Kall-Su found a book that delved into legends of yore. He was not certain if it was mere fable or in some part based on fact. Anything pre-destruction -- and he thought this book was -- was not to be trusted when it discussed the arcane. They took magic so frivolously, not believing in anything other than their precious technology. He understood the withering of things magic in that cruel, old world. When people stopped believing and when civilization over ran the boundaries of sacred places, then magic drew away. Further and further away, until in the minds of men, it no longer existed.
It was the way with creatures of magic. Which was not to say it was the way of creatures that controlled magic. They were two breeds of a very different color. A man might not be magic to use magic. Mortal men utilized magic every day. Mortal men might, if technology had not been outlawed centuries ago, use both magic and science and not bat an eye. Now a creature of magic, a creature that was in and of itself born of magic -- that was another story. Powerful though it might be, it could not co-exist with the world of technology. It could not survive the preponderance of a civilization dominated by technology. So, it might retreat to the most remote of places to exist within its own limited spear. That had happened, he thought, during the old age. All the things that had dwelled in the world before man overran it with his science, had retreated or been destroyed by disbelief until they were few and far between. The Lady of the Forest was once such. As were a good number of creatures that had begun to emerge over the last century or two, encouraged by the magic that had come back to the world and the destruction of a civilization technology had made.
Technology was anathema to magic, extinguishing it with its undeviating march, while magic could only destroy technology with the onslaught of violence. And then only by the hand of man. A hypocrisy of sorts. It fascinated him. Schneider would have been a font of information. A wealth of facts, if he chose to reveal them, or remembered them. There were a dozen places Kall had marked in books that he longed to ask his mentor about. They would go unanswered for some time, he thought, until this rift had been healed.
There was a soft rap on the library door. He was so caught up in a passage that he ignored it. It occurred again and he looked up in irritation.
"Yes?"
The door opened marginally and Yoko slipped into the room, looking bashful and pale. His irritation fled. He had not seen her outside of her room since the feast four nights past. He was immediately worried to see her now.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She fiddled with the long braid that hung over her shoulder. He continued to stare, waiting.
"I was thinking that maybe I might take a look around the city. I was thinking that maybe I might buy a few things to make my room a bit more comfortable. A rug. Perhaps a wall hanging -- or something. I think it would make me feel better to do a little shopping."
"Then by all means do it." He encouraged.
"I don't have any money."
He half smiled. "Have whatever you want billed to me. No one will refuse you."
She returned the smile shyly. "Thank you, Kall. I-- I know I've been terrible. I'll try to be better."
"Don't worry about it."
She backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. One hoped this was the prelude to lighter spirits with her. She sorely deserved to smile again and truly mean it. Then his thoughts drifted back to the book and he forgot everything but his research.
Yoko bundled herself up in a cloak and mittens and a scarf and prepared to plunge into the crisp coldness of a clear northern afternoon. She was down the steps and half way across the courtyard when Gara strode up to her and matched her pace.
"Oh. Hello."
"Hello yourself, little girl. Glad to see you out and about."
"I'm going into town."
"I know."
She squinted up at him.
"You're not going by yourself." He clarified.
She almost laughed. "I don't need a body guard, Gara."
"Oh, well." He lamented, shrugging.
"Gara."
"These are good folk, as a general rule, but they're rough and hardened in a way that the people in Meta-Rikan never will be. Different customs, different way of looking at a lone women. There's slavery in the north, little girl and even though its not practiced in Sta-Veron, slavers travel though this city. I'd prefer not to have to track you down through miles of snow if some slaver sets his sights on your pretty little self."
"My pretty little self is not helpless."
"I know." It was useless to argue with him. Gara was going into town with her. They walked out of the gates of Kall-Su's castle and onto the streets of Sta-Veron. Buildings crowded close to the castle walls. There were shops and taverns right outside the gates. Most of those catered to the Ice Lord's militia.
"So, I hear you're pregnant."
She drew air in through her teeth and glared at him, exasperated. Did everyone know? Had word been posted on the castle walls?
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Humm. Don't much blame you. If it were any other black hearted vermin who did it to you I'd have him on his knees begging for mercy before I castrated him. But, it wouldn't work with Schneider. If you can regrow a heart, you can regrow a cock -- excuse the terminology."
She sniffed, not happy with the topic of discussion. She had come out here to not think about Schneider. And now Gara had her visualizing all sorts of lurid things. She folded her arms under the cloak and hugged herself. Gara sighed and patted her shoulder.
"Sorry."
"It's okay. The castration thing was interesting."
He laughed. "So, Keitlan says we're going shopping."
"Keitlan obviously talks to much." Yoko muttered.
Most of the shops in Sta-Veron were geared more towards the utilitarian needs of the winter city. Yoko paused at a tannery window, admiring a pair of high, fur lined winter boots. Gara urged her to go in and look at them. They fit well and looked rather nice on her. She looked to Gara uncertainly as she unlaced them.
"Go ahead, get them. Kall's got deep pockets."
Which was all the encouragement she needed. She purchased from the same shop a large white fur coverlet for her bed, and a thick, soft pelt to cushion the window seat in her room. She directed everything but the boots, which she wore, to be sent to the castle. The merchant was all smiles when she left.
