This is a parody of the works of Tamora Pierce. All characters, places, etc. belong to her. In this story they are used spuriously and with a good deal of disrespect. Live with it. Oh yes; the exerpts from Frantsen's letter are lifted directly from a letter written to Tsar Peter the Great by his son.

Family Reunion

Sandrilene fa Toren watched from beneath her eyelids as her uncle paced his study. He walked to the door, then back across the room to stare out at Summersea through the diamond panes of the window. After a few moments, he strode to the bookshelf and took down a volume. Quickly he perused its leaves for a certain passage. The book was back on its shelf in a minute or so, as the duke moved to his desk, where he bent briefly to make a note of something or other.

Sandry wished he would sit down. All of the movement made needlework entirely too distraction. She wasn't sure what the usually composed duke was so agitated over. It was only his eldest son who would be arriving tonight with his wife. Or rather, who should have arrived the night before. Putting her embroidery away with a sigh, Sandry tried to think of a possible reason for her uncle's discomfort over this visit. True, Frantsen had never had the best of relationships with his ducal father, and Vedris made no pretense of approving his son's marriage or lifestyle. And then there had been the scandalous letter Frantsen had written just after the duke's heart attack:

"I consider myself unqualified and unfit for this tasktherefore I do not make a claim, nor will I make a claim in the future, to thethrone." And, horror of horrors he had written it to the Lord Seneschal, apparently assuming his father was too far gone to be addressed directly!

There was a knock at the door. "Your Grace?"

Duke Vedris quickly sat down. "Enter." It was a messenger. From the quickly suppressed look on her Uncle's face, Sandry guess he might have sworn, had she not been in the room.

"Pardon, Your Grace," the boy stammered, "My Lady Provost sends this." He held out a dispatch, then hesitantly walked to place it in the duke's hands. The duke handed him a coin, coupled with a gesture of dismissal, before settling to read the report. Sandry noted with some relief that it was of considerable length. Pray gods it would occupy her uncle until his son arrived.

There came another knock. The duke didn't look up. "Uncle?" Sandry queried after a few minutes. "Someone 's knocked"

"I am well aware of it, Sandrilene." The duke returned to his dispatch. "You may come in," he said to the direction of the door.

The door opened. The two who entered were nearly middle aged and looked to be lower-middle class. Sandry wondered for a split second how such people had managed to just walk in apparently without permission. Until

"ErmHello, Father," the man said to her uncle.

The duke very slowly set his reading down. "Punctuality has never been a virtue of yours, Frantsen," he remarked. "But I had hoped that you would take a wife who might encourage its development in you.

The younger man's face showed that he was trying to ignore the comment as he led his companion forward. "This is my wife Hanna, sir," he said, presenting the woman. She curtsied respectfully, but Sandry didn't miss the sharp look she gave her husband. Clearly, he would have hell to pay later for bringing her to meet her father-in-law.

The duke had risen politely to greet his son's wife; now he lifted her hand to his lips and raised her up, motioning for her to be seated in his own chair. He himself took the one beside her. Sandry felt herself let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding in. At least her uncle seemed prepared to be civil tonight, whatever he thought of Frantsen and Hanna. She had just decided that all was going quite well when she realized that no one was speaking.

"I hope your journey wasn't too difficult?" She asked to break the silence, speaking, mostly to her cousin.

"No, not too difficult," Frantsen answered before realizing that he didn't have any idea who the girl who had just addressed him was. He looked at Sandry, puzzled.

"I'm Sandry---Sandrilene," she said quickly, "Mattin's daughter." She hoped that her father's name would clear things up. He had been Frantsen's first cousin.

"Of course," the man said. "Father wrote to me about you, but I expected someone," he paused, "someone older. All the things I've heard about you, and you're only a girl," he added, mostly to himself. Sandry stiffened, and forced herself to think of a polite reply.

"Sandrilene is infinitely more responsible and intelligent than you have ever shown yourself to be, Frantsen," the duke interjected before she could come up with any. "And she is obedient enough to marry where she is directed."

"Uncle!" Sandry exclaimed, as her cousin simultaneously said

"Father! How can you?!"

"Do you presume to tell me what I can and cannot say, Frantsen?" The duke asked, turning a terrible gaze upon his eldest son.

The son deflated visibly. "No, sir," he mumbled.

"Well I'll presume it," said his wife suddenly. "You're certainly older and wiser and better than we are, Your Grace, and you can speak your mind more because of it, but some things just oughtn't to be spoke, and that's that." Hanna had a broad accent. She skipped syllables, and slurred words together in a way that made the duke wince. A country accent was not necessarily a lower class one, Sandry reminded herself. Many of the minor nobility were little greater than the peasants who lived about their manors. Their children would not have the more educated inflections of the court. And there was nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with being a peasant, even, if indeed that was Hanna's parentage. But still, she could understand her uncle's unease. Frantsen, for his part, was looking at the floor, obviously the most uncomfortable of anyone. Hanna looked boldly at her father-in-law, daring him to comment. A dare, which, of course, he took.

"It is most pleasant to hear such an innocent view of the world, mistress," he said carefully. "But I believe that you will understand my concern for my son's welfare better when your own children are of a marriageable age."

"Begging Your Grace's pardon," retorted Hanna, "we weren't talking of Frantsen's welfare. We were discussing what you don't have the right to say." Sandry tried to keep from smiling at the scene: a sturdy, uncouth peasant (for so Hanna appeared, whatever her true background) confronting so boldly the stern, forbidding duke.

"I have always thought it best," the duke explained in a gently condescending tone, "to look after my children's moral wellbeing even as I care for their physical. To this end, I believe in chastising them where I see them stray from the path of virtue."

"Oho!" Exclaimed the woman. "So you think he "strayed from the virtuous path" by marrying me, do you! Your Grace," she added.

"It was not in the deed of marrying you, mistress, but in that the marriage was against my express orders, that he so strayed," Vedris elaborated, not missing a beat, but with a somewhat strained voice that betrayed him. "That disobedience was the sin." Hanna looked at him with narrowed eyes. Probably she can't comprehend what he's saying, Sandry thought snidely, and then felt a little guilty for it. To make up for it, she intervened.

"I'm sure Frantsen has much to say to his father," she said brightly to Hanna, "and I know we'll just be in the way. Why don't I show you your rooms?" Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the older woman to her feet and led her to the door.

"I know your game, Lady Sandrilene," her cousin-in-law informed her as soon as they were in the hallway. "You'll nobly save a poor country-woman from disgracing herself, won't you? But I'd have you know that I could've out-argued him if you'd just let me!" Sandry smiled thinly.

"I don't know anyone who has "out-argued" His Grace," she answered, "most don't even dare try. But it's good to know I'm not the only one who will stand up to him."

Hanna looked at her, surprised. "Well I never," she said. "Perhaps Frantsen's family isn't all bad after all."