17.2
Jewel had to put in effort to not show her disappointment at the personal demesne of her friend and fellow vassal under Cantor Reborn. But after seeing the wonders of old Cantor construction in the foundations of so many great cities, Mokoshbork lacked anything close to even the modest roots of Fort Rochford.
The fortress was large, wider than Fort Rochford or Kaeketeh’s Keep, its walls high, with towers artfully crafted.
But where the Palace grounds of Terminapolis was marble in black and white, and Burning Depth’s Ford’s own keep and guest wings were almost half old Cantor temples in its walls and placed upon a bridge of the same?
Mokoshbork was built entirely in earth, timbers and red brick. Moreso it was not even finished!
The oldest structure was the keep and shrine, and those were younger than Jewel’s childhood home by centuries. It rose tall but even as they approached she could feel a feebleness in the red ‘stones’ youthfully baked from clay barely years old in places, held together merely by mortar and weight on the stacked red brick with oaken supports to help keep them straight from behind. The outermost walls were still little more than earthen hillocks!
Beside her rode Imre, breaking off from the usual place he rode with amid the Twins and his own Captain. Close enough to speak without having to shout over half the entourage.
“Grandfather finished the inner grounds before he died, Father always talked about how he’d finish the outer walls during his reign but-”
Jewel heard and smelled pain on the boy, the man that was to marry her sister. She interrupted his attempt at doubt.
“Even if he should perish tomorrow he would do so assured you will finish what he laid down and he will be proud of you for it, Imre.” Jewel spoke softly even as her voice was deep enough to make his bones tremble, motherly in the way Bethica had taught her she could be. With the assurance of the character she understood of her long time friend.
She spotted the hint of wetness in Imre’s eyes but did not comment, letting him look ahead with his honor so the summer heat could dry what incontinence had slipped free from his face.
The man who Jewel could still barely see as more than a boy nodded at her words then whispered softly enough he was obviously speaking for her ears only, barely a breath passing his lips.
“Thank you Lady Jewel, and I am sure your father is proud of you and all you’ve done as well.”
Her heart clenched, seized, then began to beat twice as hard as before, her throat tightened with the words that wanted to crawl like stabbing knives out of her mouth. He was wrong, her father wouldn't be proud, how could he, she had-
The man’s hand on her shoulder broke off the pained roiling, a pinched brow in a face she remembered being far younger than it was, the boy already had lines in places, he had a scar she’d not seen before he started courting Gwenn.
Imre was a man, he had a youthful if full beard on his chin, but it was so hard to not see his infancy in that face.
“Lady Jewel, are you well?”
Had she let her expression slip? Had she failed to uphold the grace and resolve of her station? She focused on mastering her face, she focused on her wings and neck, kept her tail languid and flowing, not overly stiff or still.
“I-I’m fine, Countson Imre, I just...” Was she really going to say this, the words burned in her throat, all the things she knew that she deserved to say. No she couldn't-
“Gwenn says you blame yourself, that the... the strangeness with you and your daughters helps show it so she can tell, she’s so furious with you about it you know? But she admits that she is also afraid for you.” his voice is again a whisper’s breath from not even leaving his throat.
Jewel did not stumble, her practice and mastery of herself was far too well trained, but she found the words dying on her tongue all the same. She could not have this conversation with a throat as large as hers, or a voice that carried so far, yet the weight in her belly felt far too heavy, she had to speak.
She hummed, so deep as to be all but unfelt by men, so high that only the horse’s ears pricked. At the rear of the camp with Gwenn, she heard the shift in her dress and the leather of her tack as one of the twins nodded to Smithson and Jewel’s sister. Then the gentle squeak of her spawn’s legs against the sides of the charger that they had brought just for the spectacle of their arrival in Mokoshbork.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Jewel’s muteness hung in the air, dragging on as she heard the unhurried sound of hooves from her spawn’s steed making her way ahead of the party.
