Excerpt: The White Lady

Chapter Two: in which Del meets Dark Man’s other guests.

The castle did tell Del where to go, sometimes in not terribly pleasant ways. If she made a wrong turn down a hall, a stone from the floor would pop up and trip her. She found it difficult enough to move in the long skirt of the dress – certainly it flattered her figure and gave her the façade of being something more than just a farmer’s daughter, but it was longer and heavier than the skirts she usually wore, and it was so pretty and elegant that she feared ruining it completely. It was apparently a gift from Dark Man, and Del didn’t know how he’d react if she mistreated it.

So she tread carefully, especially after a rug flew out from beneath her feet when she stepped right instead of left. Another rug had risen up to catch her, but that didn’t mean she trusted the castle. At the top of a set of stairs, she had paused, unsure how safe it was to proceed. The castle, either in an effort to apologize or simply to get her moving again, had jutted handrails out of the stone walls, and she had descended with ease.

Now, in the castle’s lower levels, Del found herself in halls far more decorated and presentable, suggesting that guests were more welcome here. She passed many a beautiful wooden door, and plenty of paintings and tapestries adorned the walls. The carpet was thicker, so she couldn’t hear every step she took in her soft leather boots.

She was quite lost, of course, putting her trust in the castle, and just as she started to wonder if it would have her roaming the halls forever, a door swung open and light – real sunlight, not the torchlight that lit her way – splashed into the hall. Del, sensing that the castle had brought her to the final destination, stepped cautiously up to the door, mentally preparing herself for what she might see.

In truth, nothing could have prepared her. She did not know the word, but Del found herself walking into a library, and a most impressive one at that. It was a huge, oval-shaped room, a full three stories high, with balconies and stairs on each floor. No paintings hung on the walls here – no, the walls held bookshelves, floor to ceiling. And in those bookshelves were books of all types, on all subjects, in nearly all languages. The ceiling was a glass dome, and light filled every inch of the room, illuminating everything brilliantly.

It’s not enough to say that it was the largest amount of books Del had seen in one place, because the library held more books than she’d seen in her entire life. Farmers’ daughters don’t often come into contact with books, whether fiction or not, and Del was no exception. She could read only at a very basic level – place names and given names, for the most part, so that she could understand a map or recognize her own name when written. In school, she had learned the alphabet and could read short, easy sentences, but only townfolk could afford to send their children to school year-round and past a certain age. Del had stopped going to school when she was fourteen.

Math, however, she could do. Numbers made more sense than letters, because they always represented the same thing, not changing with every word. Del’s mother ran the farm’s accounts, and she had a great head for numbers (or so Papa always said), and she’d taught her daughters how to do sums in their heads. Farming needed figures too, even if they weren’t always on paper – Papa needed to know how much land had to be worked, what the yield would be from so many acres, where to set the boundaries, and all of that he had taught to the girls. Una was the best at sums, but when it came to spatial geometry, Del couldn’t be beat.

If Del had been able to read, she would have found one section of the library – advanced maths, the kind used by thinkers and few others – particularly interesting, if not practical. But that was rather a moot point, and she could only stare in awe at the endless rows of bookshelves.

It took her a few moments to realize that there were people in the room too. In the center of the room was a circle of five cushioned leather chairs surrounding a large oak table covered with books. Four girls sat in the circle, all facing each other but saying nothing. Del wasn’t sure what they had been doing before she arrived, but now they all focused their attention on her as she entered the room. In her own turn, Del stared back at them, marveling at how varied a group they made.

The girl in the first chair was short and perhaps a little plump; it was hard to tell because she wore a shapeless gray shift that fell to her ankles but left her arms bare. A gray scarf covered her cropped red hair, and her face had a simple, open expression on it. Del had seen girls like her before, initiates in nunneries, sometimes traveling with the caravans that came through Renshaa on their way to the High Road. She had her feet propped up on a white velvet footstool, so that her simple brown sandals were fully visible.

Next to her sat a long-limbed girl, a scowl etched into her sharp features. On her head sat a fanned headdress, resplendent with shiny green-blue feathers that formed a crown over her. Even with it, Del could see that all the hair had been shorn away, so that the headdress fitted to her head like a cap. She was clothed in a dress not unlike Del’s, pale yellow in color, but one side of it was split in a ragged, hasty tear. Bracelets of bones and teeth clung to her wrists, and they jangled with hollow sounds whenever she moved her arms.

The third chair was occupied by a girl with cropped black hair and a fey little face that did not look trustworthy. Her smile, which was too quick and too broad, did not appear natural. She too wore a dress like Del’s, and hers was of a pretty brown muslin, like the hide of a baby deer. Around her waist she wore a leather belt with a money pouch, the kind that Del had seen only merchants or traders wear, people who handled money often and didn’t trust it to be far from them.

