Beautys Justice – By Alexa Santi #4
They returned to the Great Hall and the pleas began again. Not more than an hour past their return, the servants’ door at the back of the Great Hall burst open.
“Mistress Firchara, you must come at once. Your mother is ill.”
Firchara sprang to her feet, casting only a fleeting glance back at the god. “I must go.”
“Go? There are still pleas to be heard.”
“My mother is ill. I must go to her.”
Ulfjadir opened his mouth as if to argue the point, and then closed it again. Firchara waited in an agony of frustration, unwilling to alienate him by defying him in front of the crowded room, but needing to be by her mother’s side.
“Very well,” the god said.
Almost before he had completed the words, Firchara raised her skirts to run after the servant who led her below. She cast only one glance back at Ulfjadir watching her from his throne. He was still watching as she rounded the corner to the stairs.
In the kitchens, Mother sat in a chair being anxiously fanned by the youngest scullery maid while the rest of the kitchen workers crowded around her.
“I am fine,” her mother said, but a wavering thread in her voice sent Firchara hurrying to her side.
“All of you, back to work,” Firchara said. “I am here now.”
With a few glances back, the workers obeyed as Firchara knelt next to her mother.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Mother said. “Foolishness. I felt a little light-headed in the heat of the kitchen and they all made a fuss.”
“She nearly fell, mistress,” someone piped up, and Mother glared at them.
“All I need is a little rest in this chair and I will be back at work.”
“No, Mother,” Firchara said firmly. “You will rest in our room. If you feel better later, perhaps you can come back down tomorrow.”
After a moment, her mother nodded. A concession? Mother must be feeling worse than she was willing to admit. Firchara gestured for two of the brawny spit-turners to help, and her mother leaned heavily on them as Firchara led the way upstairs.
Firchara hurried back to the Great Hall as soon as Mother was settled, anxiously smoothing her skirts as she walked. It would be ironic if she had spoiled Mother’s chances to have her plea heard because Mother had needed her, but what else was she to have done?
As she approached the throne, Ulfjadir looked up from his contemplation of the petitioner before him. His face impassive, he gestured to her chair and she sat as he announced his decision, on tenterhooks to hear his next words to her.
“How is your mother?”
“She works too hard when she is not yet recovered,” Firchara admitted. “She is not someone who allows herself to rest.”
“Dealing with someone who refuses to rest can be difficult,” the god said gravely, and Firchara sent him a sharp look. Was he… teasing her?
He ignored her look and instead nodded for an armsman to allow the next petitioner to approach.
Firchara suppressed a sigh of relief.
She would not be forced to leave. Not today.
Her preparations for supper that night were perhaps more fraught than the previous one. It was not done for one to appear for supper in the same gown one had worn all day, but with only a few kirtles between them, it would be difficult for Firchara to do as was expected.
In the end, she wore Mother’s spare kirtle and sent her own two to the laundress for steaming and pressing. She would worry about her lack of clothing choices later.
Supper went as it had the evening before, but Firchara found herself with many questions bubbling up after their long day of hearing petitioners. After an internal struggle, she succeeded in restricting herself to a single query, the one that mattered most to her.
“Do you ever question it?”
Ulfjadir turned his head to focus his attention on her. “Question what?”
“The decisions you come to. The justice you mete out.”
“No.” He paused. “Sometimes. But rarely.” He slanted a glance at her. “That is why you are here.”
“To detect the lies you might not be able to?”
“Yes. But also to help me keep myself honest.”
“I would never dare tell a god he lied.”
He half-smiled. “Of course you would. You would not be able to help yourself.”
“I am sometimes able to keep… half-truths.” Bleakly, she thought back to the confrontation that had sent her and mother here. “When it is necessary.”
He raised his brows. “You think lying is necessary?”
“Sometimes. I can always detect it, but I do not always tell all I know.”
“You must always tell me the full truth.”
Firchara turned to face him more fully, willing him to understand. “I will only promise if you make a promise in return.”
“What promise is that?”
“To listen beyond the truth. Justice is more than merely telling truth from lies, is it not?”
“Perhaps.”
