The font of jasmeen, p.1
The Font of Jasmeen, page 1
The Font of Jasmeen
Elk Riders Volume III
Ted Neill
To Joe
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Yana Yansalyl
Chapter 2 The Boy in Bindings
Chapter 3 Haille Hillbourne
Chapter 4 Fathers and Kings
Chapter 5 Punishment
Chapter 6 Conspirators
Chapter 7 A Letter
Chapter 8 Corrigan Lark’s Carnival of Wonders
Chapter 9 Champions
Chapter 10 Chancellor Annabeth of Kinth
Chapter 11 A Nighttime Conspiracy
Chapter 12 Hunted
Chapter 13 Whistleby
Chapter 14 Aurora
Chapter 15 Avenger Red
Chapter 16 Gaust Redmont
Chapter 17 The Redmont Estate
Chapter 18 Gail Redmont
Chapter 19 Juniper Cottage
Chapter 20 Reginald and Remus Gracestone
Chapter 21 River Ridge
Chapter 22 Lorna Casskills
Chapter 23 Thestos
Chapter 24 Morbright Mine
Chapter 25 The Font of Jasmeen
Chapter 26 Vondales and the Elk
Chapter 27 Garn’s Grange
Chapter 28 A Journey South
Chapter 1
Yana Yansalyl
Could sadness be a thing, an object that one could carry? Could loneliness and loss be substantial, if not of substance then of ether, like a figure of smoke over a fire—impossible to grasp—but lingering like the smell of musk in a robe? Yana had tried to rid herself of all the things that still carried the scent of her husband. It had taken determined effort to sweep away his ghost from her life. Her daughter had been easier to put out of mind since the infant had passed so shortly after birth. The girl had not been in this world long enough to make a mark—just to be named—then she was gone. It was the ghost of her daughter’s future that Yana had fled from, leaving the estate where she had carried the child for nine months, putting behind her the grass courtyards where she had pictured her daughter learning to walk. By leaving she had also banished all those memories of her husband as well.
So she shouldn’t have felt the loss for either now, as she sat in the carriage that had come to a halt, the rain drumming on its roof. She tried to warm her chilled hands over the coals in the ember box, but they had grown so faint they threw off no heat. The wrought iron grill over them was cold to the touch. Yana felt the sadness weighing on her like a wet robe, but she couldn’t shrug its black-gray heaviness any more readily than she could banish the cold from the cab of the carriage.
Where had that sadness, that loneliness, stowed away? She hardly had any possessions left where it could lurk anyway. She had given away or burned her husband’s belongings. Her own clothes that she had worn around him, she gave to the servants she had left behind. She would buy new clothes in the city. Surely she would need them, or she might be marked as a hay-head from the countryside. That would not be fitting for a newly appointed member of the King’s Council of Elders. She had already impressed the soldiers who came to accompany her on her journey when she met them at the door of her manor with nothing but a sword, a saddle, and a single drawstring bag. They had expected more baggage from a Lady.
They didn’t know Rivertowners.
They didn’t know Yana Yansalyl.
Was it in the trunk with her saddle, this loneliness she still felt? Or in the drawstring bag with her remaining garments? Did it slither into the scabbard of her sword? If so, could it be cut to ribbons with the repeated sheathing of her blade?
Perhaps she could move ahead faster than her loneliness could keep up. She shut the grate over the embers, drew up her hood, and stepped out of the carriage.
The air had turned to water, the road to a river blooming with muddy flowers where the raindrops dimpled its surface. Yana and her city soldiers were not lost. They were not stopped in some nameless bend in the road or on a featureless stretch of country lane. They were in a village, the main avenue by the look of the timber houses, but it might have been a ghost town for all the life the place showed.
Doors were closed, shutters pulled in, and not a single sign of light peeked through a curtain or under the gap in a door. She would expect an empty street on such a night, but such weather called for lanterns to burn bright, fires to be stoked, and the interiors of homes to glow with the light of comfort and welcome—not this emptiness, not this darkness, like a village emptied by plague.
Then she caught sight of the branch hanging above the door of the nearest house. She had to step closer, avoiding a puddle as she did so. One of the soldiers noticed her moving away from the shelter of the carriage and called out to her, “Lady Yansalyl.” But she ignored him. If the branch was what she suspected, they had more complicated matters to worry about than the weather. She stepped under the eaves of the house and shielded her eyes from the dripping water to peer at the branch: blue-black bark, the underside whisky colored where it peeled back from the stem. To confirm her suspicions, in the cluster of heart-shaped leaves she could see a bunch of purple berries.
Elderberries.
It was not difficult now to make out the branches tacked on the lintels of all the doors along the avenue. Of course the town seemed empty, she thought. The people were in mourning—and hiding—for a spirit-child had died and it was being buried that very night.
But how to explain this to the soldiers of the city who mocked country superstition and at worse were obligated to suppress it with all the force of the king and council’s laws?
A council she now served upon.
