Chapter 18

Her rescuer was none other than the boor who had assaulted her at the feast the night before: Lord Severus.

As she turned to flee, the young man jumped in front of her to block her escape. “Don’t touch me!” her fright caused the words to sound slightly hysterical.

Aurelian put his hands up in a gesture of feigned surprise and non-aggression, “I promise, I won’t touch you—only don’t run away!”

He stood there looking completely innocent, even nonchalant—as though she had no reason to be angry with him. She didn’t have to suffer his company or advances just because he was the spoiled son of a governor!

“Get OUT of my way! I’m warning you.”

“You’re warning me?” he snorted as his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t budge.

“Yes, you have no right to detain me.”

“I happen to have every right—I can do anything I like with you. Do you not know who I am? I could have you killed for speaking to me in such a manner.”

“I don’t care, only get out of my way.” Even as she spoke Daelia knew what the consequences would be. Once she opened her mouth, however, she couldn’t stop the torrent of sharp replies from being unleashed upon the shocked young lord. A certain level of frustration, anger, and exhaustion had been reached, overcoming her better judgment. The servile mask which she had tried so hard to keep in place for the last year was quickly cracking, while the real Daelia—the one who could hunt bear, climb mountains, and survive for weeks alone in the woods—refused to be ignored any longer.

“You are not afraid of me?”

“Why should I be? You are just an ill-bred fool, masquerading as someone important.”

“I saved you! Maybe I should have just left you alone with him.”

“I could have gotten away by myself, thank you, and would have been spared seeing your unsightly face again.”

Aurelian took a surprised step backwards. Insulted by a servant—and after he had rescued her from certain degradation. Neither had he ordered her immediately beaten for her response to him at the feast earlier that evening. Ungrateful!

And scared.

The girl was shaking visibly beneath her too-large serving dress, the same one that she had been wearing at supper. Her eyes were wide, breathing fast, and fists clenched—ready for a fight should he move any closer.

He should have been angry, even furious. In such a situation his father would have ordered a disrespectful servant immediately flogged or put in the stocks, and this girl he probably would have killed on the spot. But the last thing he wanted to be was his father.

“Please, my lord,” the girl sighed as though she’d suddenly lost her will to fight him, “Just let me return to my quarters. The day has been long and difficult, made far worse by what just happened. I have only a few hours to sleep before I must be back in the kitchen preparing for the departure of you and the other guests.”

The words struck Aurelian’s conscience, and the prick felt a little bit like guilt. There was also, perhaps, an equal portion of dismay over realizing that he might have been partly to blame for the girl’s distress. The urge to apologize, however, was quickly dismissed; she was, after all, a servant.

Without a word, he stepped aside. With the path now clear, the girl immediately brushed past him and disappeared down the corridor.

------------------------

Aurelian re-entered his bed chamber, closing the heavy, wooden door behind him. Another servant had been there earlier to build up the fire, and the flames still burned brightly, adding some warmth to the drafty room. He sat in a straight-backed chair for a while, sipping a goblet of watered-down wine and staring thoughtfully into the fire.

After a time, though, he arose, undressed, and settled into the comfortable bed. It was late and he was tired, yet sleep managed to elude him. With hands behind his head, he stated up at the fabric of the bed’s richly embroidered canopy, thinking.

Very few things had bothered his conscience in the past—at least not matters of an ethical nature, and especially matters not directly affecting him personally. So many thoughts had been bothering him over the recent months, and there they were again, all trying to crowd in at once. It was difficult to keep so man loose ends untangled in his mind, but recent events were beginning to fill in some of the missing links. Now, finding himself with time on his hands, he began to sort through the pieces.

Perhaps his first mistake had been assuming that the matters troubling his mind had nothing to do with him. For instance, whatever Father decides to do with the city now will eventually be something I have to deal with myself.

The thought of the Governor’s inevitable appointment with mortality usually cheered him up a little, but this time it didn’t. As the only child of Deveral Severus, Aurelian would be expected to continue his father’s legacy and uphold the laws and standards established by the elder governor during his reign. As straightforward as the concept was, the thought of serving as a mere continuation of his father left a sour taste in his mouth.

First, he wasn’t sure he agreed with the way his father had chosen to handle the peasantry, or for that matter, the nobles. The executions on trumped up charges, the forced slavery, the endless increase in taxation, the diversion of public funds into the ‘nobility allowance”—it just didn’t sit well with him. Yet, the system seemed to be firmly established and his future job would be to preserve, even increase, its power.

Second, this arrangement of marriage to Livea Vitalis made very little sense strategically. Her brother was wealthy and respected, yes, but an alliance between the houses of Severus and Vitalis held no obvious advantage for Severus politics. “Why her?” he wondered out loud, frustrated at the discovery of yet another missing detail, “What does Father know that I don’t? He never does anything without first determining how it might benefit him.” Unless…maybe it hadn’t been the governor’s idea at all.

That brought Aurelian directly to his third concern: the High One. His skin crawled at the mere thought of the governor’s personal priest and advisor. He had grown up watching the High One. The old man often stood beside governor’s seat during private court councils and led the divining rituals in the dark, smoky halls of the temple. His white robes denoted him as a member of the druid priesthood, as did the shaven head and strange tattoos.

Aurelian had learned at a young age that his father did nothing or made any decisions without first seeking the council of the High One. At times it was difficult to know whether the governor’s thoughts and deeds were his own or those of his advisor. The High One holds, among many other powers, the ability to divine the future, his father had once told him. Only a druid has a thorough knowledge of the magic arts, so to have one as my advisor is to benefit from that knowledge. Such power can be used to our advantage, and only a fool would ignore it.

The memory was of a twelve-year-old Aurelian, who had just finished expressing his discomfort in the druid’s presence and his even greater displeasure with his father’s expectation—order, really—that his son would also seek out druidic power in his own future governorship. To Aurelian’s eventual realization and relief, however, druids were few and far between. They were also, despite their alleged power over nature, subject to an ordinary lifespan, and the High One was not young.

Severus made his respect and implicit trust in his advisor a well-known fact, but his Aurelian saw and recognized the evil in the druid’s cool eyes. Evil and something else: confidence.