Yay! next chapter up. Also, i've just gotta finish my last assignment today (for 2pm) and then i only have 3 exams until september! woot! (does little celebratory dance)
Anyway...
On with the story
Chapter 3
Two days later, they arrived in Sarsos and the three girls were housed with Sephrenia. Much to Sephrenia's surprise, none of them reacted much to the sight of the city. The few Elenes who had seen the city had noticeable reactions before, but none of them seemed all that bothered, bar just looking round curiously at a new place. She supposed she shouldn't think of them as Elenes even though they looked like it. Absently, she moved her horse back slightly so she could hear their conversation.
"Pretty, isn't it? And it's got a sort of charming olde worlde-ness without too much of the stinky bits," Anna commented. 'Olde worlde-ness' Sephrenia eventually worked out approximately as 'quaint' in her vocabulary. She had never heard her city referred to like that before and found it rather strange. It was usually how the Elene cities were described. She wondered what cities where they came from were like.
"It beats a concrete jungle, that is for certain. It is sort of like the Roman cities, with all the marble and stuff," Sophie commented thoughtfully. Fran just looked at her cynically.
"How exactly would you know? All the Roman cities got destroyed yonks ago, when the Roman Empire fell."
Anna answered,
"It's called pictures, darling, and archaeology, you know, Sophie's speciality? On the Palatine Hill, there's Augustus' house, that guy that was the first Emperor of Rome that came along after the deposition of democracy and all that, with lots of pretty, very well preserved pictures on the wall. Ostia is a pretty amazing example of Roman architecture as well; I managed to climb to the third story of a building there." There was no missing the sarcasm in Anna's tone of voice and Fran just rolled her eyes.
"Whatever you say, you two are the experts. Who cares anyway? As long as we get some new clothes and a proper bath, then I really am not bothered about the architecture." All three laughed. It had become clear that all three were very interested about bathing and clean clothes. All three had been wrapped in styric robes before they entered the city, which they wore over their clothes, though without their hoodies. They all clearly wanted a change of clothing, however.
Once at the house, they were shown to a bathing room and happily sunk into the water while Sephrenia applied a little magic to providing them with more suitable clothing. The three girls took a very long time in the baths and were far too happy with their new clothing, something both Sephrenia and Vanion found funny.
Once dinner was over, Flute decided to do rather fuller explanations than she had wanted in front of the Peloi or the Atans.
"Right, now for the explanations in further detail." She glared at her sister as she heard a muttered 'finally'. "You are aware I brought Fran, Anna and Sophie here for a reason. That reason is called Tynian, Bevier and Ulath."
"Is it a coincidence that there are three of us to three of them?" Anna interrupted. Flute glared at her, she should not interrupt, nor be as quick on the uptake.
"No, it isn't, as a matter of fact. Since there doesn't seem to be any girl in this world for them to marry, I brought you three, as you seem to suit them better. I don't particularly care which one each of you has, I'll let you choose..."
"Oh, you're so kind!" Fran exclaimed sarcastically earning another glare from the child goddess. "What? You didn't expect us to thank you for bringing us from our own lives to another world to marry guys we've never met, are of a different religion, culture and just about everything other than species, do you? Hadn't it occurred to you we might not actually appreciate it?" Aphrael glared, refusing to admit the girl had a point, partly because Sephrenia was smiling into her hand and trying not to laugh.
XXX
Shortly afterwards, the girls left with the Peloi and the Atans, under Kring's personal protection – with added help from Mirtai, someone no-one was going to argue with.
Once they had gone through Astel, they travelled across Zemoch and through to Pelosia. Once in the grasslands the wild horsemen called home, they were met by the rest of the Peloi, and their womenfolk. In mark of respect, the three girls were housed in the same tent – well pavilion really – as Kring's mother and sisters. He had already sent forward word to prepare, both for the wedding and to provide more clothing for the girls. At least this lot would be Elene style clothing.
The day or so after they arrived, the girls sat back, faded into the background and enjoyed watching the goings on of the females of Kring's family. Before they could marry, Mirtai had to arrange a split of possessions between her and Kring's mothers and then find husbands for his sisters.
The sisters hated Mirtai like poison, mostly because as soon as Kring married her, they would become possessionless spinsters, depending upon Mirtai. The rest was because Mirtai, as she had threatened in Tamuli, took the eight of them out into a cow pasture and 'taught them civility'. All of them behaved much better then, and accepted the men Mirtai found them. It was an amusing few days for anyone not directly involved in the conflict.
Then came the actual wedding, which was quite moving, though very alien to the three girls. Absently all three wondered whether that was just a Peloi wedding or like the ones they would have, since Aphrael was so intent on it.
XXX
It wasn't until several weeks after the wedding that the girls made the next stint of their journey, on to Chyrellos, the religious city at the centre of the Elene world, literally and religiously speaking.
It had been held off for that time because Kring had formally taken the girls into his personal protection until they were turned over to Sparhawk's protection and he was not a fool enough to send them with only his clansmen. Three young girls would be too much temptation for many of them.
