Capriones 8/1/2006
Capriones (ca-pree-OWN-ees): A roaming people of the Seyruun City-State region comprised of mixed race and heritage sharing common facilities and traditions. Said to have their own culture and to live outside the laws of any land they move through, they fight mostly amongst themselves in order to improve individual ranking in their encampments.
Disclaimer: We shall make use of several of the characters from The Slayers, none of whom belongs to us.
Chapter Seven -- More Than Fortune Tellers
"I have lived in caravans– horse-drawn and trailer– all my life. I am a man of the wilds, of the open air, or the fields and the woods," Xelloss began airily.
Lina interrupted, "Yeah I've seen those caravans. The one you picked up us in was pretty crummy, but I saw others, better ones. What's up with that?"
"Richer families often have elaborately carved caravans with real glass windows. I could have used any one of several."
"Bet you sent Amelia's bottle bribe in a fine one."
Xelloss nodded slowly and smiled. "Of course."
"My point is: you didn't meet us in a fancy one us at the crossroads, which means you weren't trying to impress me, then, were ya?"
"No, I didn't know how . . . charming you were," he said.
To his fury, he felt himself blushing when it was her he meant to embarrass. He turned his face away, shadowing it with his hair, and then continued his story.
"Back to caravans . . . When we move the entire encampment, the men usually travel in front with the women and children in open trailers behind. We begin our journeys in the spring, and we stay on the move during the summer and fall, at which point we find campgrounds to settle in for the winter."
"You look settled in already here, to me."
"Yes, our possibilities have narrowed of late as fewer kingdoms accept our presence and Rezo's blackguards pressure them all to make our lives miserable."
"Black guards? I thought they were red?" Lina said with a chuckle.
"Indeed."
He didn't want to discuss Rezo and allow problems to cloud the mood, though, so he smiled and adeptly changed the subject. "Our beliefs, customs, and traditions guide every aspect of life, from our relationships with each other to our relationships with the outside world. And they are not written down. Everything is passed down orally. Our adherence to these traditions is the strength of our community and family ties, on the one hand, and yet . . . our obedience to our 'code', you could call it, has also brought us to near annihilation."
"You sound proud of your life."
"At times, I am, but I also feel the need to modernize. The children should read and be educated, our trade needs to be more open, and we could use fresh blood."
Again, the moment Lina looked up at him, he blushed and looked away. "Staunch loyalty to family and community is one thing, shunning the rest of the world is another. Maintaining our own strict code of behavior is fine, but showing contempt for the laws and traditions of other societies doesn't do us any favors when we need to form alliances with, say..."
"Prince Philionel," Lina supplied.
"Yes, Philionel-- for one. You see for us, outsiders are held in suspicion, which gives us a hostile attitude in the eyes of most of the world," he said.
"You didn't intimidate me," Lina noted.
"Well, no," he said, smiling shyly, knowing that she was stretching the truth, as was he. "It wasn't necessary was it? You were just girls."
"What?" Lina smacked him hard on the arm.
He started laughing.
"Nothing s-suspicious about three beautiful, young ladies h-hauling a trunk of gold all alone on one of the m-major thoroughfares!" he sputtered past his giggles.
And because he thought Lina's artificially bored expression was funnier still, he laughed even harder.
"Boy, are you ever a goof ball," Lina muttered, then smiled in spite of herself. "If Prince Phil could see you, he wouldn't be afraid."
"That's good!" he giggled, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
"You're insane," Lina mumbled, using the disruption to nab his water flask and finish it off.
Xelloss contained himself at last. "I attempt not to look suspicious in order to hide my identity. I can walk among the outsiders and no one knows who I am."
"So, you do leave your settlements."
"Well, yes. There are many rules that regulate and restrict relationships with outsiders, but we do have occasional business dealings."
"Not many. I hardy see a Caprione in town, and never in the country, except here, of course, and a few beggars."
"We once were more adventurous. Many of our problems we bring on ourselves, but also the Kingdom of Seyruun refuses us land rights of the regular citizenship. The leadership is so beholden to the White Shrine that it bends over backward to appease Rezo and it has come down hard on us. Being unable to obtain land means we have no fixed abode which, in turn, makes finding work impossible. My people resort to begging and stealing."
"Like Filia was saying, Capriones aren't known for their work ethic."
