5
NOW, RACLAHAD RACED to Aerhril when Dathor pushed her into the room at the bottom of the south tower where all the women were gathered. Her younger sister pressed her face into Aerhril’s body, shaking all over.
Aerhril wasn’t used to this sort of demonstrative closeness from her sister. They had not grown up together. She had never held her sister as a baby or cuddled her as a little girl. But now, she welcomed it, wrapping an arm tightly around her and crushing her close.
She murmured into the crown of Raclahad’s head, soothing noises, not even really words, just almost words, almost it’s-all-rights, but she mostly said the vowels, not all of the sounds.
Dathor shut the door, closing them all inside.
There must have been about twenty women, all of them guests from the wedding, all of them women from nearby areas, some of them warden’s wives, some of them ladies from the village.
A wedding in the south, in the city, would be attended by only people of equal and higher rank. One would invite one’s family and the other sorts of people one associated with at dances and the theater and things of that nature.
But here, everyone of equal and higher rank lived far away, so the social circle for a stewardess, as she would have been after she was married to Celedin, was made up of those who were below her rank.
Her mother wasn’t even there. She had sent a letter to the last place she had known her mother to be, the place from where her mother had sent Raclahad, but the letter had come back unopened, and there was no explanation.
She had no idea where her mother was.
Aerhril clutched her sister and surveyed the women gathered here. “Are all of the men dead?”
“Every single one, even old Warden Calidhan,” said one of the women.
Aerhril nodded, looking around at them. “And the children. We have no word?” Children were not brought to marriage ceremonies by tradition.
Indeed, they did not enter the chapel until they came of age at thirteen.
The children younger than that were all being watched by designated caregivers.
They would have been playing somewhere, waiting for the wedding feast.
“None,” said another of the women.
“The boys?” she said, looking about. “They killed the boys, too?” There had been a few young men, adolescent boys, of age enough for a wedding ceremony but still not really grown men.
“Yes,” said another woman, her voice breaking.
Aerhril let out a breath, holding Raclahad tight to her. She wanted to cry again, but she was already getting to the point where every single spare thing that happened to her made her wish to cry, and she could not cry about everything, so she thought she must ration her tears, conserve her energy.
“We cannot cooperate with these beasts,” said one of the women, Wardenness nae Gilsin, whose expression was stony. “If they kill us, so much the better. It would be shameful to capitulate to these monsters.”
Monsters, yes, of course. Most of these women, they hated orcs. Everyone hated orcs in the Silvarenna.
Aerhril herself could not say she was pleased with being invaded, obviously, but she supposed she could understand why they would invade in the first place.
Even so, she could not be on the orcs’ side.
But whose side was she on?
She did not know, but she was currently on any side that hurt Dathor, because he deserved nothing but pain. She wanted him to suffer, and she would do anything she could to bring that about.
He had said she must cooperate with him? Well, she would not.
“We need to get the children back,” said Aerhril. “I will speak to the commander about it. I will demand he allows us to go and search for them. They must have scattered in the fray, frightened. They could be anywhere at all. I won’t stand for it.”
“You’re going to speak to the commander?” said one of the women, a village widow named Carandra. She was sharp. “You think that’s going to matter?”
“How much reasoning were you able to do with him there on the altar?” spoke up one of the other women. “I saw you beg him. We all saw you sob and plead and he paid you no mind. He ripped your skirts and threw you down and had his way with you.”
“All the more reason that he make some sort of restitution,” she said.
All of the women in the room looked at her incredulously.
Yes, she was behaving oddly, was she not?
Raclahad lifted her face to look up at her, her lower lip trembling.
“You have seen that it is Dathor,” Aerhril said to them. “You know he is the blood of the old steward, and he is an elf.”
“He is not an elf,” growled one of the women.
“I have known him since we were children,” said Aerhril.
“When servants rise up against their masters, they are not nearly as influenceable as they once were,” said the Wardenness nae Gilsin.
She wanted to protest that he wasn’t really a servant, but how would that even sound? “Well, yes, granted. But we must find out about the children. It’s important.”
“You can’t think those fiends will negotiate with you. They are not civilized. They are nothing but beasts.”
“He is half elf,” she said. “He was raised here.”
“You are so very quick to defend him,” said Carandra. “What happened after he sent you off to the north tower? Did he say something to you? Or perhaps you enjoyed it, what he did to you?”
“No,” she said, horrified. She went to the door and pushed on it, bringing Raclahad, who was still clinging to her, along.
An orc was there.
“I need to speak to the commander,” she said to him.
The orc tilted his head at her. “Do you. Did he indicate to you that he would be at your beck and call?”
She gave the orc soldier a particularly nasty smile. “He did. He very much did.” Dathor wanted her cooperation, Dathor did not wish her to cause trouble with him and the orc army?
Well, she would do exactly the opposite of what Dathor wanted.
The orc shook his head at her. “Just you. Leave the other one.”
She looked down at Raclahad.
“Do not leave me,” whispered her sister.
“It’s not forever,” she said, gently extricating herself.