A Rose Point Holiday Page 10

  There were times Reese wondered how the Eldritch had survived their own paranoia. Those times comprised ‘most of the time’ now that she was here.

  Her new tenants were carefully not staring at her. She returned the favor, and focused instead very intently on her folded hands, so dark a brown in her lap against the apricot velvet of her coat… too dark for an Eldritch lady’s, but with a ring far too expensive for a Martian trader’s. She couldn’t help sympathizing with the unease of the residents given the perils of reconciling all the contradictions of the woman who now held power over them.

  That was the mood that wrapped her like a second cloak when she followed Ijiliin out onto the stone platform outside the church. The residents gathered around it on the green, several steps below her, leaving only the priestess to share the dais with Reese and all her unlikely attendants: Irine and Sascha, Bryer and Taylor, and only two, very confusing Eldritch at her side, because Hirianthial was dressed like a lord but coiffed like a boy, and Felith was wearing very fine clothes, but they were obviously a chatelaine’s, not a noble’s.

  The priestess was speaking now. Behind and to one side of Reese, Felith whispered, “She is opening the part of the ceremony where the Lady’s bounty is shared with Her people… that’s your introduction.”

  “Right,” Reese said. This was it. There was no script from here out. She remembered being puzzled about that... the Eldritch loved their formal rituals so, and while this one seemed the perfect opportunity to do something spontaneous and warm, something that connected a liegelady with her people, she couldn’t imagine the Eldritch going for anything that intimate.

  She, though, was no Eldritch. “Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Theresa Eddings Laisrathera, and I am honored to be your new—” Overlord? Landlord? Boss? “—lady.” She paused to let Felith catch up with her. “I’ve come bearing the gifts of the goddess, and I think they’re long overdue in Firilith.”

  She paused after the translation to see if she’d overstepped by stating the obvious and tried not to clench her fists when one of the women on the green lifted her chin. This was it—this was the moment they challenged her right to be here.

  “We do understand Universal. Lady.”

  How had that managed to be both a welcome and an insult at the same time? Only the Eldritch. And these Eldritch in particular, who must resent the hell out of the fact that they had to accept her, and were probably attempting to prove they didn’t need any charity. From anyone. What was the safe response to a gambit that blatant? Bland cordiality? She’d never been any good at diplomacy. But then again, when had diplomacy ever worked with Hirianthial?

  She did what she did best with Eldritch and bulled ahead. “I should have guessed you learned it two or three centuries before I was born.”

  “Something like that,” her speaker said.

  “That makes my job easier, then.” Reese started to fold her arms before she remembered that guarding her chest was probably not the best way to suggest her intentions weren’t adversarial. “The Queen gave me the deed to Rose Point and the surrounding lands and charged me with the maintenance and improvement of the grounds and the lives of the people living on it. As you’ve no doubt noted, I am not Eldritch.” Was that a flicker of a smile on the teenage boy’s face? Maybe she had one ally, then. “Most of my family isn’t either. With the notable exception of my betrothed.”

  That finally got her the incredulity she’d been expecting from the start. Almost as one all twenty-odd of them stared at Hirianthial.

  “Yes, him,” Reese said. “That’s Hirianthial Sarel Jisiensire. The Jisiensire sealbearer.”

  “The soon to be former Jisiensire sealbearer,” Hirianthial said, modestly.

  “But the current and future Eldritch Lord of War,” Reese finished, because she didn’t mind hanging on his coattails if it made it easier for these people to accept her. “So I imagine the Queen’s going to keep him very busy. That leaves me to the management of Firilith, and that includes this town… and all of you.” She paused, then added, quieter, “I hope you’ll stay. I know you were part of Rose Point’s life once, or your parents and grandparents were, and it would be a shame to lose that continuity. I might be a mortal by your standards, but I believe in the importance of history.”

  This silence wasn’t encouraging. It wasn’t precisely discouraging either, but she’d hoped for a little more animation from them by now.

  “So, in that spirit,” Reese continued, gamely, “I have brought the Lady’s bounty.” She cleared her throat. “First, to the priestess of the Goddess and Lady, who with her leadership has seen this town through its long darkness.” Taylor handed her a small clear hemisphere and she offered it to Ijiliin, who hesitated before plucking it off her bare palms. “A light,” Reese explained. “If you tap it…”

  The priestess did and her eyes widened as it glowed.

  “Because the Lady brings the morning after the Longest Night, and you are Her representative here.”

  Ijiliin eyed her with just the faintest hint of speculation. Reese figured that was better than outright rejection and took the next gift from Taylor. “To the matriarch whose family once tended the manse.” She waited for this woman to step up and offered a box. “You were charged with the comfort and safety of those who dwelt beneath the Lady’s aegis. I give you back that charge again. This box has ten space heaters in them. When you turn them on, they warm the room. Please give them to those who need the heat most, and if you find you don’t have enough, return to me with your requirements.”

  Reese had hoped this woman would ask her how they worked, but she only received the box and stepped back into the crowd.

