032 - Starting To Make A Difference

The next morning as Steven and Caspian put breakfast together, the girl was ravenously thirsty, a bit week and unsteady, and coherent enough to only begin to communicate. Her name was Annabelle. But she liked to be called Abey.

Annabelle grew up the daughter of a herds-man/farmer, named Criga, outside of this village, Beowa. She had plenty of skills both domestically and as a herder/wrangler, and was quite able to take care of herself. She also wanted to marry for love, or at least not to marry the brute that she was given to.

Steven figured she would be five foot nothing tall when full grown in a year or so. Initially her exposed skin was sunburned, but she got over this over the next week, and had a deep farmer tan. The rest of her skin was pale, by local standards. She had plain features, with sharp dark brown eyes, and kept her medium length hair tied in a tail behind with a leather thong. To Steven’s surprise, once she had her strength back, she was almost as strong as he was.

*          *          *

On part of the palace roof next to the catch basin for a water tank, Rox found a private area to do some sunbathing. The Sorceress found Rox there at lunchtime the day after taking all the magic off of her.

“What are you doing up here, Student?”

Rox looked up. “I am trying to get some color back into my skin. Since you removed that spell, I have been pasty white.”

The Sorceress looked her over, and looked around even looking up. Then took the spare blanket and laid it out, removed her dress and folded it into a pillow and lay down a short distance from Rox.

Rox settled her head back. “What are you doing here, My Lady?”

“I’m hiding out from messengers from The King.”

After a few moments, Roxanne began asking about The King and his harem. Both women were naked lying on blankets; the Sorceress out of curiosity, Rox to try to get some color back into her now very pale skin. Rox remembered about the butt-naked pictures as they talked, but did not mention it.

The Queen and The Sorceress were friends as children, until schooling took them in different directions. Then when The Queen was married, it was a political marriage. The King and Queen did come to love each other, after a manner, but at that time neither was fully committed to the intimacies of the relationship. Soon, The King’s eye began to wander. The Queen being an excellent administrator was quick to see that this matter was taken in hand, before things got out of control. She contacted her old friend, The Sorceress, and after some bargaining, appointed her head of the harem, by appointment of The King.

The two fold problem then came that he did not return to a sexual partner once he took a new one; and The Queen had not provided an heir. The Sorceress had been made a landed Duchess, and each of the concubines was made an unlanded Countess, and a few had been put aside and cared for once pregnant, but as yet, there was no Prince to assume the throne.

Also The Queen was feeling lonely in her position. He can bed a woman anytime he wants, but she has slept alone for many years. Because of her position, she cannot take another man to her bed.

At this moment The Queen was on the last of a diplomatic trip, and The King was about ready to trade up.

Roxanne thought a moment “Why not just withdraw the harem, leaving him with just The Queen to bed?”

“We can’t do that. He would strip us of our living and our support. Even now I am the only one with land, and it’s so far away I can’t go prove it without permanently leaving the palace.” The Sorceress bristled slightly at Roxanne’s familiarity, omitting her honorific.

“So get all of his concubines on your side first. Then get his most loyal and trusted cabinet members on your side, and approach him. But you will also need The Queen on your side. Tell him that this is State Business. That he must have an heir by The Queen.” Rox continued, not even thinking about honorific titles. To her this was woman to woman.

“But….”

“But what?”

“Nobody has ever stood up to him like this.”

“So prepare him carefully, and then stand up to him.”

“He does not like children.”

Roxanne remembered this argument from the early part of her own marriage. “Let me guess. ‘They are sloppy, noisy, smelly, and inconvenient.’”

“That’s about it.” The Sorceress had to pause to remember this was a mother of two who was telling her this.

“Steven was the same way. Until I was showing with Diana.” Rox’s hands hovered over her belly for a moment. “Is The Queen prohibited from entering his presence?”

“No…” The Sorceress was beginning to understand.

“As Steven watched the pregnancy progress he became more solicitous. Then when Diana was born he slowly became a doting father. He soon took over the late night feedings. Just enjoying holding his daughter. Steven’s only disappointment with Diana was that she was not a son. Once Alex was born, he mellowed even more.”

Rox continued. “So take and withdraw the harem, leaving him only The Queen. And encourage them to be husband and wife, rather than just King and Queen. And have him be part of the pregnancy.”

“And if she is infertile?”

