Bellica

Ghia-3

Giselle and Jera returned the nod with respect and turned back to their card games. Helene grabbed a candle from a shelf and lit it from one of the torches before heading through the considerably thicker door that led to the dormitories.

The large rooms were silent and dark, filled with bunk beds that held sleeping healers. Quickly Helene made her way through the rooms, looking for the distinctive Miranda. The girl looked quite a bit like Bellica Anala of the second regiment, though she was almost twenty years younger. Helene doubted they were related, for Miranda did not have Anala's distinctive accent, the Harbourtown accent. Besides, one would surely have mentioned the other, had the two been relatives. Family in Athering was large, extensive and acknowledged. Always.

When she got to the final room she was sure she would find the girl, but she did not see that dark black hair atop that dark golden, almost olive skin tone--quite rare in Athering, where cold climates and little sun bred pale people. Helene's eyebrows knit together in a deeper frown. She was a careful observer. She hadn't seen Miranda in any of the rooms, yet the boy had said the girl hadn't been feeling well.

What if the girl had fever, delirium, and was wandering the castle halls in a daze? Quickly Helene made her way back to the common room so she could ask Jera and Giselle, both of whom she trusted more than any other healer save Ghia.

"Miranda?" Jera's deep voice was scratchy, and her frown matched Helene's. "No, she wasn't sick. Told us her shift was over and she was headed to the kitchens to grab a bite to eat." Her eyes flickered to Giselle for confirmation, and the young brunette nodded.

"Didn't look sick to me, either," Giselle said, her sweet soprano voice a contrast to Jera's.

Helene sighed in frustration as she set the candle down and extinguished the flame. "Can either of you tell me what time that was?" Miranda's shift most certainly had not been over; Helene had a full chart worked out in her office. The girl had been on all afternoon until 1900 hours.

Jera and Giselle conferred with each other before the younger one answered. "That must have been around, oh, 1745, I should think?"

Helene glanced at the clock. It was just past 1800 now. The girl had been gone for over half an hour. The kitchens were no more than a few minutes away--even if one took the scenic route through the castle hallways.

"Jera, I hate to cut your break short, but I need to go find the girl. You have the hospitalis."

Jera gave a small healer's salute and stood, not complaining about being called back to work so soon. She never did. Giselle followed her with the same good work ethic that made the two women indispensable to the running of the hospitalis and the Healers' Guild overall.

Helene left her domain in the hands of women she trusted and headed to the castle kitchens to see what she could find out.

Tenea, the head cook, could offer Helene no information. No one in the kitchens had seen the girl, not that evening, nor in the past sevenday. Helene thanked the Harbourtowner--an actual relative of Anala, though they looked nothing alike--who shrugged helplessly.

"If'n I'd be able ta help ye at all, I would, ye ken," the cook said earnestly.

"I realise. Thank you, Tenea," Helene said with a warm smile.

Tenea nodded and walked back into her domain, Helene thought, a bit more stiffly than usual, but she could not spare a moment's notice to it. She had to find Miranda. A sinking feeling told her there was more to Miranda's disappearance than just a young girl's feeling the need to rebel and shirk her duties. Helene knew, through some preternatural sense, that Miranda was up to no good.

Her feet led her to the stables, where she found herself asking the manager, a man trained as a priestess--she could see that by his earrings, and guessed he must be dedicated to Cayusee--if he'd seen a ten-year-old girl who could have been Bellica Anala's sister go by that way.

The man had a habit of nodding a lot, which he did while she explained, as he thought, and even more so as he answered.

"Dark hair, yes? About yea high?" he held his hand at a height that reached Helene's elbow. She made a noise in the affirmative. "Oh, yes. girl came by about, oh, half an hour ago. Asked if she could borrow a castle pony. I seem to remember wishing to tell her no, for it's getting to be late and it's a rambunctious night. Don't want her getting hurt, but...." He frowned, bushy eyebrows joining above his nose, his mouth twisting and making his gray beard and moustache dance. "Don't recall why I said yes, exactly. But she took off into town about quarter to 1800, if I recollect aright."

"I see." Helene said, managing to keep her voice level. Something was not right here, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She thanked the man, who looked somewhat guilty at letting a young child go out on Midwinter Eve, and told him there was no need to worry, for the girl was resourceful and could take care of herself.

Helene hoped it was true, for she wished to give the child a stern talking-to when next she saw her. Unfortunately, that would not be tonight, as she had more work to do in the hospitalis and could not shirk her duties.

Whatever Miranda is up to, I hope it does no great damage.

Yarrow

She'd snarled at Caelum to leave her alone in her quarters after their visit to the hospitalis, and a good thing for his own health he had. If she couldn't spar and had to show up in town that evening, she'd spend the afternoon sulking, she decided.

Soon her sulk turned into a doze upon her bed, and soon after that, a full nap.

She awoke to a banging on her door. Groggily she got up, still in the grips of her dream, and opened the door to stare blearily at her major. He looked down at her, slightly exasperated.