  “To the eldest male whose line once tended Firilith’s land, I have this gift.” She waited for the man to come to her, then presented him with a pair of binoculars. He turned them in his hands, obviously familiar with the concept… but she thought if he used them, and he obviously was having trouble not interrupting the ceremony to try them, he’d be pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t as good as a heads-up display, but it wasn’t far off. “Once the stewardship of land is in your blood, it never leaves. I hope these will help you to extend the limits of that stewardship.”

  “Thank you, Lady,” he said. Surprising everyone, including his relatives, whose narrowed eyes indicated disapproval.

  Reese ignored them and said, “I address now the eldest female of those who once served the seal… and the youngest male.”

  This summoned the woman who’d corrected her about Universal… and in keeping with her seeming personality, she started moving before Reese finished the sentence, and the additional request caused her to twitch. Fortunately, she didn’t stop outright, and the two of them joined her in front of the dais, the woman radiating her agitation and the boy, wary curiosity.

  The light explained itself, the binoculars didn’t require instruction, and the heaters were simple instruments—if the Eldritch could read Universal as well as speak it, operating them would be self-explanatory. This, though, was the biggest gamble of all her chosen gifts, and she’d vacillated for several days before deciding to run with it. Naturally, it ended up going to the mouthy one, which only heightened Reese’s nervousness. So she offered the data tablet with the bravado that had once been her habitual response to fear. “The seal’s servants knew a great deal about their lords and ladies, their needs, their schedules, the lives they lived. This is the proper tool for such servants… or will be now, at Rose Point.”

  The woman accepted it with a frown, and watching her examine it Reese remembered the argument she’d had with Taylor and Felith. The data tablet wasn’t difficult to use, but it required curiosity and a willingness to engage with technology. Felith had suggested it would be useless without guidance; Reese had felt that forcing an Eldritch to accept a “mortal” teacher would be humiliating and that leaving them to figure it out on their own was more likely to lead to acceptance. Taylor had thought it a waste of a data tablet, predicting t
he Eldritch wouldn’t bother with it at all.

  Staring at the woman would definitely provoke a response. Rather than gamble on it being a good one, Reese turned to the teenager, who was looking at her with a lot less wariness and more interest. She suppressed the urge to exhale with relief: here, at least, was someone who wasn’t poised to reject her on principle.

  “Your gift and the beastmaster’s are kin,” Reese said. “So I would have the eldest male of that line stand with you.”

  That caused an older male to join the youth, both of them considering her with far more engaged expressions than she’d gotten from any of the women. Was it because Eldritch men were more used to bowing to a woman’s power that they were less combative when confronted with her? Maybe they felt they didn’t have anything to prove. Who knew? She was just grateful to be down to the last two personal gifts, which Taylor delivered to her hands. She offered them on her open palms, one for each.

  “I couldn’t get the actual animals here in time,” Reese said to them apologetically as the older man lifted the collar. “But some of them should arrive by the New Year’s Feast. I’ve been told that long ago, when the world was new, men were once companioned by their hounds….”

  The older male inhaled sharply, lifting his eyes to hers.

  “…but that almost no dogs survived the first few centuries of your Settlement, because of how bad the basilisks were. So, to you,” she addressed the older man, “I give the keeping of our new line of sheepherding dogs, because Goddess and Freedom know if we don’t get the sheep in line I’m going to murder them all.”

  He suppressed a huff she suspected might have been a chuckle from the sudden twinkle in his eye.

  “They’re sending five breeding pairs,” Reese continued. “I hope that’s enough, but if it’s not, you tell me and I’ll get enough more that we don’t have to worry about the babies.”

  “Puppies,” Irine muttered.

  “Puppies,” Reese corrected herself. “And if that works out, maybe we can talk about a third kind of dog, because you…” She turned to the youth. “Are getting the second kind: our first two Hinichi guardkin. I did the research, and they breed the best dogs for defense in the entire Alliance. They’re smart and fast and big and once they accept you as pack they’ll die to save you. I figure that’s what you’ve lost. And that’s what you need back, because the seal servants also defend the family.”

  “Oh!” the youth exclaimed, his breathing quickened. “You cannot mean it!”

  “I do. And you’ll need the senior beastmaster there to help you with training them, I imagine. And eventually, hopefully, breeding them. I’m guessing the land servants will want them too…” She glanced at the man with the binoculars, who was stunned enough to show it.

  “He’ll want them,” the beast servant agreed. More cautiously, “Real dogs.”

  “The best dogs I could find.” Reese smiled crookedly. “Maybe eventually we can sell some of the puppies to other Eldritch Houses because each one of them is costing me a small mint. Especially the Hinichi ones. The Hinichi don’t sell those, they require you to pay adoption prices for them. People adoption prices.”

  The beastmaster looked at the collar in his hands. His voice was low as he said, “The Lady’s bounty is great.”

  “It’s there to be shared.” Reese stepped aside and gestured to the handcart beside Taylor, which she’d had loaded with fresh produce. “Here is an advance on the New Year’s feast, which I offer as a promise that Firilith will once again observe the festivals, honor the God and Goddess in both Their forms, and enrich its people.”

  The priestess said, “We accept the gifts as evidence of the Goddess’s blessings.”