"Funny, we prefer to work, but aim at earning only enough to meet the needs of the day. Most folks shun regular work hours and wages in favor of more independent and flexible kinds of labor. Then you add the seasonal movement, which forces us to find work that can be done while traveling and you have left . . . people with just a few things to trade for a living."
"Like . . . ?"
"Oh, craft things. I should show you. You can choose more to eat while we stroll the encampment, okay?"
"Yeah, that sounds fine with me. I can always eat."
"Using magic depletes your energy. You'll find that you need to eat more than ever."
As Xelloss led her back into camp, he pointed out different wares for sale. "...baskets, wooden spoons, brooms . . . As you can tell, we are never farmers, hunters, or fishermen."
"Not even hunting, eh?" Lina asked.
"Well, think about it. You must get up early and it's really cold out and. . . I don't want to go. That goes for fishing and farming as well."
Lina snickered in agreement with his honest assessment of his motivations. "Yeah, I'm not a morning person either. I'd rather earn my living the easy way, heh, heh. Anyway... back to the wine problem. If you don't grow your grapes, you have to buy them, and not all growers are equal, I can tell you that," Lina said. "Whoa, would you look at those! I could use a hat."
She haggled over a straw hat and a basket, settling on the basket for carrying her other purchases. Xelloss left her on her own a moment while he picked out an assortment of meat-filled, pastry pies, fruit, and cheese for their lunch. He found her plowing through a rack of hanging shawls, culling out the undesirables, and sorting the remainder by, from Xelloss' point of view, some inexplicable measure of value.
"What do you think?" she asked, holding out a flashy black and orange print with a long fringe.
"Not my colors," he answered seriously.
"For me, stupid!"
"Not yours either." He pulled her away with a gentle guiding hand. "I have something much, much better to show you, after we eat, okay?"
"Yeah, okay, but it had better be terrific for me to pass up this one."
"Oh, you won't be disappointed," he said, leaning close enough to touch her hair with his lips.
Lina felt the warmth rush to her face at the sound of his breathy whisper in her ear.
"So, ah," she said suddenly. "Filia has a real grudge against you and all Capriones."
Her question had the effect she wanted. Xelloss straighten and moved to the side.
"Call it a wild dislike," he said.
"No kidding. She claims you guys steal away their children. Any reason why you pick on her Cepheid clan in particular?"
"Her clan? No, we lure bored kids and runaways from all the Cepheid clans. It's easy, actually. We offer freedom from their straight-laced lifestyle, rules, and rigid laws, and the young people come. All the fair-haired folk were once likely to have had ancestors from her clan or ones like hers."
"Even your mother?"
He smiled, eyes glittering dangerously beneath his eyelashes. "Especially her, but the rest is . . . a secret!"
Lina followed Xelloss up to a stand flouting colorful bottles of drinks. It was maddening how he could give her so much information one minute, then once the started to delve into something meaty, he would cut her off and withhold the rest. Still, he did it so charmingly; Lina couldn't hold her anger against him for long. His good looks were arresting, from his shiny, sleek hair and delicate features with his ready smile, to his nimble, toned body.
Along the way, she noticed how the girls smiled his way, both the young and the old. Men showed him respect and often bowed slightly as he passed. Merchants treated him differentially, often bringing a choice item out from beneath their bench, like the one standing before them now.
"Hey, I never had wine made from apples before, or pears," Lina said.
The young man showed her another bottle. "Then you must try this one. It's the best, I think. And over here I have blackberry from last summer's gleanings."
"Gleanings? Oh, I get it, this is made from windfall fruit and what you find on open land," Lina said. "Tell you what," she pulled out a piece of card stock, a pen, and scribbled a note, handing it over, "Next time you get in the neighborhood of Zephillia, go to this address and tell them I sent ya. They'll give you a big discount. That's my family's vineyard and they owe me for driving off an encroaching bandit group that wanted to make our field a hideout or something like that. Anyway, it's good for something."
He thanked her effusively, although it wasn't likely that he'd be getting that far south soon enough for this year's harvest. He was careful not to smile too widely, not with his prince glowering down at him.
"Mostly you see we do metal work," Xelloss led on. "Once, Capriones worked for kings producing the finest products as in ornamental bowls and pitchers. Some of our craftsmen excelled in making sword blades. Now we make mostly serving ware and kitchen utensils."
Xelloss stopped in front of a tent where a grouping of brass pots was lined up, while Lina admired the size of the largest. She tested its weight, deciding against it for the next size smaller.