"If you sleep the night away we'll never make it to the Cauldron."

"Nghh," she managed to articulate, and left the door open as she went to her bathroom. He went on talking. She ignored him as she placed her hands on the counter and stared at her reflection the mirror.

Nucalif had aged her. She no longer looked her twenty-nine years--new stress lines around her eyes and mouth made her look more like a woman of forty. New scars, too. The scar on her shoulder from Seigneur Timor during that fateful sword fight in the keep, witnessed by none save herself and Jules, and a scar on her face where a townsperson armed with a rake had gotten in a lucky hit. It had narrowly missed her eye, and now the jagged line ran from her forehead down her cheek to her jawline.

Looking at the frizzy, flyaway hair that had escaped the tight braid she kept it in, she thought she saw some gray among the deep, dark red. She hoped she'd imagined it.

Caelum had fallen silent and was staring at her. She glanced at him briefly, asking him what he was looking at without words.

"You had the dream again," he stated.

She sighed and started to unbutton her jacket. "What if I did?" she asked, tossing the garment to the floor.

"Yarrow, when are you going to talk to a priestess about this?" His face was earnest, as it always was, as he came to the door of her washroom and looked at her, his gaze burning a hole in her side.

She shucked off the rest of her clothing and turned on the taps in her shower. "It's just a crazy dream, Caelum. I'd be wasting her time," she said, and stepped into the shower.

She heard his sigh of frustration and knew he walked back into her room to sit and wait at her desk or on her bed while she washed the sleepsweat from her body.

What would she tell the priestess anyway? "Hi, I'm a bellica and I keep on having a dream about a Goddess." Yeah, you and the rest of the population. Who doesn't dream, or at least think, on Them? You're no different.

The dream never told her anything anyway. It was always the same: she and her sister, as young girls. They stood facing each other, and then she watched a great darkness loom up behind Zardria and swallow her. Yarrow turned her face away from the sight, and saw behind her a Goddess--Kore, she thought, but she couldn't be sure.

That was it. No more; nothing else to explain it. Kore said nothing, and the darkness that had swallowed Yarrow's twin was shapeless, nameless.

If Yarrow were to guess what it meant, she'd say it meant the Goddesses laughed at her plight. They have a wicked sense of humour, after all. Must be funny enough to Them that Zardria and I haven't exchanged any words save those of hate for over two decades. That she wishes me dead while I--foolish as I am and always have been--while I still love her with all the sororial piety that I should. Sure. What Goddess wouldn't laugh at such a situation of a mortal?

Her shower over, she was not in a better mood at all. She wrapped a towel around her body and walked back into her room, where, sure enough, Caelum sat on her bed, leaning his tall frame against the wall, eyes closed. One lid flipped open as she walked in and he regarded her in a cyclopean manner as she searched through her closet for another set of dress grays.

"When was the last time you brushed your hair?" he asked abruptly as she tossed the clothing and fresh underwear on the bed beside him.

Startled, she stopped to think. "Don't know," she said with a shrug. "Can't say it's been on my mind lately."

He sighed affectionately and stood up, heading to her washroom. "Yarrow, if you're not going to take care of that obscenely long hair of yours, you should cut it."

She looked over her shoulder, seeing where the end of her braid hit the backs of her knees. "What's wrong with it?"

He emerged, holding her little-used hair brush. "It looks unkempt," he said flatly, staring at her as if he couldn't believe she could be so oblivious.

She was, usually, but also she just liked to annoy him. "Fine," she said, rolling her eyes as she grabbed her clothes and started to get dressed. "Find a knife and cut it--around the small of my back."

"Why don't I just chop it all off?" he muttered, pulling his boot knife out.

"Because my spouse hasn't died," she said simply, pulling on her shirt. "Quickly now; I want to go get drunk."

She heard him snort, and then felt his hands gently holding her hair. She heard the knife cut through the strands, and then heard the bottom half of the braid fall to the floor. She hadn't cut her hair in over ten years, and it was as if a piece of her had fallen with the braid. For a brief moment, she felt bereft. Then all thought was pushed out of her head and all she could feel was Caelum's hands as he undid the rest of the braid and gently brushed her hair, working out the kinks and tangles with skill and patience.

She closed her eyes and savoured it, a small tenderness she allowed only from him. Though she'd never say it out loud.

Jules

Though he couldn't spend much time with Ghia, for she was working, he found himself having a good time at the Cauldron nonetheless. The food and drink flowed and tasted like ambrosia and nectar. There was the standard ale, of course, the shandygaff Circe's Cauldron was famous for, and hot spiced rum-apple cider, a seasonal favourite, along with a creamy egg drink called noge that was also traditional around this time. On the food menu was roast boar, turkey, what vegetables could be scrounged at this time--cooked expertly--and a sinful array of baked goods: gingerbread, always a favourite, a cake with fruits and nuts in it that only a few seemed to like (Jules being one of them), and orange-squash pie with clotted cream on top.