Chapter 1: Courtesy and Concern

                    CHAPTER I: Courtesy and Concern
         Leading her mount, the Lady Eleana Carochild de Fliegen limped through the East Gate into the castle compound and followed the broad path around the high wall to the stable yard.  The new groom ran to take the reins, and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of her disarray.
         “I am not hurt, just bruised and dirty.  Just take care of the mare. Greyling stumbled over a large stone in the path, and I thought she should not have to carry me.  Check her right foreleg when you put her away, Carlan.  I felt it carefully, and it seemed all right, but of course, I am not the expert that you are.” 
                He flushed at the implied compliment and nodded deferentially.  “My lady, come and sit down here on the mounting block.  Do you want the Healer?  Or shall I bring the Nanny here?  What happened; did Greyling fall? Did she throw you?”
                “I can see that you are torn between your concern for me and your fear for the horse. Don’t shake your head at me, I know you are fond of the mare, and she is in your charge, not I.  I want no one, especially not Nanny; she’ll scream at me for losing my hat.  There was no help for it; the stone was right in the middle of the trail, just after the turn onto the river path.  We neither one of us saw it in time to avoid it.  I slid over the mare’s neck, an easy tumble.  Thank goodness I had slowed Greyling to watch some redbirds scolding a crow, so we weren’t on our usual gallop, or I might have sailed off into the river.  As it is, only my pride was hurt.”  She sat gingerly and regarded her torn riding skirt, pushed at the hair falling around her face.
                “So, Carlan, is Greyling injured?”
                  He was already kneeling to check the mare.  There was no mark and she didn’t flinch at his touch.  Rising, he led Greyling a few steps, watching her carefully.  “I think not, Lady Eleana.  After I tend to Greyling I’ll go and remove the stone from the path.”
           “No need; I moved it myself.  I didn’t try to lift it, but it was rounded, and I just rolled it out of the way.”  She raised her hands in a defensive gesture.  “Now don’t scold me, I was careful not to put my hands on a serpent.  And Carlan, I do try to watch the path.  All the same, I never noticed that stone before, and I ride down to the river nearly every day.  It was quite large; I could have used it to step up to the saddle.” 
         “Oh, Lady! Don’t go out alone any more, say you won’t.  I donno what I would do if you should come to any harm.”
         “And I donno what I can do to make you worry less about me.  I promise you, I will try to be careful, Carlan.  See you, there was just a small accident, but I was worried about Greyling.  After all, who would want to harm me or my horse?  I am an unimportant foreigner, and I don’t carry a heavy purse.  But I do thank you for your courtesy and concern.”  She winced as she rose from the mounting block, answered his bowed head with the little half curtsy called a dip, and turned toward the palace. 
                Biting his lip, Carlan hurried into the stable, leading the mare.  The stable master, Ruller, grinned. 
                “Growing fond of our lady Eleana, aren’t you?  Yah, I like her too.  But don’t let any of the high-borns know about it.  They’re a jealous bunch.  Well, she’s not a true beauty like our new young Duchess, but she is pretty enough.  And I’d like to know where she got those green eyes.  ”
          “What is wrong with --uhf!--green eyes, Master Ruller?” Carlan spoke over the saddle, as he heaved it up onto a long rack, and smoothed the blanket beside it.  “Do you think she would be prettier if her eyes were a different color?”  He removed the bridle.  Greyling nuzzled his shoulder, but stood still, anticipating an enjoyable grooming . 
         Ruller's grin grew broader.  “O, the lady does well just as she is.  Her eye color is a matter of idle curiosity.  Mind, we’ve been asked to keep our eyes on her, discreetly.”  He handed Carlan the currying brush.  “I would enjoy that job myself, but then, that wouldn’t be so discreet, would it?”
         “No, Master.  But I wish she wouldn’t insist on riding alone.” Carlan removed an apple from his cloak.  Mouth full, he gave the rest to the mare, and began to curry her down.
         The stable master watched him a moment.  “Persuade the Lady Eleana that she wants your company.  Ask her to teach you something, anything.  She is companion to the young Duchess because she was her tutor, so that would be a natural request.  However you manage it, she must not go out alone.  I‘ll back you, whatever story you tell her.”
         Carlan’s head was down, brushing Greyling’s front forelocks.  He raised his head, seeking Ruller’s eyes.  “Does this have to do with the dead messenger the guard found beside the east wall yesterday?”
         Ruller hesitated and then chuckled, but his face was grim.  “Too right, young Carlan.  You have, what, sixteen years?  To our people, that makes you a man.  And now you will take up a man’s responsibility, no?”
         “Have I a choice?  I did promise to do my best at whatever task you saw fit to give me, and now I will guard the Lady Eleana with my life.  And I turned seventeen six months ago.  Was the dead man one of our people?”
         “In a manner of speaking.  He was a Trintean, but still one of us in some ways.  Sympathetic, you might say.  We won’t know what message he had for us.  But he carried an innocent message for the palace, of course, perhaps just greetings for Eleana from her father.  Lady Eleana,” he corrected himself.          
