Leslie Moore - Griffin's Daughter

“ Come here, girl. I can’t speak to you when you’re across the room,” her uncle commanded.

“ Yes, Uncle,” Jelena answered, and quickly crossed the expanse of Sermatian carpeting to stand before the duke, who sat at a small writing table. The scritch-scratch of quill pen upon parchment was the only sound in the room for several heartbeats as the duke worked, ignoring his niece completely. Just as Jelena began to fidget, he put down his pen and fixed his steely blue eyes upon her.

Duke Teodorus Preseren looked much like his castle’s keep-squarely built, imposing, and strong. He had a broad, plain face, with a heavy jaw and beetling brows, which at first glance could give the false impression of brutish stupidity. However, one would only have to look into his eyes, which gleamed with a shrewd intelligence, to realize that underestimating the Duke of Amsara would be a serious mistake. He was a man completely devoid of any sentimentality, an able administrator, hard and extremely demanding with his people, yet well respected for his fairness and judgment. Jelena knew that he took very good care of the folk of Amsara, and because of this, she had never borne her uncle any ill will.

“ I’ll get straight to the point, so you can get on with your work,” the duke said, never one to waste time on trivial things like greetings and pleasantries. “Tonight, you’ll be allowed to feast in the great hall with the family and our guests.”

Jelena gasped, uncertain that she should believe what she had just heard. “Uncle! I…” she began, but the duke cut her off.

“ You can thank me later, after the feast. Go see Fania.” Fania was the castle’s seamstress. “She has some old gowns of Thessalina’s that my daughter doesn’t wear anymore. You can choose one. You’ll know where she is, I trust.”

“ I know where Fania works, Uncle,” Jelena answered, trying hard to keep the excitement from her voice.

Her uncle scowled, as if irritated by Jelena’s interruption. “Have Claudia help you with your hair. Here, take this. It may help to keep that thatch of yours in its place.” He held out a circlet.

Jelena’s embarrassment turned to wonder as she took the circlet from her uncle’s large, callused hand. Finely crafted of pure silver and beautiful in its simplicity, the circlet gleamed softly in the natural light streaming in from the window behind the duke’s desk. Jelena turned it over in her hands, admiring the tracery of leaves and flowers engraved on its surface.

“ I can’t believe you’re allowing me to wear this, Uncle. It…it’s much too fine…” Jelena’s voice trailed off. At the back of her mind, a little bell of alarm began to chime. She shivered.

“ That circlet belonged to my sister, Drucilla… your mother. I reckon you’re entitled to wear it, at least tonight, anyway. It should fit. Your head is about the same size as hers… same hair, too.”

“ Thank you, Uncle. I’ll wear it proudly,” Jelena replied.

“ You can go now,” the duke said by way of dismissal. He picked up his pen and resumed writing, as if Jelena had suddenly vanished from the room.

Just then, the door swung open and Thessalina entered. “Father!” she cried. “You can’t be serious!” She stomped across the room, radiating fury like the blast from a forge.

The duke’s only daughter had a face too hard to be pretty, but the force of her personality nonetheless drew men to her like a magnet and allowed her to bend them to her will. The full strength of her power emanated from her like the heat of the sun as she stood facing her father. Even the duke seemed to shrink a little in the face of her towering anger.

“ I will not marry that…that toad !” Thessalina shouted. She hammered her gloved fist down onto the duke’s writing desk, sending the ink pot tumbling to the floor, where it disgorged its contents in a black spray upon the carpet. This proved to be too much. The duke catapulted himself up out of his chair and thrust his face to within a nose-length of his daughter’s. Neither of them acknowledged Jelena’s presence.

“ I, uh…” Jelena stuttered as she backed away a few steps. Thessalina had nearly knocked her over.

As if seeing her cousin for the first time, Thessalina turned to face Jelena, blue eyes blazing. “Get out!” she growled.

Jelena fled.

Down the stairs and past the loudly snoring Ghost she ran, her mother’s precious circlet clutched tightly in her sweaty hands. She didn’t stop running until her feet passed over the threshold of the keep and she found herself back out in the yard. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a panicky rabbit, and her mouth seemed to have lost all of its moisture.

What a scene! she thought. Jelena had witnessed Thessalina’s rages before, but never up close. She shuddered to imagine the scorching heat of her cousin’s wrath turned upon her. She would be reduced to ash!

As the rush faded from her limbs, leaving her drained and shaky, Jelena made her way back to the room she shared with Claudia in the servants’ hall. Once there, she sat on the edge of her cot to examine the silver circlet. Holding this object that had once graced the head of her mother mined a deep vein of emotion within Jelena’s soul. It brought forth grief and loss, and tears for the young woman who had died to give her child life, a young mother whom her daughter would never know. Yet, the daughter did know something of her mother, in a way.

Surely there’s a lot of my mother in my own looks and personality , she thought. Claudia is forever telling me so .

Jelena dried her eyes and blew her nose upon her sleeve. She then placed the circlet lovingly in her chest, on top of the one other dress she owned. She would go now to see Fania and pick out something to wear from among Thessalina’s castoffs, but even a castoff from her cousin would be a far finer garment than Jelena could ever hope to acquire on her own. Then, she would return to work.

As she walked back down to the yard, she had a sudden change of heart. After she chose a dress, she would not return to the hot, noisy kitchen. Instead, she would go up to the battlements to think. The windy solitude on those man-made heights always seemed to help clear her head. She needed to try to make sense of things.

Why, after all these years, has Uncle suddenly seen fit to allow me to attend a family feast? There has to be a specific reason behind his decision.

Jelena suspected it had nothing to do with any newly discovered affection for her. So, that could only mean her uncle needed her there for a particular purpose, one that would ultimately be to his benefit, and not necessarily to hers.

Of that, I’m certain.

"Good mornin’, an’ happy Sansa to ye, Lord Magnes,” the groom said as he took the reins of the bay gelding and held them for his young master. The son and Heir of Duke Teodorus had just returned from his morning rounds, satisfied and cheerful.

“ An excellent morning it is, Dari! The sun is shining, the orchards are in full bloom, and we shall all have a very happy Sansa, indeed!” Magnes threw his booted leg up and over the bay’s withers and slid to the ground. He ruffled Dari’s ginger hair, and the boy favored him with a gap-toothed grin.

“ Heard tell Cook’s outdone herself on the vittles, milord. My old mam says never in her life has she seen such a Sansa cake as this ‘un. It be huge, says she!”

Magnes laughed. It delighted him to see the boy so excited. “Well, if you give Storm here a good, thorough rubdown, I’ll see to it that you get an especially big piece of that cake.” He slapped the gelding’s shoulder affectionately, and the horse whickered in reply.