“So, about last night.”
Bridget glanced up at Syd with a confused look that quickly turned into a dark flush on her green skin.
“Oh, um, maybe I got a little wild there, but Alex and Kerr are so fucking nuts sometimes and I guess I kind of got excited, maybe too excited, so it’s not your fault at all about the bed and—”
“Not that,” Syd interrupted her while trying to hold back a laugh. “And the bed is totally my fault. I weigh twice as much as anyone else. Anyway, I’m talking about before that, during dinner.”
Hesitating, Bridget frowned in concentration as she visibly tried to remember the previous night’s lengthy discussions.
“What about dinner?” she finally asked.
“About, you know, us?” Syd prompted. When Bridget just gave her a blank look, she continued in a whisper. “Our baby?”
The warrior’s face lit up in recognition, then flushed again twice over as the topic truly registered.
“I… haven’t told Ma and Pa yet,” Bridget admitted. “They know we’re serious and all, and they’re happy for me, definitely. I think they like you. Not so sure they like how there’s a group of us, but they’ll get used to it. It’s just that, well…”
Bridget looked around, making sure that no one was close enough to overhear their private conversation. Once she was sure, she stepped a little closer to Syd, arms crossed over her chest as she continued.
“I know you think of us as basically married. We’re not, though. Which is fine! I get wanting to wait until after the war is done and all, I don’t mind that. But I know my parents would mind if you were to stick a pie in my oven without making it, you know, official. So, I haven’t told them. I mean, the pregnancy is on hold anyway, so it’s not like we have to worry about me showing or anything, so what they don’t know can’t hurt them.”
Syd frowned slightly, listening to Bridget’s explanation. When her orc lover trailed off, she put a hand on her shoulder and drew her in closer so she could plant a kiss on top of her head.
“If that’s what you think is best, they’re your family. You know them better than me. But do you really think they’d be all that upset?”
“Probably,” Bridget shrugged. “I mean, one of my cousins had a child with a man before they were married years ago. The whole clan was livid. They demanded the man do the honorable thing and marry her straight away. He refused.”
“Sounds like he wasn’t the kind of guy she should be having kids with to begin with,” Syd scowled at the story.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Bridget let out a short laugh. “Well, Grand Da was still furious. He found the bastard in a town a few days away and beat the bloody shit out of him, right in the middle of the market square, too.”
“When was this?”
“Ah, maybe ten years ago, I think.”
“He could do that at his age?” Syd raised an impressed eyebrow. “Beat a young man bloody?”
“He’s old, not dead,” Bridget smiled wryly. “He’s still got all his skills and stats. He settled in Brightstone to raise a family and start a farm, but he was still a CLR fifty mercenary when he retired. He’s no slouch.”
That number seemed kind of low at first to Jadis, but then she reminded herself that Morley wouldn’t have been getting any bonus experience from fighting Demons. He would have gotten his fifty levels strictly from combat training and battles against other people, which were hopefully infrequent. Aila had once told her that most people didn’t get much above CLR forty under normal circumstances, so him being CLR fifty was actually impressive.
“Well, I hope it all worked out for your cousin,” Syd said after a short moment of silence. “And her baby.”
“Oh, it did,” Bridget nodded with a small smile. “Joss found a man who loved her true and married her a couple of years later. She joined his clan, the Steel Fists. Not because she wasn’t welcome with us, of course, but because he didn’t want to join our clan and she was happy to go with him.”
“Good for her,” Syd murmured. “Glad she found the right guy. But, just to be clear, it sounds like you’re saying that if Grand Da Morley found out about us having a baby, he’d be pissed, right?”
“He would be, yeah,” Bridget nodded. “Ma and Da would be, too. It’s just, you know, they want to hear the oaths before any news about kids. Just in case. I know I’m stuck with you no matter what, but they don’t know that.”
Syd chuckled at the phrasing, which prompted an apologetic look from Bridget. When she opened her mouth to correct herself, Syd waved her off.
“I know, I know. You are stuck with me. I won’t let anyone or anything take you from me. And just to make this clear between us, too: I am absolutely marrying you. You’re my mate, my wife, and the mother of my child. There’s nothing I can think of that’ll stop me from marrying you.”
Bridget looked away, utterly embarrassed by the boldness of Syd’s statement. Her response, when it came, was mumbled softly and almost sounded like it was coming from Thea with how bashful she sounded.
“I—I, well, I’m glad to hear that.”
Jadis was sorely tempted to tease her warrior woman for her shy behavior, but the impulse was interrupted as one of her other selves noted the approach of an official looking man. Since she figured they were about to finally start the meeting, Jadis didn’t want to put Bridget any further off her game. It was time for war faces.
“Brace up,” Syd whispered to her lover. “I think we’re getting called in to meet the count.”
“About bloody time,” Bridget cursed as she straightened her back and wiped some invisible dust from her pauldrons. “I swear, nobles do this shite on purpose.”
“Pretty sure, yeah,” Syd agreed. “Probably some kind of power play. ‘Oh, look at me, I’m so important, I can keep you waiting because you’re no where near as important as I am,’ and that kind of crap.”
