eight #2
“Wait…” Mira knew what those words meant. “Were you targeted? By mercenaries?”
Something flashed in Jacelah’s icy blue eyes. “Yes. From Cerilyn.” She was quiet for a moment as she digested her words. “A rival lordship here on Arrah hired them to kill all of us.”
“All of you?” Joiya gasped.
“Yes, indeed. My husband was the original target, as you can imagine, but with families like ours, you must eliminate every branch, as they say. It was a power grab for our money and land. They couldn’t let either of my children live. Or, worse…”
While Joiya covered her mouth, Mira said, “Taken them.”
“Yes,” Jacelah said with a hushed whisper before drawing in a deep breath.
“We were fortunate that the team of mercenaries sent to do the job was too disorganized to do more damage than they did. Not only were my children secured, but my husband and I survived our attacks. Vern, he…”
She paused. “He was shot in the chest but lived. As for myself… well, let’s just say that physical scars heal. But before my intended assassin was interrupted with his torturing of me, he made sure to burden me with… well, I almost dare not say it.”
Joiya reached across the tea and cake to take Jacelah’s hand. “I am so sorry. What happened to it?”
“You mean the…?” Jacelah shook her head, neither woman inclined to give voice to what they meant. “Why, I gave birth to him, of course.”
Oh, Void. Mira finally understood. Never let it be said that Cerilynian mercenaries won’t take opportunities where they see them. Raping a woman before killing her was always the severest of lows in Mira’s humble opinion, though. Right up with doing things to children…
Her hands curled into impenetrable fists as she channeled her panicking anger elsewhere.
“Where is he now?” Joiya asked, retracting her touch and politely sipping some tea. Nobody would be eating any cake soon.
“He…” It was as if Jacelah had never considered her own baby’s gender before.
And since there were no infants or children around the house, let alone male ones…
Mira could only wonder. “Let me say up front, Lady Joiya, that I did what I had to because the image of this family falls upon me. Surely, as a julah scion, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Indeed. There are no judgments here, Lady Jacelah.”
“And aside from my husband, the only other people who know what happened are my children, whom I could not hide it from, since they were old enough to understand.”
Jacelah fidgeted with the lace trim in her lap, her neck bent, and something clogging her sinuses.
“You two are now the only ones I’ve confessed to…”
“And it shall remain so,” Joiya assured her.
“…And our old maid, Cilla, who took the baby with some money to Dassil. They’re still there. Vern has ensured his well-being and education out of pity for me, but he does not know of us, nor does he have any rights to the Gardiah name, since he is not my husband’s progeny. He’s the son of a dirty,
Void-cursed barbarian!”
Her voice cut through the feminine veneer of the room, leaving behind the long, fading hiss of a woman who had kept all of this carefully locked up inside of her.
Goodness. While Mira was not a mother, nor inclined to ever be one, she couldn’t fault whatever this woman felt.
And her own mother… Joiya was so closely attuned to the plights of her fellow women, regardless of race, that she was already on the verge of tears on behalf of their hostess.
“I share this with you not because of how it affects my heart, Lady Joiya,” Jacelah continued, “but because you need to understand the backstory before I tell you of the present. There is a pressing issue in my family, and I’m not sure how to proceed without unintentionally hurting the ones I love…
and the ones who will inherit this family when my husband and I can no longer run it.”
Joiya nodded, swallowing her words. “Go on.” While they waited, her hand searched for her daughter’s. Mira offered a few fingers to assuage her mother’s emotional upheaval. “There is little we haven’t heard before.”
Speak for yourself. Yet Mira knew her mother had to include her in that “we” to keep Lady Jacelah placated. I’ve seen and heard my own horrors, but… She was still young. That was the unfortunate thing in this situation.
After composing herself, Jacelah folded her hands in her lap and said, “This has to do with my children. Namely, my son. And his wife.”
Well, that certainly drew Mira’s renewed attention.
“We met Sulim after the turmoil. In fact, it was why we let Graella go on an exchange. The poor dear sorely needed to get away from here for a while, and it worked out well to keep her away from me while I…”
Jacelah switched paths. “Anyway, both of my children met Sulim in Yarensport, Qahrain, while my daughter was on exchange in the Temple. Well, my daughter came home with finer spirits, and my son…”
“With a fiancée,” Mira blurted.