         “Is her father. . .”
         “Don’t ask, Carlan.  What we don’t know can’t hurt us—or you, or the sweet lady.  Messengers carry messages, that’s their job, see, and most of them are nothing to do with us.  We don’t ask about them, just like we don’t ask why the Lady Eleana’s skin is so fair for a Trintean, or her eyes are green.  We just pray that they don’t think too much of that in the palace.”
         “Ah.”  His gray eyes narrowed.  More to think about.
         “Ah, indeed.  You’ve been here a fortnight, and you’ve already learned a few things.  You were sent here to learn, were you not?”
         “I thought I was sent to learn about horses.”
         “That too, Carlan, that too.”


                Eleana entered the palace through the kitchens, and made her apologies to the major domo and cook for missing tea.  She picked up some cheese and a chunk of the baker’s popular spiced bread. Nodding courteously to the servants who were preparing the food for the meal in the great hall, she slipped up the back stairs to the family quarters.
         Cook smiled; the major domo frowned and looked down his nose.  “Young commoner, she thinks she’s as good as our Family.  Just because she has the favor of Our Lady Marelle gives her no right to poke her nose about down here.  Did you see the state of her clothes?”
         “Don’t give yourself airs, Brindler; the lady does not.  She had the courtesy to come and speak to us before tending to herself.  Any of the others would have sent a page and demanded a tray be sent up, no matter that we are so busy.  Seems to me such manners are a sign of good breeding, even if her father doesn’t have a title.  You should be glad someone of that lot thinks of our comfort.”
         “I’m always glad to give her a bit of my bread,” Baker put in.  “She’s too thin, that one, always at the beck and call of the Lady Marelle.  To us below stairs, she says thank you and please, just like we are not obliged to serve her.  I for one like to be treated nicely.”
         “Bah,” said Brindler, and stomped away to terrorize the footmen; kitchen staff did not give him the respect his position demanded.
         The Duchess Marelle’s quarters were on the fourth floor, just under the garret dormitory for the women servants (The footmen slept in the guard house, inside the castle bailey, and married couples lived in the village).  The long hall was cool and drafty, with unglazed windows facing North and South.  Half way down, a guard stood outside the nursery door, directly across from the ornate entrance to the Duchess Marelle’s reception room.  He saluted as Eleana passed by, acknowledging him with a nod and a smile.
         She walked quickly past half-open doors and slipped quietly into her own large room, a study and bed chamber combined, at the south end of the hall.  The room was quiet; the candle on her study table was glowing and a neat pile of clean linens lay in a chair.  The chambermaid had come and gone.  With a sigh, she passed across to the narrow window that overlooked the East Road.  There was no one on the road.  She continued watching as she stripped off her soiled and torn clothing.  Then, with a shrug, she walked over behind a screen, poured water into a porcelain bowl and began cleaning away the evidence of her tumble onto the river path, pausing frequently to gaze out to the East.
         From the castle keep a bell began to toll: time for changing of the guards.  In a few minutes, the hall outside her door would be bustling as the ladies of Marelle’s court gathered to go down for the evening meal in the great hall of the palace.  Eleana scribbled a note and gave it to the guard in the hall.  He would deliver it to the Duchess when she left for dinner; the guard going off duty always accompanied the ladies downstairs.
                Her window looked out on a lawn with a maze and on to the ramparts of the East wall that surrounded both the old castle and the newer grand palace.  The forest road came out of the woods and rolled up the hill toward the wall, where it divided.  Important visitors were led to the great South Gate, while servants and commercial visitors followed a narrower path to the East Gate, where Eleana had entered not an hour earlier. Winding through the forest, the East Road joined the broad South Way, leading across the plain to the broad river valley that divided Ramant lands from Trinte.  South Way was the main route for commerce and all other travel between the two countries.  At the junction, a large inn and a few smaller buildings served those travelers not prepared to sleep unsheltered in the forest.  The East Road continued past the junction, dwindling to a path scarcely wide enough for a peddler’s cart, and headed into the mountains that marked the border of the Shay Lands.  Beyond the Shay People’s heavily forested mountains, the land fell away to desert, populated by a few fierce nomads.  And beyond the desert, the sea had curved northward from the inlets and bays of Trinte.
There was a clanging of armor, the tramp of boots, and half a dozen men were standing outside the East Gate.  There were Ruller and Carlan, and a young stableboy, each leading two horses.  The guards mounted and left on the gallop, straight down the East Road.  Eleana wondered why they were leaving the castle so late in the day.  Probably, she thought, there was something happening about the dead man found yesterday.  Had he been the messenger from Trinte she had been watching for?  Perhaps, she thought.  Yes, very likely, and there would be no message from her father today, or tomorrow, or the next day.
                “I want my father,” she whispered softly.  “I want to go home, please, Father.”
                The responding whisper was rasping and loud. “So sad, and too bad, girl.  You will stay where you are.”