  She said it in Universal too. Reese wasn’t sure if that meant she was getting somewhere or if they were rubbing it in. But after that, the ceremony closed without fanfare. Felith had told her that in some settlements the lady remained to speak with the residents, bless their children, even mediate disputes, but Reese had no doubt that the people here wanted to see the back of her. Which was fine: staying would only solidify their antagonism. She’d ruffled their feathers by existing, by not being Eldritch, and by giving them the holiday gifts they’d foregone for so long they’d forgotten how to accept them gracefully. The winning strategy here was to leave them with the puzzles of her particular presents, and what she’d implied with them.

  Taylor had groused about it. Felith had hesitantly predicted failure. Only the twins, of the people she’d consulted, had wisely held their peace. They’d understood, she thought. She wasn’t trying to show these people that they needed her. She was trying to show them that she needed them, and that she trusted them to make decisions for themselves, and for her, and for the good of Firilith as their families had once done. In the end, all the glittering technology that made the Alliance so wonderful… it was just a tool. None of it mattered without a person to wield it, and an Eldritch could do that just as well as one of the Pelted. She had to demonstrate to her Eldritch residents they could be partners in the future they were going to share with the Alliance, or they would go into it the way Earth had, struggling beneath the burden of inadequacy and shame. A beginning like that could be overcome, but why invite extra suffering if a little mindfulness could prevent it?

  So she’d chosen her presents as invitations to autonomy and paths back to gainful employment, knowing that rejection would hurt them all far more than if she’d given them simpler gifts. But if there was a thornier way to do things, Reese inevitably found herself stumbling down that path rather than the easier one, and maybe that had made her tougher—she could hope anyway! Leading her party out of the village, Reese had no idea how the situation with her tenants was going to turn out, only that she couldn’t have done anything differently.

  She hadn’t had the courage to ask Hirianthial for advice… or maybe she hadn’t wanted it. Maybe she’d wanted to make the mistakes herself, find her own path, see if it worked. As they rode past the village’s boundaries, she did glance at him, though.

  “What do you think?”

  He shook his head just a touch, the shorn hair swinging against his jaw. “I think you have a knack for this, Theresa.”

  “A knack,” she repeated, finding the colloquialism endearing, spoken in that cultured accent.

  “But will it work?” Felith asked, hesitant.

  “It had better work,” Taylor said. “Because there aren’t that many people left back there, and there’ll be none left soon if they don’t change.”

  Reese shared a pained look with Hirianthial, whose expression grew grave.

  “Well,” she said, fixing her gaze forward, “here’s hoping.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Preparing for the New Year’s Feast wasn’t as straightforward as Reese had hoped. Her plan had been to ‘serve food’ until a call with Liolesa had explained exactly how food happened on the Eldritch homeworld: which was to say, it didn’t, not really. With the exception of Nuera’s small holdings in the Galare lands, none of the Eldritch provinces could feed themselves off their own fields. The Queen imported everything everyone ate, and distribution of those stores hadn’t taken into account a new holding full of visiting aliens. Liolesa had been planning to increase her purchases in the new year to compensate for Firilith, but obviously they’d all been a little distracted and that hadn’t happened yet.

  Which wasn’t a problem, because the woman seemed to have more money than God—one day Reese would have to ask how she managed that little miracle—but it made planning the feast a logistical challenge. The Earthrise wasn’t crewed yet, and the orbiting Fleet ships couldn’t leave since their job was guarding the planet. The only ships available were Lesandurel’s, and they’d been pressed into service building the new orbital and lunar stations and bulking up the heliopause defenses. The Tams had one ship standing by for the Queen’s use, and it was already in the Alliance running her errands—and Reese’s. And the one week they had wasn’t all that long from th
e point of view of moving interstellar cargo.

  The alternative was stealing power plant time from all the many projects that needed it to use the genie to create food. That had sounded easier than hoping that single Tam ship could run to the Alliance and back in time until Taylor had presented Reese with the power plant’s list of dependencies and asked her which she wanted to delay. She’d wanted to complain that synthesizing food couldn’t possibly take this much time, but it wasn’t about time. It was about the size of the generator and the amount of power it could produce. Genies were notoriously energy-intensive, which is why everything wasn’t created with one; Reese had known that vaguely because she’d never had the energy budget to have on installed on the Earthrise. But it shocked her to learn just how much power you could waste genie-creating a turkey. She understood suddenly why people bothered to raise animals and crops for food. Nor was the borrowed Fleet battlecruiser much help; Soly had offered its genies for their use, but it turned out a warship’s power plant was even more constrained than the kind of generator you could build on a planet, even the tiny one Taylor had cobbled together to get them going.

  In the end they decided on a painful compromise: they’d withdraw some of the food they needed from the Bank of Liolesa, signal the Tam ship to bring food along with everything else and please arrive before the holiday ended, and they’d synthesize a small amount of raw materials that Felith and Kis’eh’t could use for a variety of dishes: butter and almond flour, sacks of salt and sugar, and so many very, very expensive eggs that Reese immediately put chickens on the to-buy list. Only to be told by Liolesa that chickens didn’t thrive on the local insects, so if she wanted chickens she’d have to build greenhouses that could support an artificial ecosystem.