There was a weaver of rugs not far down the street. She wondered into the front showroom, fingering the utilitarian rugs that were on display. Rough weaves that would take the dirt and snow tracked in by heavy boots. She wanted something softer and more appealing to the eye. Gara lifted a canvas from a stack of carpets in the back, that boasted a bit more color and a finer weave.
"Why are these hidden away?" She asked the merchant, impressed with the pattern and the texture.
"People here abouts aren't as interested in luxury as they are in durability." The merchant lamented.
Yoko found a deep green one she liked and a smaller creme colored one to go before the window. "Do you have a carpet in your room?" she asked Gara. He shrugged. "Stone floors are fine by me."
"Give me this one too, for my friend." She decided. "I'm looking for a wall covering. A thick tapestry to help insulate the cold. Can you recommend a shop?"
The merchant did, and promised to have her carpets delivered that evening. The smell of cinnamon and spices caught Yoko's attention. There was a tavern where the smells originated and she gravitated that way. Apples right out of the oven, baked with sugar and spices and basking in a syrupy sauce. She had to have one. Gara bought them both apples and mugs of ale. She found her appetite tremendously huge. The shopping had invigorated her. The apple was hardly enough and she ordered a bowl of stew and bread, gobbling it down with intensity that astonished Gara.
Pleasantly sated she went in search of tapestries and found the little shop recommended. The merchant had a few small wall coverings amidst a cornucopia of odds and ends. He claimed to be an import/exporter who dealt in all manner of goods. She took the tapestries and was drawn to a bolt of fine cloth, thinking it would make a nice canopy for her bed. The merchant offered her a deal and she couldn't refuse.
"If you're interested in tapestries, I happen to have a shipment of large ones I had planned to ship south with the next merchant caravan. Captain Kiro refused to let it pass in the autumn when the army marched south -- so they're stuck here till the spring thaw."
"How big?"
"Oh, very. Fit for a palace."
"Oh, my rooms not very big."
His face fell. Yoko chewed her lip. Gara browsed among the knic knacs. "I could look at them anyway."
They were in the back room. A great pyramid of rolled weavings that could have been carpets they were so large. The merchant, with her help partially unrolled one, which seemed to have a scene of some noble party hunting an impressive stag. It was western work, she was sure by the fineness of the stitching. There were six of them, all with different and delightful scenes depicted, the merchant assured her. She thought about the great, barren stone walls of the main hall and how nice they would look with a splash of color, with a buffer between them and the cold world outside.
"They're probably very expensive."
"Undoubtedly."
"They would look very nice in lord Kall-Su's main hall."
"Oh, most assuredly they would. Tapestries of great worth used to adorn those walls." The old man's eyes gleamed. Yoko lifted a curious brow.
"What happened to them?"
"Oh, years ago, when he took this city from the previous lord who ruled here, his men looted and stole a good deal of the riches the old lord had collected. When he decided to make Sta-Veron his home, he stopped the looting of course, and made restitution to the people here who had suffered under the hands of his army, but he never chose to refurbish the castle. He's austere, you know and not much for the trappings of obvious wealth."
"Oh, no." Yoko said, waving a hand in dismissal. "He's just doesn't take the time to notice. He gets distracted by his books and things."
She was very certain of this. She was very certain that what Sta-Veron castle needed was a breath of life to chase away the somber cold grayness of perpetual winter.
"I'll take them."
"All of them?"
"Yes. And I was thinking -- there are bare halls and rooms aplenty -- do you know of a good weaver?"
Things began to appear in Sta-Veron castle gradually. Simple little things that one hardly blinked an eye at, if one even chanced to notice them at all the first or second, or even sixth time one passed by. There was a long, narrow carpet in the hall outside the library that Kall-Su trod upon twice before realizing that it had not been there mere days before. He passed, on his way downstairs, a pair of chamber maids, who usually bowed their heads and scurried past him in silence, but today, merely curtsied respectfully before returning to their animated conversation regarding cushions for the new benches in the main hall. One hardly paid heed to the babbling of serving girls on a normal basis, but their excitement over the subject of mere cushions pricked a nerve of wary interest.
Down to the main hall, on his way out to the courtyard and the stables, much in need for a bit of cold, fresh air and a ride through the snow after days cloistered in his library without setting a foot outside its boundaries. Color splashed the tall walls of the hall. A fair number of people scurried here and there. There was the sound of hammering and sawing. There seemed to be a workshop set up near the great hearth. He stopped, half way across the hall, attention rebounding away from thoughts of riding and weeks of research into archaic lore, and snapping sharply to reality.
There were huge tapestries hanging from beneath the windows. Three of them on either side of the hall. There was a large, blue carpet covering the floor of the further end of the hall and at the doors a thick, coarsely woven mat that men carefully stomped their boots upon to rid them of snow and filth before proceeding on into the hall. Those that did not were scolded by any of the various maids working about the chamber.