Unaware, Imre finally tried to continue; “She’s afraid that-” only for a slender scaled hand to land on his shoulder, Jewel having slid in her march to walk along the side of the road so that a second horse could easily keep pace abreast of Imre’s own steed.
She was her daughterspawn, Eunika was her, the awareness of the horse, the happy and yet concerned murmuring present in her memory. The heat of the summer sun, the chill of the more northern wind, the faintest smell of salt in the air.
And now with a throat capable of speaking soft enough and leaning close to the man’s ear Jewel whispered. With a tongue ever so slightly longer than Gem’s ever had been, with a timbre that could sing just so much closer to her wyrmish throat. Yet high and soft and birdlike for how much smaller she was then Jewel.
Trilling rather than buzzing.
“I and my father, the Lord Rochford, parted with bitter words between us.”
For a moment Imre’s face contorted in confusion, scandalized horror and then a moment of realization. Jewel did not even deign to guess what he briefly misunderstood.
Mouthing the words ‘wyrmish strangeness’ before he ‘whispered’ back to her spawn and her.
“But he was your father! So you quarreled? So have I and my father, even more of late, his spirit has not taken well to his long illness, it makes his ire rise easily. But what you said is still true! You were right he would still be proud of me wouldn't he?!”
Jewel again did not stumble, but she felt both of her faces freeze, her necks clenching hard to try and pull back, even as she maintained the soft rhythmic step of her gait and the poise in the saddle, almost floating with each bound from the support of her flame, carried by the steady trot of a war horse’s gait. Gentle, slow strides that had the rest of the party almost needing to break into a trot and the shorter legged of the entourage on foot to march ever so faster than an easy amble.
Imre glanced over at Eunika, looked Jewel in her spawn’s eyes before turning up to her, to the towering head held over the both of them.
“Did you lie to me?”
“No, of course not Imre.” She could only whisper in her spawn’s throat.
He nodded, and again she saw the tears threatening to break free from his eyes.
“Do you think my father cares more for me than your own did then? Was all I’ve heard of Lord Rochford false? Was he not as honorable and good a man as you and others have said?”
“No” Jewel nearly spoke with her wyrmish throat, strangling her breath tightly in the neck longer than Imre was tall thrice over, instead Eunika’s managed to just keep the words small, quiet, softly chirping.
He gave a heated glance of anger to Eunika, then guided his horse a little closer to Jewel and with great care struck her just under the join of her wing to her mid shoulder. Careful to keep one knuckle out in just a particular way.
Rapping into a very particular spot ‘just’ so.
For this Jewel did stumble, the sudden burst of mortifying ticklish horror washing over her in a spasm that brought shouts of alarm from the rest of the caravan behind her. She regained her composure, stumbling barely a moment, muttering out in a far too strained tone that she had ‘tripped’ but Eunika’s glance to her twin-self confirmed that both her spawn and more importantly Gwenn and Smithson did not believe it.
Her sister especially was grinning with far too many knowing teeth. Imre was oblivious to the mockery coming from behind him.
“Then stop that nonsense! What’s good enough for the gander is good enough for the goose.” Imre’s voice was steady, as if he’d not just forced an utterly mortifying reaction out of her.
She squinted down at him with her proper Wyrm eyes. The flush on his cheeks was not entirely fury by her nose. Eunika’s scent of him agreed. But he had pressed on bravely despite his own embarrassment.
The youthful, impertinent, bearded and worst of all tickling brat continued talking.
“If my father will be proud of me in my work after he is gone, then yours definitely already is.”
Jewel was left to stare at herself as Eunika as he slowed his horse’s pace to rejoin the delighted yammering of her sister who was already audibly praising and admonishing him for exploiting Jewel’s ‘weakness’.
The fool of a boy couldn't be right of course, her father must hate her for failing him, for sending him to his death. She was sure of it, yet neither Jewel’s lips nor Eunika’s would obey her desire to stop smirking.
There would be a reckoning for Gwenn’s betrayal, intimacy with one’s husband was one thing, but how dare her sister reveal Jewel’s ticklish spots!