Vixen’s Mistress

This evening’s dinner had been quiet so far for the Hayward family but that was bound to change at some point. Someone would have something to say eventually, and it appeared as if Kaden was that someone.

“Did you really make the fox the new librarian?” the youngest brother asked between bites of food. Hamish looked up from his meal with a quizzical eye towards his sister, but he didn’t say anything.

Rayne gave a gentle nod before saying, “I did.”

“Why?” Hamish did finally speak now, but his voice wasn’t harsh as one might have suspected someone to react to such news.

“Well, we needed a librarian and Hannah appeared in our lives at the perfect time. She is well educated, fluent in three languages, conversational in a fourth,” Rayne glanced over at Mr. Williams, “and she's not able to run off and sell our books behind our back. Because of her status she quite possibly is the best choice we could make. Granted she might not be as knowledgeable about the care of such old books as a trained librarian, but that is also something I feel could be rectified. All in all, I think it was a wise decision.” Both of her brothers nodded, which felt like a good sign to Rayne. Especially from Kaden.

“What’s the fourth language?” Hamish asked before taking a sip of his wine.

“Its Elven surprisingly. Though from the sound of it she's more adept at reading than speaking it.”

Hamish now looked up with greater interest, while Kaden just narrowed his eyes at her. However it didn’t feel like the feelings driving that action from Kaden were directed at her. “You’re joking.”

Rayne shook her head. “I’m not.” That feeling of pride for Hannah she had felt when Hamish had returned arose in her again.

“Rayne,” Kaden’s voice was already full of suspicion, “are you sure the fox isn’t just saying that? It's Elven. No one speaks Elven. No one knows what it sounds like.”

“I’ve heard that the northernmost parts of Treysia right next to the Divide speak it a little. Though it is mostly ritualistic in nature, not commonplace,” Hamish kindly added. “But does she really?”

“While I can understand both of your apprehensions to the validity of my claim, and have to admit if I was in your position I might not be so inclined as to believe it, I do believe Hannah was telling me the truth.” Rayne wasn’t known for lying, but she was known for being well adept at recognizing when someone is lying. Because of this it was clear that brothers did want to believe her, but she could still clearly see doubt on both their faces. Kaden more so than Hamish. If anything Hamish looked as if to be trying not to get his own hopes up more than doubt.

“Why?” Kaden asked.

“Why do I believe her?” Rayne asked, surprised Kaden really was voicing his doubt.

“No, why does she speak Elven?” His words were surprisingly gentle but also firm at the same time. Rayne had to admit she was rather impressed with the delivery of them, and they remind her of the way their father used to talk. That was where Rayne learned it from and she wondered if he got that from her or him.

“Apparently before the arrival of humans in these lands and the Divide being made, beastkin and elves had a close relationship, to the point that their languages are extremely similar. Though the Divide has served that connection, the Everlian language is still similar enough to Elven.”

“Everlian?”

Rayne finished swallowing a bit of food before answering. “Everlial is the name of the beastkin country on the other side of Ziteas. We just call it the freelands.” She could still see doubt in Kaden’s eyes. Maybe the tiniest hint of anger, but she had to wonder where that anger was placed. Was it at her for sharing this, or was it at how his beliefs might just have been challenged? “If either of you would like a better explanation than the one I have given, I know Hannah would be more than happy to go into detail with you.”

“Is it even a country or is that just the name they have for their land?” Now it was a little more clear that Kaden was upset with the challenges this brought to the things he thought he knew. Still there was curiosity in his voice and Rayne wasn’t going to deny that. Maybe the more he learned about Hannah, her people, and the place they came from, the more his not so pleasant views would change. He just needed to be willing to learn, and hopefully by continuing to ask questions it did mean he was open to it.

“The way she talked about her home made me inclined to believe it was a country and not just freelands, but I will admit I did not press much further. Maybe I should have asked about what kind of government they have in Everlial.” There was conflict inside of Rayne wanting to know more about Hannah’s home but knowing that it could cause her fox heartache for home. It pained her to try and comprehend how homesick Hannah must be and she wanted to relieve that feeling from Hannah. But how could one do that without just taking her home?

A swirling mix of emotions rose up inside of Rayne at the idea of taking Hannah back to Everlial. She would be free again and not hers, and Rayne didn’t like the feelings of upset she had around that. It was so unbelievably wrong of her to feel that way. If she truly didn’t believe in slavery wouldn’t the right thing to do be letting Hannah go? Of course there was the predicament of if she freed Hannah here she would have to find her own way out of the Empire. Rayne could always take her to a place that didn’t enslave beastkin, but that might not be the home that would make Hannah feel better. Was there even a home to go back to for Hannah?

For as intelligent as the people of Dewath were, it was clear very few of them actually knew anything about Everlial. They weren’t taught anything more than that beastkin were savages left to their own devices and that the freelands was a lawless and awful place. It was clearly intentional to make slavery not look so bad, but how did they fool nearly everyone? How did they fool an entire empire into believing all of this? Rayne also had to imagine that the powers at be wouldn’t want this to change even after taking over Ziteas. They wouldn’t want humans to know that beastkin are also just normal people. They wouldn’t want anyone hearing anything about beastkin and their home. That was probably why Rayne had no idea what had happened between Everlial and the Dewath Empire since Ziteas.

Putting some logic to it she could guess that if Everlial had been taken as a whole there might have been some news about ‘Victor over the beast savages’ or something to that effect. So Everlial was still probably standing, but it might not be the same as it had been when Hannah was taken. Even the specific town she had come from might now be under Dewath control. Maybe they had even repopulated it with humans.

“Rayne?”

Rayne suddenly looked up from her dinner at her name being called, but she was so unfocused that she wasn’t sure which of her brothers had called it. “Sorry,” she said to both of them.