A man carrying a long stack of planks over his shoulder came in from the cold, and Kall had to step back to avoid the trailing end of the boards as the man half turned to answer some question from a boy carrying a bag of nails behind him. There seemed to be a fair number of new tables and benches gracing his hall. The old ones were stacked in a jumbled pile against one wall, some of them dismantled, for wood, one guessed, and ready to be hauled away. This was not the hall he had last set foot in -- during the Festival Feast? How long ago had that been? Time became elusive when he had his mind set on a certain goal. Two weeks? More?
He saw the stout form of his house keeper directing the workmen to keep off the new carpet and beckoned her over. She didn't notice him. He took a breath, beleaguered in the midst of the confusion in his own hall and walked across the hall towards her. One of her girls saw his approach first and pulled at her mistress's dress to get her attention.
"Oh, my lord." Keitlan beamed at him, dusting her hands on her apron. "As you can see, things are going very well."
"So it seems." He gave her a look and turned and walked away from the fervent attention of the serving girl. When he had put distance between them and eager ears, he waved a hand around the room. "What, prey tell, is all of this?"
"Oh, the lady came to me and asked what I thought most needed attention and between the two of us we thought the great hall most needed the work, it being the face the castle shows to the world and all."
"You and the --lady? Yoko?"
Keitlan nodded. "She seems in such better spirits when we're about this, but I fear she still mopes when she's alone. It was such a generous thing you did for her. Nothing lifts a woman's mood like redecorating. The staff is enraptured by the whole thing, my lord."
He stared at her. He stared at the room behind her, vaguely recalling something about Yoko asking if she might buy a few things. He had been rather distracted at the time. Keitlan was beaming at him. The staff was busily transforming the Spartan lines of the great hall. He wondered distractedly how much the lightening of Yoko's depression was going to cost him.
The courtyard was more covered in icy mud than snow, from the passage of so many busy feet. One had to be careful treading across the slick surface, unless one wished to suffer the indignity of slipping. The air was frigid and still, the sky covered with a film of gray clouds that hid the sun behind their veil. It could been seen dropping to the west, a faint, glowing orb of brightness behind layers of distorting clouds. It did nothing to warm the day. Every living being in the yard expelled a cloud of fog with their breath.
Kall-Su made his way to the stables. Wagons trundled in and out of the gates, filled with lumber or goods of who knew what nature, or merely the daily produce that the castle bought to feed its lord, staff and on duty guard. The stable master saw him coming and met him at the entrance to the stables, asking if he were up for a ride on such a cold day.
He was. He missed the white face of his favorite horse nickering at him over the edge of the most prominent stall door. The stablemaster had a thick coated, spirited chestnut saddled for him. The animal pricked its ears and nuzzled experimentally at his glove as stableboys rushed to give tail and mane a quick going over, aghast at the thought of their lord riding out on a horse not properly groomed.
Kiro appeared in the shadow of the stable doors when he was preparing to mount, looking as if he'd run to get here.
"Are you going out, my lord?"
"Yes."
"Shall I gather an escort?"
"No." Emphatically no. He was not in the mood for a procession of men following him on what would be more than likely an aimless excursion. He led the horse to the door, past his captain and paused.
"And what do you think of the remodeling of the great hall?"
"Oh, its past due, my lord. A very good decision."
"Humm. I'd thought as much."
He swung up into the saddle and rode around a wagon stuck in an icy rut and the confusion of men trying to get the leverage to push it out. Down the cobbled streets of the city where the garlands of Winter Festival were almost gone. Out the main gates and past the surprised salutes of the city guard.
Snow. A vast field of that spread as far as the eye could see. Unbroken save for the packed trail leading into the city from the north, where the nearest line of forest could just be seen. Only the hunters ventured out this time of year. Sta-Veron had supplies to last the longest, harshest winter within her storehouses. Only the luxury of fresh meat and the furs and skins that came with it, prompted men to risk being caught in the wilderness during a long winter storm. He headed down the trail, giving the chestnut his head. The young horse broke into a heady run, eager to stretch its legs after being confined to a stall for too long. It was sure footed, bred to traverse snow and ice and hardly slipped or faltered along the slick path.
He thought that if Yoko cured her melancholy with the revitalization of his castle, then so be it. He had never quite paid attention to the bareness of the floors or the stark nature of the walls. There were generally more dire things to occupy his attention. He wished hadn't the need. He wished he could understand the reason things had gone so dreadfully bad for her. He had never, in all the years he had known Schneider, truly understood the way his mind worked. Oh, he tried. He had spent years obsessing on it. And when he thought he had a clue, Schneider just up and changed on him. It was as if he did it apurpose, trying to keep everyone off their balance. Even those that loved him most.
Kall had replayed his last conversation with Schneider over and over in his head, trying to find a clue of what drove the man to repel what he had before that cherished. It made no sense. It was as if he were punishing her for something, but Yoko, from what small bit she would talk of their time together, seemed not to know what for.
It wouldn't last, though. It never did. Schneider might hold his grudge and practice his animosity for a while, but eventually he always came back to place his claim on what he considered his. And when he did -- a year down the road -- two -- or even more, he would discover the secret they had withheld from him. Then there would be hell to pay.