When they neared the city, they were surprised at the fact there were a small group of the Archprelate's guard waiting for them. It was lead by a man with fiery-red hair, who Mirtai and Kring remembered from the siege of Chyrellos years before. He greeted them formally before getting to the point.
"The Archprelate has been informed of the arrival of three young ladies that are to be handed over to Prince Sparhawk, preceptor of the Pandion Order. The Prince and his wife, amongst others, is in Chyrellos itself, having come to the city and so the young ladies in question are to be brought to the Basilica." He announced formally, obviously having been given the order to repeat those words. His expression did not change throughout the speech.
Peremptorily, Mirtai guided her horse forward and lead the girls with her. Though none had known how to ride a horse when they arrived, all of them learnt in their wait in Pelosia and guided the beasts forward. Kring gave a few orders to the clansmen accompanying them to set up camp and followed the women into the holy city.
Once again, the girls surprised their escorts by being totally unimpressed with the new city. Colonel Delada looked slightly surprised as well and asked them about it.
"You have been to Chyrellos before then?" he said curiously.
"No, but if you saw the ones we have lived in, particularly London, you would understand why we aren't all that impressed. I've seen many impressive cities over the years and you start to get immune to them, especially ones like this, which only exist in our history," Anna replied. She got a sharp look from the man, who probably didn't know of her origins, she realised belatedly and vowed to keep her mouth shut until a later date.
Once they had reached the Basilica, a scribe, or whatever he was, led them up to a private sitting-room for the Archprelate. Inside was a gaunt looking man in white robes, looking much like the Pope, three women in medieval gowns and several other men, some in doublet and hose, two dressed in the robes of an ecclesiast. There was also a little girl of around seven-years-old, perched on the lap of a radiant, blonde woman in a blue dress. Their guide introduced them.
The man who looked like the Pope was introduced as Sarathi, the fatter of the other ecclesiasts was Patriarch Emban, and the other was Patriarch Ortzel. The blonde woman with the child was Queen Ehlana and her child was Princess Danae. The other two women were Baroness Melidere and Lady Alean, their husbands were Sparhawk, Milord Stragen and Sir Kalten. Also there was Sir Berit and Patriarch Bergsten, who was most definitely not dressed as the ecclesiast he was supposed to be.
Once the introductions were done, Ehlana suggested that they sat down and explained the full story as the missive they had received from Sephrenia had been a bit unclear and not all that believable. With looks between them, Anna started the story, with the others adding in bits she forgot. At the end, everyone in the room was staring at them in pure undiluted shock. Sparhawk was also looking rather resigned and kept looking at his daughter with an almost reproachful look. Ehlana got over her surprise first.
"So, the child goddess took you three from your world and dropped you in this world on the route between Atan and Sarsos so you could be picked up and then brought here because there is something Aphrael is not letting on that she wants you three to do in the Elene kingdoms?" Anna stared into the air for a moment before nodding, sardonic expression back on her face. Once they had processed that, more questions came. Ortzel was the first to get in the next question.
"What is religion like in your world? What about your god, how do you worship him?" Once again, Anna got to answer, even though Fran was technically the expert.
"My one is called Christianity; there are actually six main ones, Christianity being the largest, not even including the heretical sects that are about." Anna smiled slightly, thinking how all of the sects on question would probably be offended by being described as heretical. "Because humans are naturally argumentative, pretty much every religion subdivides downwards. In Christianity you have Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant as the main groups. Protestants are a bit different from the other two because it simply means the ones who don't agree with the other two and that gets complicated. As far as I can work out, from what little I've learnt since being here, Christianity and the Elene religion are very similar with one god and a rigid structure of governance, particularly the Catholic Church is similar, though there are definite differences too." Ortzel looked all for pressing the subject, but Dolmant (Sarathi for those who haven't read the books) changed the subject, thinking that a point for later discussion.
Once the three girls had been thoroughly quizzed, Ehlana noticed their flagging from tiredness and called an end to the meeting, sending the girls off to bathe, something none of them objected to at all.
At dinner, the inquisition started again before Fran looked up with a distinctly miffed expression.
"Do you mind? You apparently have the rest of your, or our, lives to ask us about where we come from. Can we at least eat dinner in peace?" Both her friends looked down at their plates, not saying anything, but agreeing silently. Eventually Emban spoke up,
"Sorry, it's just that we are really very curious about this, we've never had the opportunity to speak to people from another world." Sophie, by far the quietest of the group, looked up and smiled.
"We get that, it's just we'd rather not be on the receiving end of the Spanish Inquisition." That comment got several confused looks from the other people in the room. "Sorry, local phrase, I mean an interrogation. Explaining the background of it would take ages."
"And a fair amount of church bashing as well..." Anna muttered. That comment got several raised eyebrows. "The Inquisition was one of the nastier things done in the name of religion and has become a by-word for relentless interrogation due to some of their methods." Bergsten smiled ruefully.
"There have been similar chapters on the history of this church; I think I understand what sort of thing you mean." There were several wry laughs; apparently everyone knew what he was talking about it.
After that, the conversation changed to the girls asking questions about the world they found themselves in.
