"In Search of Paradise Ch.3" by H. Coyne

The days passed slowly in the desert. The hours were like honey, golden and thick. In Hale's absence Gwyneth and Asrafel continued to keep house and create clothes and vessels. There were things to be dried, seasoned and stewed; fabrics to be dyed and tunics to wash. Gwyneth worked each day as if her father would arrive. She wanted him to return to familiar patterns and the bounty of a dutiful hand. There was no mother to weave a home. It was in Gwyneth's sometime clumsy hands to make Candera a place where their hearts may rest. It was difficult, at times. Gwyneth's spirit was still lively and restless despite her shouldering responsibilities. She wanted to wander the shore and gather shells, to breathe in the light and feel the air. The closest she came to release was her daily lesson with the wrinkled Wylin and Asrafel. Her wadded muscles stretched with the swing and thrust of the blade. All girls were instructed in the basics when they were young, but Wylin was surprised that she could recall so much of her childhood lessons. 

In the third week of her father's absence, Gwyneth escaped from Asrafel and the women to visit the shore. The mist and breeze of the Eastern Sea cooled Candera in the desert clime and allowed for scrub and succulent to grow uncultivated. The sandy beaches were marvelously soft to Gwyneth. She was accustomed to Karadur where the shore wore mail of small stones colored rust, violet, black and grey.

Gwyneth murmured to herself. "How strange that I should miss even the rocks."

The blue- gray sea offered some comfort. She listened to the white gulls and crashing white foam, and prayed to the Creator for her father's return. Gwyneth looked around to make sure she was alone before she took off her sandals and began pull the hem of her tunic, tucking some of it into the cord around her waist. In a childish trot, she splashed calf deep into the cold water and kicked at the surf. She dipped her hands in the water, noting with displeasure how they had been stained rust from coloring fabric. Her mother had long, beautiful, white hands, another pretty thing she did not inherit from Thena. Gwyneth vigorously rubbed sand in her palms and surveyed her fingers again.

"Wonderful. Raw pink instead of rust."

"Hale's daughter!" The voice was colder than the sea and louder than the birds. Gwyneth turned towards the beach to see the Laird's dark-haired daughter on her horse.

Gwyneth yelled into her cupped hands. "I am she. Why do you call me?"

"Come nearer!"

Gwyneth reluctantly sloshed towards the fair rider. Gwyneth's tone was irritated as she spoke.

"What do you need me for, Lady?"

Gwyneth looked closely at the girl. She had her mother's blue eyes and pretty pink mouth, but her father's shrewd look.

"I'm Lady Riona, the Laird's first daughter. My father wants you to stay in the keep with us and help with the work there. He sent me as a messenger to express his favor."

"My handmaiden and I have to keep my father's home in his absence. I'm afraid I cannot stay in the keep," Gwyneth answered.

Riona looked at Gwyneth for an uncomfortable moment, pulling apart what she saw. Gwyneth's cheeks colored under the stare, but she still looked up at the girl defiantly.

"My father thinks it improper that an unwed girl be left alone for so long without a man's guidance. He says he knew your father in their youth and it would be remiss to let an old comrade's daughter live unprotected," Riona finally said. Gwyneth began to answer but Riona kept on. "Come to the keep before the next meal. My home is far nicer than yours in the courtyard."

Gwyneth's tongue burned with all she wanted to say. "But the keep is your home. Not mine."

Riona laughed at Gwyneth. "That hut is yours only because my father gave it to you. And Candera is far from being your home." Her look grew sharp. "And you know this."

"You may pack what you have crafted yourself and bring it to the keep."

Gwyneth fumed as she watched the horse and rider speed down the beach. An unwed girl! Whether or not she had been bartered to one of the ham-handed boys meant nothing in regards to her abilities. Choices were slim anyway. The only boy she ever thought to handfast with was back in Karadur, betrothed to golden haired Eilee. The failed match had wounded her pride more than her heart, but that did not lessen the anguish.