"This will do nicely for stew on the road. How much did you say?"
Lina wasn't about to pay a penny more than she had to for anything, even to the poorest merchant not that she had to worry much about being overcharged with Xelloss at her elbow. A price was quickly agreed upon and they left, Xelloss carrying both the basket and the pot.
"So, now you have seen that we are basically a peaceful collection of craftsmen," he said.
All who love you, Lina thought to herself. Clearly, it was he that the Capriones looked up to for leadership in the future. Aloud she said, "And fortune-tellers. I bet your hiding those."
Xelloss smiled. "Yes, they are here, but not really hiding. Misinforming inquisitive outsiders has a long tradition for self-preservation of customs. It gives us an aura of mystery and magic."
"But it earns money, too, right?"
"Yes it does, especially if the fortuneteller is able to cast spells as well as fear through superstitious outsiders they can add a little more realism."
"Sounds dangerous. They must be careful not to get caught by the priest's spies."
"That's correct, so magic is seldom used and carefully concealed these days. Anyway, the real skill of the reader lies in their ability to judge human character."
"That's something I'm good at too," Lina divulged. "I use it to choose the right spell to knock someone out."
"How clever of you!"
"Yeah, I am. I'm going to be the best sorceress in no time. I'll top even Rezo."
"That is what we are working toward," he said as they found a shady, dry place to sit and eat their picnic.
"I hear marriage to an outsider is off-limits," Lina said without warning as they ate their lunch. "So how is it you can marry Princess Amelia."
Xelloss kept his eyes down, examining the food in his hand. "She is essentially a Caprione now."
Lina gave him a withering look. "Does she know that? Don't bother answering. Of course she doesn't. That's just another nasty surprise for her, marriage to a man she doesn't love or even know being the first. Not the wedding of her dreams, I can betcha."
"A wedding is a symbolic act with little religious or legal significance," he told her, frowning.
"Not to her!"
"I didn't say that marriage had no emotional or social meaning. I was referring to the ceremony we practice."
"Oh. So, what's it going to be like?"
"In a traditional ceremony, the couple simply joins hands in front of our queen and promises to be true to one another."
"Uh, huh. So can you just part your separate ways after a change of heart?" Lina still held out hope for a way out of the wedding ceremony.
"All couples are expected to be faithful to each other until death," he replied, sighing. "And to ensure that, I suppose, until they have a child, they live in the husbands parent's caravan, his mother being matriarch of the family."
"So, Amelia will live with you and your mother? Poor kid. A strange man is bad enough, but your mother, geez . . . " Lina sighed and shook her head, then bit off more of her third meat pie. "Not to mention cramping your style," she added with her mouth full.
Xelloss drank from their shared wine bottle and waited for Lina to digest the information he'd given her. The marriage was not his decision, not his desire, and not going to happen to his mother's plan, if he had any mind of his own at all. He was drawn to this young woman sitting in the dry grass, sharing his food, and wanted her to think well of him. He needed her to trust him and take his side, when the battle for power in the kingdom came to pass, which he knew wasn't far off. Damn his mother! Her interference, forcing this wedding with the princess, could destroy all his plans for his people, and as he observed Lina's sparkling hair in the sunlight and felt his heart stir, he worried that he would lose her for certain soon. He was startled out of his inner turmoil by another of Lina's abrupt questions.
"So how are you a prince to your people? What kind of power does that give you over their lives? I mean, you don't seem to have much over your own. From what I see, everybody likes you, that was obvious just walking through the camp. You are the leader they want, so why do you have to kowtow to your mother like you do? Matriarch is one thing, but she's ruining the lives of Amelia and Zelgadiss."
"Individual achievement means little; rather, the emphasis is on a strong sense of group identity and loyalty. I am a prince because my mother is the queen. Clan leaders adopt the name of 'Queen', their first born son is 'Prince,' names generally bestowed as a sign of respect, but not recognized as true royalty or nobility by Seyruun or the other kingdoms. If you think our people would choose to follow me over her, you are mistaken. They may like me as you observed, but they fear her, a very persuasive emotion."
Lina could tell Xelloss was only telling her what he would. He sounded pedantic, the warmth gone from his voice. There were answers she wouldn't be getting from him and she didn't know him well enough to know how far she could push.
End Capriones, Chapter Seven.