“You will figure something out. Unless I miss my observation, you really are not that much older than I am. I guess that The Queen is about your same age. At least on my world, women our age are still able to get pregnant.” Rox shook her head. She had enough confidence from the few weeks she had been here that she figured The Sorceress, and The Queen, would figure something out.

“I suppose I better start by circulating the idea that an heir better soon come, if it is to be trained while The King is young enough to train one. Then build from there… Yes, it can be done. Carefully.” The Sorceress’s thought drifted to what for her was an otherwise tedious subject: politics.

*          *          *

They were two days down the trail. Abey was rapidly regaining strength. Her body had not rejected any food, but was very dehydrated and starting toward malnourishment. With the steady intake of water and food she was returning to normal. Already her features were softening and filling back out; and she was soundly sleeping. Until she could walk, she rode in the travois that had been made. Steven had substituted her bedroll for his, covering her with a homespun cloak sent with her, as he dragged her along. Caspian had helped Steven rig a usable carry harness from some cord that Steven had in his bag.

Abey had changed to a homespun long sleeve shirt, and a leather vest cut utilitarian-generous. She also changed to a woolen skirt, from the homespun trousers. She kept her medium high leather boot moccasins. Her leather belt now had a few pouches and things tied to it, including the utility knife. She also had her rucksack and shoulder bag, and a water skin which had been with the food in the shoulder bag. Among all this are a few heirlooms from her mother.

This third day she had been lucid when she awoke, and alert most of the time, but still too weak to move far under her own power, mostly to where she could relieve herself without embarrassing the two men she now kept company with. Now Abey was sitting up on her own, the travois leaning against a nearby tree. Steven and Caspian were setting up camp. She was unabashedly telling her own story, as they worked. Abey was also rummaging through one of her two sacks, taking stock, and clearly irritated not to be finding something.

Abey moved the things inside the sack around. “I would just as soon the dirty skut run me through, as get between my legs.”

“Then you don’t like the man?” Steven was cutting down a branch for the fire, adding to a growing pile.

Abey stopped at this, and put her bag down off her lap. “Calling him a man is being generous. More than he disserves. On his farm, the men are proud, and the animals are nervous. The scum had at every unmarried girl in town. The greedy wretch wouldn’t consider marrying any of them. Their dowries weren’t large enough. I was one of the few who would stand up to him in his advances. Finally he pestered my father enough, and got the dowry raised up enough to arrange to get me. But I would not have him. So I was put out where you found me. Every time he came to help or release me, I would fight him off, or get loose and return. Better to die tied to a stake, than go to his bed.”

Steven remembered a few men like that from when he had been in the Corps. Most of them had been run out. The rest reformed and shaped up. A few of these had been beat into shape, a time or two.

Caspian brought in one more branch to be cut down, and had two critters in hand to cook for dinner. The branch was put by the pile, and Caspian sat down opposite Steven. He had eviscerated the critters elsewhere. So all he did here was quickly and efficiently skin them, and put them on some branches over the fire to roast.

Steven had arranged the fire ring with stones around a shallow bowl in the ground, and two branches set up to hold the food. The dirt was set aside to be used to cover the fire pit before they left.

Abey finished her inventory, and seemed to give a resigned shrug as her bags were put away. She then began to braid her hair on her left side into small, tight braids that started at her side burns.

The next day Abey walked on her own, through lunch time. She continued to work at making tiny braids in her left side hair until she had six in front of her ear. They did not cover much ground, due to her weakness, but she was determined to haul her own weight. Steven carried her shoulder bag and Caspian her rucksack. As they ate, and she rested, they considered whether to try to go on carrying her somehow. They tried this for a while, Steven carrying Abey on his back, Caspian carrying her bags. Steven decided that she was not a lot bigger than Diana or Alex, for being as old as the two combined. He carried her for a few miles, but it wore too hard on Steven, and they soon stopped for the day.

As Abey got her strength back, she helped as she could. She could skin and clean critters and birds faster than Caspian, doing a better job in the process. She was able to direct them around a part of the area that saved them a day of retracing their steps due to a destroyed section of trail.

Abey also began to repair Steven’s things, while they were not moving. First, she repaired a tear in his spare trousers, fixing his sewing. She darned his spare socks, after washing them. She also rebuilt his sword scabbard in less time than he had needed to put it together the first time. Steven soon found her to be overly ingratiating, and annoyingly subservient.