The Laird's audacity threatened her precarious rhythm and comfort. Hale left her free to do as she willed, and now she had to buckle under the Laird or forfeit their position. A shiver began at the nape of Gwyneth's neck when she thought of the monsters the Laird promised to deliver them too. Perhaps he knew of Laranas, hungry for soft fleshes.

Asrafel was informed of the situation in a mumbled growl. Gwyneth was throwing belongings in baskets with a blatant virulence when the Nishani responded.

"This change may be more or less Karadurian. But it is not what it seems."

"If my father was here, no one would bother us."

Asrafel's voice was meditative purr. "But he is not, Karadurian. We cannot wish the world to our will."

"But I can be so troublesome they'll wish they never asked me to come and send me back."

"Or troublesome enough to merit punishment." Asrafel was always looking at all the paths that an action could lead one down. Gwyneth wanted a single quest to focus on, something to build hope for. A hope that would pull her through all the lonely tangles.

"I'll give seven days of good behavior, father should be back by then. If he isn't I'll start picking apart their looms and steeping their ale with bitterroot."

Asrafel rubbed one of her starling colored curls between her fingers. "You should pray and watch, Karadurian. I have heard the whispers of the house from Nishani." Asrafel pinned her lion gaze on Gwyneth. "How is your Nishar now?"

"It was good before we came here. You even admitted to that in our lessons."

"A teacher's pride."

"Haven forbid you deign to show satisfaction."

Asrafel's steady expression barely changed, but Gwyneth caught a softening around her mouth. Gwyneth smirked.

"What do I need a man for when I have you to watch out for me, Asrafel? You'd dress me in armor and keep daggers in my pockets if you could." The Nishani crossed her arms, undaunted by this criticism. Gwyneth sighed heavily. "It's better. I can understand even if I cannot speak it all."

This satisfied Asrafel. The Nishani tapped her ear. Gwyneth had seen the signal a hundred times before and paired it with Asrafel's insistent purr in her mind: "Listen."

Daegal abided by every rule of deference Gwyneth had ever seen or even heard. The tables of his hall were low and high, showing rank and the dishes were burnished bronze or clay. Nishani servants stood in the shaded edges of the room and intruded into the torchlight only to refill goblets. Gwyneth stared at her empty clay plate and thought of her white-haired Dayne. He was a good Dayne who fed all at one great table. They cheered his name and toasted to his generosity in the warm golden hall. She missed the hall's smell of honey and cloves. The recalled perfume made her mouth water and her stomach rumble. The noble family and esteemed warriors were not only served first, but ate first. Only after the first course could the rest of the hall eat in turn. Gwyneth shared the lowest table with handmaidens, while Asrafel was away with the other Nishani.

To her relief, a Nishani servant began to ladle what was left of stew and barley cakes on the handmaidens' plates, but the server stopped before he reached her bowl.

Daegal spoke between mouthfuls. "Let her earn her keep here as the rest do. Sing us a song Keener."

Riona's frost colored eyes became more beautiful as she smiled cruelly. "Yes, Keener, sing for your bread."

Gwyneth flushed and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, trying to control her temper.

"This is a custom I have never encountered before in your brother's hall."

Her retort was unexpected, but surprise did not soften the Laird's heart.

"We do many things differently here. You will learn."

"Now a song." Riona chirped.

The order of things was etched on the foundations of Gwyneth's mind. She knew petulance would gain her and Asrafel nothing but pain, and a Laird's anger could bring ruin upon her father's head. But she bristled and thrashed in her mind, even as she stood to sing.

It was a simple song, buoyant and long enough to spare her further requests. At its end she lowered into her seat and a sense of degradation.

"You're a pleasant enough songbird," Daegal said. "We shall make a habit of this." He nodded to the Nishani. "Give the sparrow her seed."

The stew was cold by the time Gwyneth could shovel it in her mouth, and most the meat had been scooped out for the nobles and warriors. She hoped the Nishani had a better system, so Asrafel was not denied a warm supper.