The tea and dye seller – Part 2

According to what Stig had told her during one of their early conversations, his parents had been hired to work in the Scandi royal palace sometime after Helena's last visit there, and told him to leave the country if they ever died under suspicious circumstances, even accidentally. While they always accounted for anyone close to their intended victims, the True Rulers varied greatly in how they treated the blood relatives of their accidental victims. They ranged from obsessively cleaning up "loose ends" to considering that doing just that was the worst approach possible. Even "loose ends" who were initially left alone still ran the risk of being considered more disposable than other people when the variable part of a True Ruler's plan included the exact identity of the person or small number of people directly suffering from it. Because the True Rulers had significantly more limited means of action outside of Scandi, fleeing to another country, then keeping a low profile once there, had turned into the only reliable way to tell the True Rulers "I have no intention of retaliating, so please leave me alone". Servants directly serving a Scandi Royal were placed in a group of three people, in which all three were to be punished if one member harmed someone among the Royals or the True Rulers in any way. This resulted in members of the same trio having to trust each other enough to tell each other everything, and anything happening to one member being a sign that the two others were in danger of being next.

Having grown aware of this situation over the last three years had made Helena legitimately surprised to run into a couple familiar faces on Stig's home island: the two trio-mates of Emil's scribe Tuuri, who had also been her younger cousin and lover respectively. Tuuri herself had unfortunately died in the palace fire, her body most likely one of the many unidentified victims alongside Stig's parents. Both of them being mages had enabled Lalli and Reynir to know Tuuri had been lost without actually witnessing her death and prompted them to leave the palace while it was still burning. They had run into each other, then into Stig, in their effort to do so. Reynir had led the two others to the house in which Mikkel lived at the time, while Sigrun was visiting him. The two older adults had liked the idea of the three young men travelling on their own to Finmi so little that they had decided accompany them, eventually getting hired in Adam and Ylva's household while the younger ones went to live in Lalli and Tuuri's family home. Though Reynir had been very diligent in explaining what had happened as he and Helena were peeling vegetables for the evening's dinner, several questions had popped into Helena's mind before he was even finished:
-First of all, since when is Lalli a mage?
Lalli hadn't been an official member of Emil's retinue prior to the day of the fire. He had been present in the palace on the same basis a non-paired female servant's child would have been, due to being among those who had some difficulties with navigating the world on their own even after reaching adulthood. Helena had always found the two cousins from Finmi to be a strange addition to Emil's retinue, as all his other servants had had some kind of talent that enabled them to act as an impromptu bodyguard to Emil, which also came in handy if they were personally attacked. Tuuri herself had told Helena that she had no magic or fighting ability whatsoever and Lalli… come to think of it, Helena had never considered asking about him. Like everyone else, she had simply gotten used to seeing him silently following Tuuri around, sometimes holding something for her, never making any move to interact with anyone who wasn't his cousin, and withdrawing from almost all interactions initiated by others. Reynir spelled out the actual situation just as Helena's mind was starting to consider its rough outlines:
-The way he naturally acts makes him look less able to take care of himself than he actually is. He was supposed to protect Tuuri if anyone tried anything, but let everyone assume he was harmless in the meantime. But not everything was an act. There are many things he won't notice or understand unless someone spells them out to him. Lying doesn't come to him easily, so he tends to assume people are telling him the truth unless he hears something that is obviously contradictory with something that was told to him earlier. So he tends to like having some people he can trust around to make him aware of the things that are going over his head.
-So now I know why Lalli is still here. What about you? I thought you had family back on that giant iceberg of yours.
Reynir let out a resigned sigh:
-Sigrun, Mikkel, Lalli, Stig and I found out a big secret. We're not sure whether any of the members of the Council are aware of it, or know we know it. It's something that won't be too much of an issue as long as we stay here, and I don't want to burden my family with it. I informed them that I'm alive and need to stay with the others for reason's I'd rather not put in a letter, but not much more than that.
-And what about Stig?
-The only extended family he's aware of having is in Scandi, so he doesn't exactly have another place to go that isn't in the very country we're trying to avoid for a while.
Stig had mentioned those family members also during their many conversations. A paternal uncle, an aunt and their children.
-Is that secret anything you can tell me? It's not like I'm moving out of Adam and Ylva's house anytime soon, after all.
-We've actually been considering telling you, and maybe Sune, for a while. But I assume you can understand why our immediate response to you and Sune suddenly moving so close by was to make sure there wasn't anything more to it, even though Lord Adam is your cousin. Stig needs to regularly go on the bigger island to set up his stall anyway, so it was easier to have him approach you.
It took Helena's mind a few moments process what Reynir had just told her. Stig had been assessing her trustworthiness just as she had been assessing his. It was quite a piece of news, but not enough to put her guard down. After all, even Reynir and Lalli had only met Stig on the day of the palace fire. For all she knew, the two servants to whom Stig claimed to be related could have been completely childless, if they existed at all. Sune was helping Lalli with the meat in another section of the kitchen and things seemed to be going well so far.

