Chapter Three: The storm rolls in...
Sadness isn't something to be ashamed of.
If it is held back, it can destroy the heart.
It is honorable to be sad despite your father's words.
Lady Tamaida of Ninequor to her daughter in a letter after her grandfather died.
Three days after the bandit attack, the eighteenth group of the Queen's Riders, Group Nobility, stopped outside the stone walls of Teirra's castle home in Ninequor. Commander Opion, a broad shoulder and imposing man with hands littered in scars, signaled for Teirra. She maneuvered Prancer to his side instantly, her closed face open to any request her commander may give.
"I am sending you and Penolope to speak with Lord Dickens. We will need every bit of information he has gathered as well as permission to search his, and your, lands." Opion told her in a manner that suggested that they would treat this bandit investigation no differently than the others. Teirra would have taken offense were the source of the words not from Opion, a man of business. Opion waved up Penolope, "Go with Teirra to speak with the Lord of this place."
"Of course," Penolope was several years older than Teirra and the fiercest woman ever knew. She was a short, petite person with the blondest hair Teirra had ever seen and the sharpest dark eyes. Her skin was tanned from the days in the sun and a thin scar ran down her left cheek from a skirmish Teirra had only heard tales about.
"Sir, is it wise to send me? Afterall-" Teirra began.
Opion held up a hand to stop her. "Of course it is wise. I am not blind to the fact that you have lost your mother and you need to speak with your father. Penolope can ask the hard questions I know you can't or won't ask. This is a job now, I need you to see it that way."
Teirra nodded. It was going to be painful having to question her own father about her own mother's death. She had never had to do that before. It had always been another family, another fief, another place, never her own. "I will, Commander. I will honor your request."
Opion let out a breathe. "Yes, honor it, do whatever, just get the job done, Teirra."
"She will," Penolope patted Teirra's arm slightly. "She's a good girl, Opion and you've trained her well. She'll let her feelings aside for the moment, won't you? Now that's a girl."
Teirra followed the older woman through the gates that were so familiar to her. A few guards her faintly remembered her, waved down at their young mistress; she was, after all, the new mistress of Ninequor solely. She bit her lip to keep tears back at that thought. She didn't need them now.
They stopped when the hostler, Jacob, approached them. Teirra smiled at the elderly man dearly. He was always the first to greet visitors, per her father's request. The two men had been friends since boyhood and who was Teirra to argue with that?
Penolope swung out of the saddle and handed the reigns of her horse to Jacob first and waited for Teirra to do the same. Teirra hesitated before handing them to Jacob. "Prancer's a feisty one. Just promise him an apple once you've put him in his stall and he'll behave. Won't you?" She looked pointedly at the horse who shook his head. She waited until she could assure that the gelding would behave before following Penolope and the servant that was escorting them into the castle home.
They were led to the sitting room that her father favored with its many trophy swords and rich furnishings in green's and gold's. It had always been her favorite when Teirra lived here. The servant stood by the door as they waited for Lord Dickens to arrive and speak with them. Neither woman felt comfortable enough to sit on the furnishings, having just come from a long ride and covered with dust, sweat and the usual grim of the roads and forests.
Lord Dickens strode in, clad in a white shirt and tan leather breeches. He looked like he had just come from the fields. His usually well kept dark brown hair had grown to the point where he'd tied it back in a horsetail and his grey eyes and nose were clearly a mirror image of the daughter standing before him. He was a beast of a man, but a man with a usually happy nature with laugh lines around his eyes. Today, he looked tired and worn. "Sit, please, don't worry about the furniture. Derek, get this women some water, I'm sure they'll be thankful for it."
"Thank you, my lord." Penolope replied for the both of them. It was just as well. Teirra felt like she would cry if she spoke. Silently, she told herself not to; it wasn't the time.
Penolope took a ginger seat on the edge of a cushion of the couch as Teirra plopped herself into her favorite chair: a leather backed chair her mother used to read to her in. It was odd to sit so comfortably. The Riders in Group Nobility all came from wealthy, noble families, hence their name, but it had been so long since they were amongst nobility that wasn't fighting that they often felt awkward around them, as this situation was presenting itself.
Penolope leaned forward to take a sip of the water Derek had just poured for them. Lord Dickens eyed his daughter silently as she bit her lip and then stifled a sneeze.
Lord Dickens arched a brow. "Would you like your usual tea, my dear? I know this room is quite dusty."
"I'm fine, really. The room isn't dusty." Teirra shook her head and insisted. Her father sounded so much smaller and older than her last image of him.
"You're here to question me about the attack, aren't you? And here I was hoping that this was just a friendly visit." Lord Dickens looked down at the cup he'd taken up in his hands. It was a lot stronger than the tea or water he offered the women.
"We need to know everything you know about the attack. This isn't an isolated incident, or else we wouldn't be here. Only your daughter would be here." Penelope told the Lord of Ninequor.
Lord Dickens nodded silently and sipped his drink. Teirra watched him worriedly. Her father hardly ever drank and never in public or never in the eyes of a visitor. He had once told her that it was dishonorable to drink and become drunk. Teirra had a feeling he'd been drunk more than once lately.
"What is there to know? A group of foul, dishonorable men came and killed the women in the field, took their crop, money, anything of value, including several work horses and disappeared." Lord Dickens said disagreeably.