She sighed. This was the first of what she knew would be many compromises and contradictions before her—and she had yet to even reach the city walls. The soldier who had called to her before—his rank a captain—was moving to her side. He had removed his cloak and stretched it out over her head to catch the dripping from the eaves. Closer now, she noted his features. His receding hairline and scarred lip bespoke experience, but with such a pronounced city accent it was clear to Yana he had never lived in the countryside and would be ignorant of the ritual taking place around them.
The five other soldiers were still on horseback, slumped under their cloaks while the rain ran off them in rivulets. Even their horses looked miserable, their heads lowered and their eyes downcast.
Barring their way was a man with the leathery skin and the angular body of those who had worked in fields all their lives. Yana knew a farmer when she saw one. And she knew the young man next to him to be his son by his simple striking resemblance. Both wore straw hats, the rims sagging with moisture. The father kept his mouth fixed in a thin line, his jaw muscles flexing in a display of stubbornness, while his son shifted from foot to foot, his eyes on the swords and spears of the soldiers.
“This man says the rains have caused the river to flood. The rushing waters have undermined the bridge to Scotsdale. He suggested we turn back and stay the night in Whistleby, the town we passed a few leagues back,” the captain said.
“There is no inn here in this town?” she asked.
“It has been closed for months,” the farmer volunteered.
Of course it has been, she thought.
She made her way past the line of soldiers, touching the horses on their flanks and their neck, as was her habit, and stood before the farmer. His cheek twitched and despite the rain he removed his hat, holding it with both hands and elbowed his son until he did the same. He recognized her as a lady and would know her as a noble by her escort, yet she was loath to use her new title and the authority that came with it on country people she saw as her own.
“Good eve, kind sir,” she said. “It is good of you to brave the elements to warn us of danger.” She hoped her Rivertown accent and manner would put him at ease.
His shoulders lowered and an apologetic grimace worked its way into his face. “We’re sorry it has inconvenienced a lady of your stature.” His hands twisted the brim of his hat.
It was a delicate dance Yana had to make next and she lowered her voice so that the soldiers would not hear her words.
“And I am sorry for the loss your village has experienced,” she said, letting her eyes dart in the direction of the nearest doorway.
Son looked to father, surprise in his eyes. The father made his lips into a thin line once more and nodded. “Thank you m’lady.”
“My men are cold, wet, and weary. We have traveled many days. To reach our destination of the city tonight is our humble wish. Where is your chief, perhaps I may speak with him to discuss passage or boarding in town for the night?”
“He is ahead at the bridge, m’lady.”
She thanked him with a bow holding her cloak closed over her chest and returned to the carriage where she opened the door, reached in for her sword and buckled it around her waist.
“My lady, is there something you need?” the captain asked, coming up beside her.
A sword, a horse, and a lie, she thought.
“Yes, Captain. Let’s start with your horse.”
Yana felt better on a horse rather than being pulled by them. The mare responded too, lifting her head and turning her ears to this new rider who guided her with gentler and more certain hands than the captain she was accustomed to. Yana cantered down the road, leaving behind the shuttered houses and passing under the boughs of the forest. The trees were astir with wind, leaves spinning free from their summer perches to tumble across the road, landing in puddles that rippl
The chief was not so easily seen. He blended in well with the tree he leaned up against and it was not until he took a step forward that Yana even noticed him or the spear, taller than himself, that he let stand beside him. His face was beardless and relatively young for a chief. His features were long and narrow, but not unhandsome.
“It is said,” Yana began without preamble, “that a rich lady once wished not to wet her skirts fording a stream like this so Lhyrwyrm the god of tricks appeared and offered to build a bridge for her. In exchange he would claim the life of the first person to set foot upon it. She agreed. Lhyrwyrm arranged stones into a bridge, knowing that her husband was on his way home and would be the next to cross it. Seeing her husband coming, she called a beggar to her side. Then she tossed a gold coin across the bridge so that the beggar followed after. Lhyrwyrm, furious, was forced to claim the beggar’s life, and the rich man lived and prospered.”
“As the rich often do,” the man said in a neutral tone. Yana was quiet, still waiting for more on his part. She saw the white of his teeth flash in a smile. “You wind on like a Karrithian, traveler.”
“I practically am. I am a Rivertowner.”
“Your accent says so. But I would not rush to make you Karrithian just yet. Rivertowners are a breed unto themselves.”
“Thank you.” She bowed her head.
“What brings you to Scotsdale Bridge on such a night?”
“An escort, actually, of the king’s men. We wish to reach the city before daybreak, but we have been stopped short because we are told the bridge has become unstable.”
“Aye, by my orders. I am the chief of this town, Faven Marks, and I have barred crossing, for your own safety. May I ask whom I address?”
“Be it enough to know I am your friend, Faven. You may call me Yana.”
“Well Yana of Rivertown, your best gamble would be to turn back towards Whistleby town, about a league back. There will be an inn there where you will find rest.”
“We are seven, good sir, with horses and carriage. The roads are not kind tonight. You offer us no room in your own town?”