The fourth girl was, to put it simply, beautiful. She had long, silky blonde hair and a face that could only have been made by the hands of a god. Everything fit together beautifully, in perfect proportions. Across her brow ran a thin silver band etched with various runes and markings that made little sense to Del; it was not Nathirian writing. Her bearing was that of one who knew her place in life and considered it to be high above everyone else; she sat tall and straight and glared down her nose at the other girls. Colored glass beads decorated her not-quite-white dress so that it glinted with bursts of rainbows in the sunlight.

Of them all, Del noted that she was the darkest, not just with her brown hair and brown eyes, but with her browned skin, which she owed to her natural tone and years spent toiling under the sun. The blonde and the girl with the fur headdress were both very pale, while the dark-haired girl had olive-colored skin that looked more like natural pigment than color gained from the sun. The girl with the scarf had freckles on her face and arms, but otherwise, she was of light skin.

“Another one?” asked the blonde girl. “How many of us are there?”

Del stared back dumbly. This is what she must have missed by sleeping in so late. She wasn’t so sure she’d actually missed anything at all.

“Ignore her,” said the girl with the short black hair. “She’s a pest and hasn’t anything to say worth listening to anyway. Royalty, you know.” She narrowed her eyes at Del and asked, “You aren’t royalty too, are you?”

Del shook her head, and the girl smiled again.

“Good! I’m Meegen Junt, from Girahin, down in the southern reaches.”

The girl with the scarf added, “I’m Jenniyah. The blonde girl is Princess Hinna of Kiolani, and the fourth is Sha’as. She’s from Uvvi. We think. She doesn’t speak Common.”

Aside from Girahin – one of Nathir’s largest cities – the place names meant nothing to Del, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. The four of them looked at Del expectantly, but all she could do was pat her throat and shake her head.

“Huh?” said Hinna.

“You can’t speak?” Jenniyah asked. Del nodded. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”

Del shrugged. People nearly always apologized to her when they found out she was mute. She didn’t understand why; they had nothing to do with it.

“How are we supposed to communicate with her, then?” Hinna cried, and she fell back into her seat with a grunt. “Ugh, this is worse than the primitive.”

“I-ay ill-way east-fay on-ay our-yay trails-enay,” Sha’as said evenly. Hinna rolled her eyes.

“It’s alright,” said Meegen. “We’ll make do. Can you write?”

Again, Del shook her head. A mild look of irritation crossed Meegen’s face before it vanished again under what Del suspected was a not so genuine smile. Even if these girls were captives like her, she didn’t think that was any reason to trust them implicitly. The princess clearly had no interest in making friends, and Meegen didn’t seem the type to like anyone more than she had to. Jenniyah seemed nice enough, but she had the trappings of a cloistered nun and probably hadn’t much experience in dealing with laypeople. As for Sha’as – Del couldn’t make a decision on that yet, but she felt a sort of kinship with her regarding their mutual inability to communicate their thoughts.

Still, Del supposed she should make an effort.

While Meegen debated on her next option and Jenniyah bit her lip anxiously, Del moved toward the table in the center of the circle of chairs and went through the books on it. She took one and held it up to Meegen, pointing to one of the letters in the title.

“What?” asked Meegen, squinting at the cover. “D? What’s that mean?”

Del held back a frustrated sigh and tapped the letter again. Then she put her hand on her chest.

“Her name, perhaps?” said Jenniyah.

Meegen shifted her weight from foot to foot, and it seemed to Del that she was trying very hard not to look irritated. “Your name? It begins with a D?”

With a vigorous nod of her head, Del moved her finger to another letter.

“E,” Meegen and Jenniyah said together.

Del’s finger found the third letter, and she decided to stop there. Nobody called her Delmarrit anyway, not even her parents, and she’d long ago decided it was too long a name for daily use. Morra and Una had been lucky, given names by the midwife that were easy to spell and say, even if they were simply star names and not very imaginative. The old woman had named Delmarrit after one of the Sollia’s tributaries, which had flooded the night of her birth. Del thought maybe she was mute because the horror of her naming had struck her dumb.

Jenniyah clapped her hands. “L! Oh, your name is Del? How pretty!”

“It’s kind of boring,” said Hinna.

“Peasants don’t need fancy names like some people,” Meegen retorted.

“There’s nothing wrong with my name! Hinnayerinajofferaikirilollia is actually fairly short for my people. It’s the meaning that counts.”

“Oh?” asked Jenniyah. “What does it mean?”

“Don’t encourage her!” Meegen said.

Hinna tossed her hair over her shoulder and put her hands on her thighs, leaning forward. “It means ‘shining one of the silver moon smiling over the night.’ It’s a reference to Lollia, the night goddess. I’m blessed because I was born under a full moon at midnight. I’m to marry a king.”

Sha’as snorted out a laugh and said, “Ow-hay ortunate-fay or-fay im-hay.”

“Laugh all you want, peasants,” Hinna replied with another toss of her head. “At least I have the assurance that someone will come to rescue me.”

“Some people have money that they earned on their own,” retorted Meegen. “My grandfather is the richest man in five counties, and he adores me. He’ll hire someone to find me.”

“I-ay eed-nay o-nay escuing-ray.”

Meegen laughed. “Sure you don’t. Because you want to be here, right?”

