Fireside
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I must have been in shock, having been caught out in horrible, blowing cold, suddenly and, to my body inexplicably, though I assumed it was through the same sort of portal that I’d experienced before.
I must have been in shock, because what I remember is a disconnected series of images, as though they happened to someone else.
Peaseblossom hurrying me into a cave, then through the cave to a side chamber which was markedly both moister and warmer. He’d disappeared for moments, then there was the image of his coming back with towels and clothes.
He’d more or less thrown me onto a built-in bench, and removed my sandals. I think I stopped him just short of removing my pants, by putting my hands over his and saying “I can manage” amid a musical noise of my teeth, beating like castanets.
“Good,” he’d said. “The water in the pool is warm, almost hot.” And then he’d left. But he must have been somewhere, listening, because as I managed to divest myself of my shirt, pants and underwear, and splash into the pool, he looked around the side of the door. “Oh, good. You made it. Do you want me to stay so you don’t fall asleep?”
I must have given him the bleary eye, because he gave me the most faux-innocent, “shucks, I didn’t mean nothing” look I’ve ever seen. Not that I thought he was interested in me per-se, just curious about the stranger in their midst. Which I supposed was normal. I couldn’t judge ages at all, but he was a teen, I thought? Or maybe a little older. Maybe as much as my age, but it was still normal if you weren’t as cosmopolite as people raised in Imperial city. “I will manage,” I said, my voice much firmer and closer to normal.
I did manage. There was a bench built into the pool, which allowed me to sit, with water to my shoulders, and eventually I got warm enough to look around. There was a series of clay jars on the edge of the pool. Feeling the contents, I decided the were soap and probably shampoo because the second was more liquid, and since I was wet – and probably sweaty from early adventures – I used them. I had a moment of panic, because after all the stuff in the second jar might have been hair remover. But my hair stayed in place. Among the things they’d given me was a blade in a sheathe. It was sharp. I could take a hint. I’d learned to shave with a dagger. Believe it or not part of the training for diplomatic personnel. But I’d learned to do it while hunting with Father on Earth. Doing it without a mirror made it harder, so even I was surprised when I didn’t cut myself.
Eventually I stepped out of the pool, dried myself, dressed in clothes that strangely fit me just right – though I had some trouble negotiating the full ankle-length linen underwear, something like trousers, which tied around the waist. I’d much later find out they were specific to Erradi, the continent we were now on – and ventured out onto the cave.
To find Peaseblossom contemplating a bit of genocide. Or perhaps not, since when I joked about it, he looked over his shoulder with a grin. “I just don’t want it used on us.”
I inclined my head. I found I didn’t want it used on them either. These refugees from sanity were growing on me, like fungus I suppose, and I didn’t want them dead. They were…. People. And this was obviously an informal family group.
I didn’t know what exactly my arrival had interrupted between the two older ones, but I had a feeling I’d definitely interrupted something. They were still polite, polite enough to give some of my colleagues lessons but there was a tension and looks between them. Sometimes a straying of fingers, hands that touched too long. This made me curious, because surely they knew each other, and if there was a relationship...
Eerlen, the shorter blond with the air of authority asked my name, and I bowed lightly before announcing, “My name is Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, and I am Viscount Webson, and a first-year ambassador from Britannia-on-High. At your service.”
I didn’t know what the translation had made of Viscount, but Eerlen Troz wrinkled his nose, in thought, “Viscount. Is that like… governor? Do you govern a territory.”
“Of sorts,” I said. “It’s actually a world, but sparsely settled. Though my mother… er… parent rules right now.”
“I see,” Troz said. “But you are the heir?”
“Only child.”
“Like Brundar,” he said. He nodded. “I was right to call you Lord, then.”
“Honorific of those who govern?”
He shrugged. “Yes. And elders of clans. Leaders of merchant lines. And of course all magicians.”
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