“The town is full of travelers who also wish to cross to Scotsdale.”
“That is the story your men tell us, and loyal men they are, but the lintels of your houses say something different.”
He was silent. She saw his fingers flex and readjust on his spear. The wind hissed in the newly bare tree branches above. A leaf peeled off the bridge.
“I cannot be responsible for the superstitions of a few ignorant folk,” he said.
“Interesting that the few ignorant folk occupy every house along the main avenue.” She felt that she was backing him into a corner and wished not for him to respond as of yet. “Let me tell you a different story, Faven. I have introduced myself as a friend and I remain so in this telling. It is a story of a village where a spirit-child, an infant whose spirit was not long in the world and left for the next shortly after birth, has passed away. Anyone who has had a grandmother who was prone to winding on, and I have yet to meet one who does not, will tell you that such spirit-children must be buried in safe places, where their graves will not be disturbed. For there are grave robbers who may want to reach the graves again, for some believe that even in death these children’s spirits possess powers that the living might use, for healing, or prophesizing perhaps. There are also those who believe that in the week that this child dies, elderberry must be placed in the doorways of the homes in the village where the child lived. Elderberry, a berry that is at first sweet, but in the after tasting sour, to a spirit says, ‘this place is friendly to you, but you should move on.’”
She stopped, the clouds of breath dispersing from before her face. She could understand the plan of these people: bury the child in the forest in some unmarked place where no one would ever think to look. Even now, she imagined they had set the body in the cold earth and the old grandmothers were standing under drawn shawls reciting charms and incantations over the grave.
Faven was still silent. His lips remained pressed shut, but his eyes told her she was correct. Yana leaned down in her saddle.
“I have nothing to say towards what you and your people believe or do not believe. It is no business of mine. But I tell you this, in good faith, the men with me are men of the city, yet I am sure there must be one of them who might see the elderberry as I did. They might not know its full meaning, but they will know what it is related to. These are an offish lot and they are tired and cold. At best they will ridicule you, at worst call the Inquisitors to censure and fine you, for you know the laws that remain on the books. Let us pass. I will make sure they stick to the road. Unless you are burying the child in the center of the trade route, which I highly doubt, there will be no interference from these men with the ceremony that I’m sure is underway. Tired as they are, they will not even detect it.”
Faven nodded. There was a lucid look in his eye and a candid expression on his face.
“You speak with honesty as I hope a friend might, Yana, and respect for our circumstances. I would not expect as much from city travelers, but definitely a Rivertowner. For that, you and your guard may pass as long as you can assure me you will not be stopping or straying.”
“I assure you.”
“Ride slowly back to the village. I regret making your men delay further, but in that time I will run ahead to make sure there is nothing for your men to . . . stumble upon.”
Now Yana nodded.
“And Yana from Rivertown, may I be so bold as to ask who travels to the castle with an escort of so many and an emissary like yourself?”
“I do, Faven.” She drew her sword and held the hilt towards him, her thumb on the intricate engraving at the base of the blade: a P with an A leaning into its stem. “You will see it is a Pathus original. Only council elders and generals carry such blades. This escort delivered this one to me. I am Yana Yansalyl, most newly elected member of the Council of Elders.”
As she expected—and still was not comfortable with—Faven took to his knee. She could detect a nervous tremor to his voice now.
“I see tonight that the arm of the law has been gracious, my Lady.”
“Please rise Faven, I addressed you as a friend and you granted me passage as a friend, not as an elder. I will remember that. You are the gracious one.”
He bowed.
“I will ride back slowly now,” she said, “as you asked. The escort will be following soon.”
“Safe journey, my lady. You have gained the loyalty of Innisgate Town,” he said, then disappeared over the crest of the bridge.
And a friend, she thought.
Chapter 2
The Boy in Bindings
Two night guards leaned into the door of the castle keep and Yana stepped into the entry hall just as the thunder was beginning to rumble again. A lady in waiting, her eyes puffy with sleep, greeted her. She began a curtsey but left it only half complete, the thunder flustering her.
“Your Ladyship—I—I am Deirdre, welcome to Antas Castle, I will notify the other elders of your arrival.”
“No need to wake them. If you could just show me to my chambers,” she said, shaking the rain from her cloak.
“Of course, we have a fire already laid there for you. The boys will light it. Do you require any refreshment?”
“Something hot, cider? And anything you have left from dinner.”
Deirdre raised her eyebrows. Yana wondered if she had already broken etiquette.
“We can make a fresh meal for you, my Lady,” she said.
“Deirdre, I’d be asleep before they finished. Just send some rye and cheese.”
The passages on the first floor smelled of the mud tracked in by visitors but as they climbed to the second, third, and finally the fourth story, mud gave way to the scent of wood fires and lantern oil. The chamber boys had been quick to their tasks: a fire was already burning in her chambers and her bag was set on the floor. As Deirdre shut the door another clap of thunder caused her to jump and clutch her hand to her breast. Halfway into the hall, she turned, as if to listen for something, then shut the door overly hard behind her.