"Please, father, don't be that way. We need all the details you can provide. We're doing our job." Teirra told her father, eyes filled with sympathy.
"Your mother was killed. Do you really want to hear the details?" Her father looked at her darkly.
"She must. She will be a Rider and this is her job, my lord. She wants to do her job." Penolope said gently. The woman slowly set her glass, nearly finished, onto the low table between them.
Lord Dickens eyes flickered between Penolope and Teirra. Teirra avoided her father's eyes. She couldn't deal with the look he would have in them. The big lord leaned back into his chair and sighed deeply. "I only know what I've been told. The men cleaned up the field before I could go out to it. Best thing, I believe, for me."
Teirra shuddered and sipped her glass of water, which until now, she hadn't touched. She told herself to become steel for whatever may come next.
"It was still early, Lady Tamaida and I hadn't had our usual mid-day meal, when I heard of the attack. The men-at-arms said they rushed as soon as they could. They managed to take down three of the men who attacked. I tried to help, but Francis, you remember Francis, don't you Teirra?" When Teirra nodded, he continued, "But Francis stopped me. He didn't want to sacrifice both Lord and Lady, I know that, but it was my wife. The women were dead before they got there, I've been told. We followed the tracks and found them a little ways off. They are well trained and organized, like a small company. We haven't been able to find them since. They're vicious men. I'm not sure they're bandits at all."
"That's for us to find out, my lord." Penolope replied calmly.
"Father, we need permission to search the lands," Teirra told him, still staring into her glass.
"Do it. Those women, my wife, fought for our well fare, our crops and animals. Those bandits have no honor dishonoring women as they did." Lord Dickens swallowed the rest of his drink.
Teirra bit her lip to keep the anger and pain from spilling out. "Penolope?"
"Yes?" The older woman looked at her.
"May I be excused to... To survey... The, ah-" Teirra mumbled horribly.
"Yes, go," Penolope waved her off. "In all your surveying, try to look in the woods, speak to horses, do what you do."
Teirra nodded and left as quickly as she could. She had heard worse stories about attacks, but it was just hard to hear it about her own mother. Teirra ran from the castle, pushing past guards, men-at-arms and even her own Rider group. She ran through the gate that led to the fields. Teirra ran until she thought her lungs would burst. Finally she stopped, surprised to find that she was at the far field where the attack had taken place. From the way it looked, she suspected that no one had touched it since it happened.
The field was flattened by horse hooves and booted, men's feet. The crop was gone and the usually horse drawn cart was overturned and charred slightly by fire. A few other charred marks littered the ground in spots that made Teirra suspect a mage's work. There was even spots of dried blood that made Teirra look away and choke back bile. It was then that Teirra finally started to cry.
Her mother had just been bringing in some early crops. She was just helping her people. She deserved a better fate; all the women who died there did.
"Teirra, are you crying?" Jak had come up behind her quietly.
"No, not at all." Teirra quickly wiped her eyes on her sleeves and forced a smile on her face.
"It's just you never cry. I cry, but I've never seen you." Jak told her.
"I didn't see you cry for Sereous." Teirra pointed out gently.
"Yes, well, that was different." Jak shrugged and started over to the overturned cart.
"How?" Teirra asked, following Jak to the cart, careful to look only at that.
"We were planning that in a few years we would marry and leave the Riders. We would have to. It was just a dream. It was easier to cry on my own." He told her, looking at bits of the cart.
"It's sweet. I'm sorry you didn't get the chance. It is honorable to cry openly, sometimes." Teirra told him, keeping well away from the cart.
"You should take your own advice, horse-girl, you and your father." Jak bent to look at the ground. "Do you ever plan to marry, oh Girl-Who-Speaks-to-Horses?"
Teirra shrugged, having not really thought about it. "Maybe. But I like the Riders too much right now to ever think about it. I wanted to be a knight, you know. I'm not going to throw away my chance to be as close as a knight as can be on love or marriage."
"Your parents should have just bitten their lips and sent you both to be knights." Jak shook his head with a smile. "The Crown lost a good knight in you, with all your honor and what-not."
"Perhaps," Teirra sighed, clearing her head a little.
"Look here," Jak motioned to her. "A dropped knife. It could have been one of the ladies, but it looks too well used. Have a look." He handed the knife up to her.
Teirra frowned and gingerly took the knife, careful to only touch the hilt. She turned it over. "It isn't one of my mother's. Her and her maids had a Gallan maker's mark from when she lived there. We'd have to ask the families of the dead to see if it is consistant with their other wares."
Jak nodded. "I'll see to it. It will give me something to do. You should probably get back to Penolope before Opion and Iris know you ran out and swat you one." He left her silently, smiling.
Teirra sighed and took the longest way back she still remembered, walking instead of running. Her father would scold her cowardice at running from the meeting and Penolope would give her an extra drill for it later. She was not eager to return, especially since it would mean preparing for her mother's funeral. She took a deep breathe to calm the fresh wave of sadness. She would be brave and honor her family.
Author's Note: Alright, so I have written yet another chapter. I hope it fits well. This one was a little harder because I was at a lost as to where to go with this. Teirra is becoming increasingly hard to write, and she's my own creation... goodness.