The mistress heard echoes from the yard. In the market, she could hear servants, shop keepers, and guards talk about it. She walked with her head high sure that they only did this because she was there, spiteful creatures, and she refused to listen to a word of it.
The master heard the other merchants talk about her when he was on the other side of the room, or when they thought he was too involved in another conversation to pay attention – but he always heard when that name was mentioned, even after all this time. He knew the stories were not true, that this was a ploy from someone trying to distract him from the business – those Thatchers maybe, who were nothing but bakers who wanted to get in on the natron trade.
The first of their servants they heard telling those tales they had beaten and dismissed from the house.
But still, the Chandlers heard the strangest stories.
Tales of entire pirate fleets sinking into the ocean outside of a Living Circle temple, destroyed by the rage of a child.
They heard her name repeated in other tales from the Emelan capital. They heard that she travelled north with the Duke and put out forest fires, that she was involved in halting a plague.
Years passed and the stories grew more fantastic. She brought rain, she attacked with lightning, she could bring winds to fill the sails of ships. There were tales that she could hear on the wind, that she was a weather-mage, one of the few, and that she was offered a fortune to do war magic in Sotat.
Tales from merchants in the south brought images of murderers, revolutions and glass dragons.
They heard that the Namornese Empress had tried to keep her in Namorn. They heard that the Imperial Will had failed.
They didn't believe a word of it. Oh, they had seen her for how strange she was. They had lived with lightning and hail when their child had a temper tantrum, winds when she was pouting and rain when she cried. She had caused her father to sink into the ground during that argument, and it had taken three cousins to get him out again. But, the daughter they had abandoned had been useless, contrary and frightening. They would never have given her up if she had value, and so the stories must be false.
If, sometimes, the mistress missed her child and if, sometimes, the master thought he had been too rash and if, only sometimes, they thought they had made a mistake….
They never said it out loud for anyone else to hear.
A/N Thanks to Alliriyan, my always-beta, no matter how many times I tell you I'm searching for others. Edited: 12/01/10