“I will tell you the petitioners’ truth, if you promise not to judge them solely on that truth.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. “I will have to think on it.”
Deflated, she nodded and turned her attention back to her trencher.
She must not push too hard. Even now, her position was tenuous.
She must find a balance between assisting Ulfjadir in his work and persuading him to hear Mother’s petition.
Otherwise, they could be sent away without a judgment, with no home and no future in their exile.
The dark thought made her shudder in suppressed terror.
Their journey had been difficult enough with the hope of justice at the end of it. To make the same journey back with all hope lost could be the death of both of them.
After supper, Firchara returned to their rooms to find Mother fully occupied in her chair by the fire. She had a lap full of fabric in a beautiful shade of light purple, like the first wildflowers to bloom in the spring.
“Are you making a new kirtle?” Firchara asked, pleased to see Mother with the needlework she so enjoyed. Perhaps embroidery would prevent her from exhausting herself in the kitchens.
Mother slanted a sly glance up at her. “Yes. For you.”
“For me?”
“The maidservant who brought the silk to me said the god of justice himself decreed that you should wear it at high summer.”
Mother rose from her chair and guided Firchara to stand in front of a long mirror as she draped the fabric around her. Firchara was fairly certain the mirror had not been there earlier.
“He has a good eye. This color will make you look like a queen.”
“It’s too much!” Firchara exclaimed. “Why do I have need of such a fine gown?”
“Every woman deserves a fine gown, child.” Mother stroked the silk like it was a cat. “This fabric is of the very best quality. He must value your work highly.”
“I suppose.” She was certainly not prepared to discuss the god with her mother. She hardly knew herself what to think.
There was nothing to think, she reassured herself. She was not so foolish as to believe she could catch the eye of a god. She was useful to him, and he was casually generous in return, as one would be to a faithful hound. She must not expect anything more.
A sparkle in the firelight caught her eye, and she looked over at the window. Frowning, she realized there was now a circle of diamond-shaped panes of glass around the center window, affording a larger vista of the view beyond the wall, still faintly lit by the summer sun.
“Did those appear today?”
“Something new appears every day,” Mother said.
The sky outside was still light, and Firchara walked to the window. She had expected to miss the sea she had grown up next to, but the mountains were pleasing in their own harsh, unyielding way.
Just like their master.
As the days passed and lengthened towards midsummer, Firchara began to lose track of how long she and Mother had been at Ulfjadir’s palace. Some days, it seemed they had always been there.
The maidservant from that first night—Isfrid was her name—agreed to sit in the kitchens with Mother and assist with her needlework, since both Firchara and Mother would require a few additional kirtles and shifts for their everyday wear in addition to the splendid gown Mother was making for her.
Firchara could not help a small twinge of jealousy at ceding her place next to Mother, but she could see Mother enjoyed having company, and Isfrid seemed to find comfort in Mother’s stern but loving presence. She allowed the jealousy to pass.
It was good there was someone to look after Mother, for more and more petitioners arrived as the days grew longer with the approaching summer solstice.
Firchara remarked on their numbers at supper one evening as she looked out at the jostling crowd.
Many now sat on the floor near the back of the room because no benches were left for them.
Firchara made certain the rushes were swept out and refreshed daily, but wondered aloud how long the crowds would continue to arrive.
“They lessen between the summer solstice and beginning of autumn,” Ulfjadir assured her. “Only the most desperate brave winter between the worlds, but a few do.”
“What does everyone do in the winter, when there are no pleas to be heard?”
He shrugged. “What does any palace or keep do in the winter? We read. We play music and dance. The ladies mend garments while the men mend weapons. We try to stay warm.”
His eyes glowed as he looked at her, and her face grew hot even as she looked down, feeling strangely shy with him looking at her like that.
It is only gratitude , she reminded herself. Nothing more.
“Your mother says you enjoy reading.”
“When did you speak to my mother?”
Unabashed by her sharp tone, he made a selection of the fruits presented to them and added them to their empty trencher. He picked up a ripe plum and began to peel the skin from it.
“I have not. I cannot speak directly to her until it is time to hear her plea. But she speaks to my servants, and they tell me what she says.”