With a shrug, Sha’as said, “At-whay ood-gay is-ay oman-way if-ay e-shay an-cay ot-nay ake-tay are-cay of-ay erself-hay?”

“I can’t make out a word of it,” Jenniyah said. “Do you know the language, Meegen?”

“Northern Kiki’iro. I speak it, a bit,” said Meegen. “Had to take a foreign language at the Academy, and I liked the sound of it. It’s Elvish, you know. Very old. Her people are descended from them, a lesser race created by inbreeding from human servants. They seem to think that makes them special.”

“Our-yay other-may as-way a-ay ore-whay.”

Meegen glared at her. “She understands us, obviously, but she refuses to speak properly. Just goes to show what a terrible race of people they are.”

“She seems nice enough to me,” said Jenniyah.

“Only because you don’t know what she is.”

“And-ay ou-yay o-day?”

“You’re Uvvian, which means that you’re from the wild wastelands of the northern tundra, not a native of Nathir at all. It also means that you consume the flesh of human beings, one of the great abominations outlawed by the gods. All of your people violate the laws of nature.”

Jenniyah gasped and raised a hand to her mouth, a horrified grimace crossing her face. “Cannibals? Nathir hasn’t been tainted by such savagery since the days of the monarchy! It’s a punishable offense.”

Sha’as appeared unconcerned. “Ood-gay ing-thay at-thay e-way are-ay ot-nay actually-ay in-ay Athir-nay. Ould-way ou-yay ot-nay agree-ay?”

“What if she should decide to eat us?” Jenniyah cried, suddenly panicked and avoiding eye contact with Sha’as. “We could be in danger!”

“Ike-lay I-ay ould-way ant-way o-tay eat-ay omeone-say as-ay eak-way as-ay ou-ya.”

Jenniyah shrank away from her. “Is she threatening me?”

“No,” said Meegen with a roll of her eyes. “Besides, she wouldn’t eat us – Uvvians only consume human flesh on special occasions. Not that it makes a difference. They’re still unnatural.”

“You, my friend, are frighteningly eloquent on the subject of cannibalism,” Hinna said, obviously meaning none of the friendship or admiration that her words suggested.

“Some of us had an actual education beyond secondary school,” Meegen replied with that smile of hers. Del had already come to think of it as her ‘superiority’ smile. “I graduated from one of Nathir’s most prestigious academies.”

“Of course,” responded Hinna with a condescending smile of her own. “How unfortunate that my parents could only afford to hire private tutors for me. What comes of being royalty, I suppose. It was certainly terrible having all that attention afforded to my education.”

The two girls glared daggers at each other, and Del feared there might be an altercation of sorts. Then the library door opened again, and the old woman who had visited Del came into the room. She was alone, and she smiled brightly at the girls.

“Bless my hairnet! Here we are, then,” she said, “all right where you should be. He does always get it right, don’t he?”

They all stared at her, uncertain if she actually expected an answer. She kept right on talking, so they guessed she hadn’t.

“Hope you girls have worked up an appetite, for there’s quite a lunch waiting for you! Dark Man always wants the best for his proper guests. Takes pride in being a good host, he does. Such a good boy, got that from his mother, you know. I’ve spent all morning in the kitchen working on it, so I hope you like it. Not that it’s a bother, I do love to cook. It’s so nice to have people to cook for! Cooking for the household is almost depressing, there’s so little of it to be done. And Dark Man often takes his meals in his rooms, seeing as he’s always so busy with his work. All the more reason for him to have good meals, I say! Doing all that work and not getting a meal in your stomach – it’s not healthy for anybody.”

She probably would have talked on and on for a while if Hinna hadn’t interrupted her. The princess said, somewhat sharply, “Are you going to explain to us what we’re doing here or what, old woman?”

“Bless my orthopedic shoes!” the woman cried, clapping her hands to her cheeks. “What a silly goose I am! Standing here chattering away when there’s things need to be done. Dark Man has sent me up to call you to lunch; he’ll explain everything to you then. He’s waiting for you now in the hall.” She moved back to the door, waving her hand at them. “If you’ll just follow me, we’ll be there in no time at all! Don’t worry, pets, everything will be made clear to you soon. Bless my tights, it is exciting, isn’t it!”

She motioned again to the girls, and this time, they followed her, filing out of the room. Del went first, followed by Meegen and Sha’as, who was given a wide berth by the trailing Jenniyah and Hinna.

“What’s a dark man?” Hinna asked as they exited the room. The door closed by itself behind them.

“Ounds-say ather-ray explanatory-ay, oes-day it-ay ot-nay?”

“But it’s not really,” Meegen said. “For one thing, it’s his name: Dark Man. For another, he’s not just any man, he’s the most powerful sorcerer in the world.”

“Wait,” said Hinna, stopping dead, “you mean you’ve heard of him?”

Jenniyah went wide-eyed. “You haven’t?”

Hinna and Sha’as both shook their heads.

With a sigh, Meegen continued walking. “Come on. We’ll explain on the way.”