Lalli had turned out to be able to speak some half-decent Scandi, which enabled Sune to ask him how, exactly, he was still alive. When they were ten, he, Håkan and Anna had heard from chatting servants that Emil was going to get a special present for his sixteenth birthday, and that it was in his room. Sune and his siblings had snuck onto the room's balcony to get a glimpse of it, but the only thing out of the ordinary they had seen had been Tuuri's weird cousin sitting on the bed, clad in nice sleepwear. They had left soon after for a reason Sune didn't quite remember. After the fire, Sune had assumed that Lalli was among the many dead. While Håkan and Anna were probably still wondering what Lalli had been doing in Emil's room that day, Sune now knew enough of how some adults occupied themselves to have done the math. This, alongside the fact that Lalli had turned out to be Stig's elusive husband, went a long way on explaining why Stig had asked after him so often, in Sune's mind. Unfortunately, Lalli's mere survival could be the very "red flag" Helena had been keeping her eyes peeled for ever since her first drink with Stig. Sune considered alerting Helena in some way, but decided he could try finding out more himself. He still felt bad for the fact that he could have kept Alva from swallowing that pill if he had paid better attention to the appearance of the "candy" Hulda had given both of them. Yet, he also couldn't believe he had managed to take Alva out of the room and quickly find another adult, even though the first one had been far from helpful. Within the flood of bad memories and emotions with which he had been overcome once Alva had been confirmed to be out of danger, there had been one that had felt surprisingly good, and a little thought during the past couple hours had led him to decide that it was what it felt like to be the one helping, rather than the one who was helped. He wanted to feel this again.
-Did Emil get to his room before the fire?
Lalli somehow suddenly looked more focused on his meticulous meat-preparing than before. An answer finally came, right as Sune was beginning to assume he wasn't going to get one:
-No. I didn't see him before I had to leave to not die of the smoke. Are you one of the kids that climbed the… balcony?
-Yes.
-Where are the other two?
Sune hadn't heard that question alluding to how inseparable he and his siblings had been during their childhood in three years. Come to think of it, that peek in Emil's room had been one of the last things they had all done together.
-My father is the King and my mother the Queen now that Emil and his parents are dead. Either my bother or my sister will have the throne next.
-Okay.
After that, Lalli seemed to have no interest in continuing the conversation. Sune tried to continue it, but decided to leave it at that once he realized that regardless of Lalli's possible involvement in the fire or Emil's death, it had still killed Tuuri. Helena had told him that intentionally forcing people's bad memories to the surface when you barely knew them was never a good idea.

During dinner, Helena couldn't help noticing how sparse the family to which Lalli had returned three years ago was. The current head of the household was Taru Hollola, who had been second cousins with Lalli's deceased father. Lalli's mother wasn't anywhere to be seen, either. Actually, the only other person related to Lalli by blood around that table was Onni, who had been Tuuri's older brother. His wife Cecilia was the one who had come up with the blueberry tea blend that Helena liked so much. She didn't speak any Scandi, but knew a little of the Shared Tongue native to Reynir's land. Helena ended up spending most of the meal talking with her, and by that means finding out about the family's story:
-Eleven years ago, Onni and Lalli's grandmother did something to this island before disappearing. The land spent five years unable to grow any plants, until Onni and I managed to start fixing things. Food had to be bought from elsewhere during that time. It became desirable to have as many people as possible earning a living outside the island and eating the food available in their workplace. Taru somehow got acquainted with King Torbjörn in her youth, so she was able to send Tuuri to work at the Scandi Royal palace and have Lalli go with her. She did it knowing what could happen if the Prince didn't "pick a toy" before a certain date.
Helena was quite sure she now knew more about the procedure than Emil had ever cared to find out. The back-up plan for the heir not asking for anyone specific was for the True Rulers to choose someone among the servants, and sometimes the servant's dependents, in the guise of their Council role. There tended to always be at least one suitable person who wasn't in a position to refuse within that pool. Being "picked" was hence a potential hazard of starting serve the Royal Family before the heir turned sixteen while not being significantly older than them. Considering what the True Rulers had planned to do on Emil's sixteenth birthday all along, the choice of Lalli made sense: choosing the archives as a starting point for the fire would have made Tuuri a very likely accidental victim, if not an intentional one. Putting Lalli in a position of danger as well made one less relative and trio-mate to worry about. Considering all Lalli had gone through, Helena was happy to see things had apparently gotten better for him since then, and that his family had, from what she could tell, welcomed him back with open arms. Maybe there was still hope for her and Sune. If only she could figure out why both of them still missed Tobias so deeply months after the effect of the last pills they had been forced to ingest should have faded, and still found it impossible to fall asleep without each other nearby. Wait, had she just mentally called that man by his name?

