“My fierce
battle companion,” Behnrel began. Isrehna and her handmaidens leaned forward
intently. They all knew his code phrases for stories of Diehlen. “My fierce
battle companion wielded her bow and arrow equally well in the hunt. Once we
came to a village that was being terrorized by a rampaging wild boar. It had
torn up most of their summer crops and attacked their mezzen in their pens.”
He eyed the
girls, but they showed no fear, only fascination, hungry for tales of adventure
beyond the stifling confines of their quarters, clothes, and lessons. He hid a
smile and looked sternly from one to the other. “In the days before we arrived,
three of their best hunters had gone after the boar, but it surprised them deep
in the forest, goring one through the leg and another through the chest before
the third injured it with a blow to its hindquarters and it ran away.”
“Were they,”
Isrehna asked with wide eyes, “were they—”
“Isrehna!”
Behnrel jumped
from the floor to stand at attention, chagrined he had not even heard the
queen’s approach. The handmaidens knelt and bowed, but Isrehna held her head up
high, looking straight at the queen. “Grammere,” she said calmly. Behnrel dared
not smile at her bravery, but he knew there would be a price to pay for her
insubordination.
“Isrehna,” the
queen said in icy tones, “it’s time for your bath.” She pointed to the door,
deliberately turning her hands so Behnrel would see her own tattoos. Proving,
he thought bitterly, that queens are born, not made, no matter how they are
marked.
Isrehna stood
without a word, and her handmaidens meekly followed her out of the room.
Behnrel kept his face carefully neutral as long as the queen regarded him and
even after she had spun on her heel and followed the girls through the door. He
closed his eyes and pictured Diehlen’s hands…
TBC
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Dogs in House
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Brindle, Houdini
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Time writing
|
~45 minutes
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March word
count
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7,789
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