Bridget nodded in agreement as they both left the small courtyard alcove they had been sharing and walked together towards the door where everyone else was gathering to meet with Count Holtz’s steward.
That morning, Jadis and her companions had set out from Clan Warsong’s farm and travelled to the seat of the county, Rowantun. The town wasn’t far from Brightstone, only a couple hours’ travel under normal wagon conditions. With Jadis’ agility, it was much, much quicker. They could have taken the Behemoth, but since the trip was so short, they decided not to bother. Especially since they weren’t travelling alone.
Grand Da Morley had insisted on coming with them for the meeting with Count Holtz. He was the head of the clan, after all, so he wanted to be there for any talks about the fate of its farmlands. While Jadis didn’t mind bringing the cranky old orc with them, she figured cramming the wrinkled grump into the back of the wagon with everyone else was a bad idea. So, instead of flying, Jadis had borrowed one of Clan Warsong’s regular wagons, loaded Morley and pretty much all of Fortune’s Favored into the back, and then taken off at speeds that made the cranky grampa yelp.
They arrived in Rowantun early enough that it was still mid-morning, yet even after heading straight for the count’s mansion and announcing themselves in the proper way, they had been left waiting for hours. Certainly, it was past noon by the time the mansion steward, an aged man with the droopiest mustache Jadis had ever seen, escorted them from the honestly pleasant garden courtyard into the mansion proper. The staff had been accommodating, Jadis was willing to concede, since they had provided food and drinks and had even brought out a special cushioned chair for Morley to sit in since he was old and arthritic. But the fact remained that Count Holtz had not come out to greet them and had not even bothered to give them an explanation as to why he was making them wait so long.
While she was remaining tight-lipped, Jadis could tell that Severina was even less happy about the snub than she was. She didn’t think it likely that the paladin was used to being made to wait for lords, especially ones of a lower rank. Really, Count Holtz was doing very little to avoid making enemies, since he was pissing off not only Jadis, but Eir and Severina, who were both the children of margraves. Then again, he probably didn’t care all that much about their opinions, Jadis figured, since he was likely in Prince Hraustrekr’s camp while Severina was solidly in Prince Kestil’s. Jadis didn’t consider herself to be on either prince’s side, and she knew Eir didn’t either, but that probably wasn’t how Holtz viewed things.
Entering the richly appointed dining hall of the mansion, Jadis was finally able to put a face to the name. Count Holtz was easy to spot, as he was the man standing at the head of the long table taking up the majority of the room. There were two men standing to his right, one wearing plate armor and the other wearing a robe and carrying a staff. There were also three women on his left, all garbed in the expensive sort of gowns that nobles tended to wear. Jadis didn’t focus on the others much, instead choosing to examine the count, first.
The man was, in a word, forgettable. He was a middle-aged human, with light brown hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t handsome either. He was almost interesting in just how painfully average he looked, except that he didn’t even pull that much off. The only notable thing about Count Holtz Jadis could see was that he had two diamond stud earrings in each ear. The only other man Jadis had met on Oros who wore earrings was Sholto, the high priest of Destarious. Jadis wasn’t sure if that meant anything since she didn’t know if earrings had any kind of cultural significance or not, but it was pretty much all she had to latch onto when it came to the excruciatingly plain man.
“Good afternoon. I am Count Condrad Holtz,” the man said in an unexpectedly deep voice. “I am sorry for keeping you and your companions waiting, Lady Ahlstrom, but I already had an appointment this morning that I could not cancel.”
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Jay said, not surprised that he already knew about her multi-body nature. She was sure that the nobles in the know back in the capital had spread the news far and wide, at least among noble circles. “I don’t want to waste your time any more than my own, so hopefully we can straighten this all out quickly.”
Jadis caught the way the count flinched at her remark, though he did a good job of maintaining a sociable poker face.
“Allow me to introduce you to my man-at-arms, Herman Brock,” he motioned to the man wearing armor, “and my court mage, Lambert Greene.”
The two men politely greeted her, but Jadis didn’t pay either of them much mind. What she focused on without making it obvious she was doing so were the three women sitting to Holtz’s left. Really, it was the woman sitting directly next to the count she paid attention to, due to the reaction she had to Holtz introducing his two advisors. For some reason, her reserved expression had turned, and she was looking pissed.
The human woman was older, but not elderly. Probably somewhere around fifty years old, with steel gray mixed into her black hair. She had grey-blue eyes and a sharp profile. Jadis had read a book once that described an older female character as a battleaxe, which she had struggled to picture. Now that she had seen this severe-looking woman, she understood the phrase.
Jadis had at first thought that the woman was Holtz’s wife, but now she wasn’t so sure. Why would the man introduce his servants before his spouse? She didn’t have to wait long for an answer as the count soon turned to the woman and, with his lips pressed into a thin line, offered an introduction.
“And this is my peer, Countess Florine Voclain, along with her daughter, Estelle, and her court mage, Leonore Gielgud.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” the countess said as she stood and smiled coldly at Jadis. The two other women stood and curtsied as she spoke, though Voclain didn’t even nod her head. “My cousins have written of you. I am gratified to finally put a face to the name.”
Jadis was one hundred percent certain that she did not feel the same way.
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