xxxx

It was morning. Both Helena and Sune were alive and well after a good night's sleep in one of the house's spare beds, which was nice, considering the risks that had inherently come with accepting to stay in Stig's home. Unfortunately, they couldn't linger in bed for too long. One of the conditions under which Ylva had authorized them to break their loose house arrest was that she wanted to see both of their faces before noon today. After that, they would be allowed to stay out of the house until evening as long as they didn't leave the meandrous street going from Adam and Ylva's home to the pier that considered itself the local "Scandi neighborhood". At breakfast, Lalli looked exhausted and was almost falling asleep on Stig's shoulder. Stig was true to his usual self when Helena remarked that it looked somewhat uncomfortable:
-Honestly, he's fallen asleep in more uncomfortable looking positions after his more tiring guard shifts. I have no idea how he hasn't developed a back problem yet… hey Lalli, I love you, but could you try not drooling on my hair?

Helena took advantage of the lack of other nearby boats making their way to the bigger island to try getting more out of Stig:
-Yesterday, Reynir told me that you, him, Lalli, Sigrun and Mikkel found something out, and were considering telling me and Sune. Do we qualify for hearing it yet?
-No, but you are much closer to it than a couple days ago. All five of us may still need to leave town because of it one day, and I wanted the two of you a least have a vague idea of the reason, should it ever happen. As for actually telling you what it is, there are few more things we need to check for, and one of them is whether you're sure it's good time for you to find it out. I know the two of you already have a lot to deal with as it is, and may not want something new on top of that if you can help it.
-Thanks for the tip, but it's going to be a little hard to know whether I want to know that secret of yours or not if all I know about it is that it will bring more trouble to my life. Depending on what it is, it may be a better idea to tell me while I have so many problems that an extra one won't make much a of difference than at a point where I'll need to re-enter a "dealing with problems" mindset after having left it.
Helena could almost see Stig's cheeks going as red as his beard's current color:
-I… never thought of that. The two of you are the first people we're thinking of letting in on it ever since we had to tell Lalli's family upon moving in. I guess our means of vetting people need work.
Sune, who had been silently staring at a random point ever since the beginning of the trip, spoke:
-Maybe you could include using that hair dye into it. And seeing how people react to Lalli's drool washing part of it off.
Stig briefly looked worried, but continued paddling, knowing how important it was for all three them to get to the bigger island sooner rather than later:
-How much came off?
Helena looked for the spot as much as she could from where she was sitting, but couldn't see anything. Sune answered Stig's question:
-Just enough that I can see you're actually a blonde from where I'm sitting. But you should be able to hide the spot if you braid it correctly. Your hair's long enough.
-I'll actually pay you if you can do it.

Sune made use of his craft as soon as the three of them were ashore, and Stig actually did give him a small coin for his trouble. He was soon off to the nearby marketplace for the day, and to take advantage of the time of day at which people usually noticed they were out of tea or almost so. Helena walked towards Ylva's office, more grateful than ever that her cousin's wife was among her discrete supporters. Helena took advantage of the walk to satisfy her curiosity:
-So, what shade of blonde was it?
Sune lifted one of his own golden blond locks:
-Quite close to that, actually.
-So I've been getting a glimpse of his real hair color while hanging out with you all along. It's a nice color to have though, I'm surprised someone who likes having nice hair as much as he does is covering it up.
She got a strange impression, similar to the one she got when her words came out of her mouth making less sense than they had in her mind. She mentally repeated her words, but couldn't figure out what part had come out wrong. She continued walking, watching the neighborhood's inhabitants engaging in their morning activities. She found herself paying more attention to their hair color than usual, and gradually noticing that as long as the small sample of Scandi people living on this island was concerned, nobody else had a shade of blonde anything close to Sune's.