse is more like it,” said Calandra severely, looking at herself in the mirror, patting her hair where a few wisps had come undone, and stabbing the three lethal combs back into place. “He didn’t want me, he wanted the business,”

“Perhaps.” Aleatha paused in her dressing, the purple eyes going to the mirror and meeting the reflected eyes of her sister. “But he would have been company for you, Callie. You’re alone too much.”