Jacelah was surprised that she had said something. Indeed, so was Joiya. “Not right away, of course, but they were friends,” Jacelah said. “Over time, Sonall fell in love with her.”
“You say that in a very certain way,” Joiya pointed out.
“The thing about Sulim is that I was not approving in the beginning. She has a good character and is hardworking, Lady Joiya, but not what we’re looking for in a wife for our heir.”
“Yet you allowed the marriage and have accepted her as your daughter-in-law.”
“Mostly because my son was very much in love with her and, as I said, she has many favorable qualities. The biggest barrier was her lack of pedigree. Unfortunately, the Gardiah name is strong enough now that we must consider such things when signing off on such an important marriage. But,
after all we had been through… once I decided to press Vern about it, he relented. Quite quickly, to my surprise. So, my son proposed, she accepted, and we were planning a wedding. Here we are, a couple of years later.”
“What is your quandary, Lady Jacelah?”
“Well, there is one other issue with Sulim. You may have noticed that she’s not the most feminine creature in the Federation…”
Those might be fighting words. Yet Mira minded her tongue, despite her desire to challenge that. She seems feminine to me. After all, Mira was very attracted to femininity.
“Unfortunately,” Jacelah continued, “this extends to the expectations of a wife of her station. I have multiple reasons to believe that she does not intend to have my son’s children. This has put us all in a terribly tough spot. As you can probably understand, Lady Dunsman,
there is a lot of pressure on me as the matriarch to ensure the family legacy does not die in the next few generations. Sulim has been made aware of this many times. It was drafted quite explicitly when we agreed to the engagement.
Yet based on what I’ve discerned and my own conversations with both of them, I sense… no, I know… it was a mistake letting my son marry her. I let my mother’s heart think in the wake of trauma. It’s the same reason I’ve allowed Graella to marry this lordling all the way on Qahrain.
If we had asked her to wait… if we had searched for a more suitable husband for her… well, perhaps we could have agreed as a family.”
“Naturally. You mean your daughter could have married and stayed here while your family adopted her husband. Then they could have the children of the next generation.”
“Yes. You know exactly what I mean. Unfortunately, her fiancé can't fill in here. He is the sole heir to his family’s estate, and my daughter will be fulfilling Sulim’s role there. We humans can be quite similar to the julah, after all.”
“Human nobility has always taken pages out of our book,” Mira said. “From the day I was born, I was—”
Her mother interrupted her. “We’re quite familiar with the sensation. Our status as life-givers unfortunately puts us in these positions. Bloodlines are resolute, whether human or julah.”
“Men may decide these things,” Jacelah mused, “but it’s us women who bear the consequences to our hearts and bodies.”
“Indeed. Now, tell me, where is the spiritual quandary in this situation?”
Jacelah sighed, eyes closed as she reoriented herself.
“If Sulim refuses to bear a child, I must figure out what to do. My husband has no siblings. His own father had no siblings. My son’s generation is the first to bear multiple fruit, but aside from him and his sister… I could not have others with my husband. Not until…”
“Yes. I have a feeling the boy you had a while ago comes into this picture somehow.”
Jacelah was eerily quiet as she became trapped inside her own head. Whatever trauma roosted within her was not for Mira to hear. I can come up with a few examples. She knew enough. More than enough. And, in many ways, she related to what Jacelah had been through.
But the other information she released? That was juicy.
So… theirs is a marriage born not out of a desire for a family…
Things made more sense now that Mira had seen both husband and wife together while getting the distinct sense that they were more friends than lovers.
Apparently, he loves her… but does she love him…
like that? Beyond assuming it was well enough to get married to improve her own station in life?
“I must decide,” Jacelah said, breaking into Mira’s thoughts, “if I send for my… the other child.”
She swallowed her discomfort and continued.
“He’s young enough that he could begin an apprenticeship in time to learn enough when he comes of age. But he’s old enough to ask questions. As far as he knows, the woman raising him is his natural mother.”
“What does your husband think?” Joiya asked.