“Are you alright? You were really spacing out,” Hamish asked with clear concern in his voice. Even Kaden looked concerned.

“I’m fine, I just have a lot on my mind. One of the meetings I had earlier didn’t go exactly as planned.” That wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t what she was actually thinking in those past few moments.

“Must have gone pretty wrong for you to not notice what I said.”

The lady took a deep breath. “Wrong might not be the right word, annoying would probably be better. But, again, I’m sorry. Please continue.”

“I was saying that I might actually have a way to verify if Hannah really can speak Elven.” There was an instant smile on Hamish’s face at his words.

“And what would that be?” The idea of continuing to prove just how intelligent Hannah was greatly appealed to Rayne.

“Yesterday I attended a rather small and private auction.”

“So that was the reason for joining us on the way to Riverside.”

Hamish gave an affirming nod. “At the auction there was a really old handwritten book of elven poetry.”

“By the Goddess, you get onto me about how much I paid for Hannah, meanwhile you’ve bou—”

Hamish held up his hand and gave a small chuckle. “I didn’t buy it, dear sister.” That took both Rayne and Kaden by surprise. They most certainly had the money to buy something such as that and neither of them could imagine why their brother wouldn’t have bought it. Finally Hamish looked a little sheepish. “I arrived a little late to the auction and wasn’t able to see what was up beforehand. As such I ended up spending the amount of money I had allotted myself before the book.”

Now that felt like a very Hamish thing to do and Rayne fully believed him. Only she still had one question. “Tell me, how much was your allotted amount?”

“Well,” Hamish pierced a piece of meat with his fork before bringing it up to his mouth, “not that much.” Quickly he bit the food, clearly hoping a mouthful would get him out of sharing how much he had spent.

“Hamish.” He pointed at his mouth and the food he was still chewing. “You’re not getting out of this by stuffing your face.”

The lord swallowed probably sooner than he should have, but still he managed. “Nothing unruly, just a couple hundred.”

Rayne raised an eyebrow. “How many hundreds.” He shrugged and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-seven?! What did you buy?” The shock in Kaden’s voice was enough for him and his sister.

“No, if we get Hamish started on that we will never get to the point,” Rayne said gently. She knew her brother too well. Though she had to admit she did fully share Kaden’s curiosity about what he did buy. “What was the point you were trying to get at, brother?”

“Right, as I was saying, I didn’t purchase the book but I am friends with the woman that did.”

“Friends?”

Hamish clearly tried to hold back a blush that was just as bad as Raynes. A family trait that all of the Hayward siblings shared thanks to their father. “Yes, just friends. Anyway,” he said, rushing past the topic, “I could invite her and some other poetic friends to a reading, delivered by your fox of course. A good way to prove if Hannah really does speak Elven, and a nice way to bring some poetry into our home life.”

The lady gave a nod before turning to Kaden. “Do you think you could put up with an afternoon of Hamish and his “poetic” friends?” She gave him a smirking smile.

Kaden returned the smirk before crossing his arms. “I don’t know. Maybe if we heard more about this Miss…” The youngest brother gave the middle child an expectant look.

“By the Goddess, I shouldn’t have said that part,” Hamish quietly muttered to himself. “Does her name really matter at the moment?”

“Yes,” both of the other Hayward siblings answered at the same time.

~~~

The day had been an interesting day to say the least, at least internally for Hannah, and she was ready to sit down and enjoy a nice meal. It was made even nicer by no longer having to rush to make sure she had time to teach Derek before going to see her mistress. There was a slight pause as Hannah picked up her fork as her thoughts for the umpteenth time today went back to Rayne. She quite literally had to shake the thoughts away, and thankfully everyone else at the table too were enamored with their first bites of food to notice. It was one thing to have her thoughts wander while no one was going to interact with her, but here at dinner it felt worse. Even if she was still unsure of starting up a conversation with people.

“Do you really speak Elven?” Richard asked Hannah from across the table.

Hannah looked up a little shocked at how he might have known that. The whole table was looking at her. This was a growing occurrence and Hannah wasn’t the happiest about it. Being the center of attention wasn’t always that fun for her. At least not in a big group like this.

“You speak Elven?” Eda asked and that surprised Hannah even more. If people were going to know about that she would have at least expected Eda to know. She had the feeling there wasn’t much that Rayne didn’t share with Eda, which made her wonder if she had been told about what happened last night.

Feeling a blush grow on her face, Hannah quickly looked back down at her food. “I wouldn’t say I’m fluent, but I could get by in a conversation.”

“Such a liar,” Anna muttered to herself. Thankfully Anna had recently moved from her usual seat to one further down the table away from Hannah. The fox wondered how the other staff felt about that considering Hannah would find it upsetting to change from her usual seat.

“It is not a lie, but I really am not that fluent.” It wasn’t the worst Elven Hannah had spoken, but it was rusty and she didn’t like that. She doubted anyone would be able to tell though. If someone did it would just make her excited to talk in something other than Celian. Hannah glanced up to see everyone stared at her a little wide-eyed. “I am a little rusty.” It felt good to admit that, even if no one would understand.

“Looks like you’ll be polishing the silver tonight,” Richard said with a smirk directed at James.

“I do not appreciate members of this staff making bets about the intelligence of other staff,” Mr. Williams said, causing both of the other men to look a little embarrassed. Then Stewart gave a little bit of a smirk himself. “That being said, James, your polishing is far superior to Richards and I will very much appreciate your help tonight.” Now it was James turn to smirk.

“It’s odd for you to ask for help in polishing the silver,” Eda said from her end of the table.

He nodded. “Normally I prefer to do it myself, but I will admit, I have a new book I am eager to read.” Mr. Williams gave a very small, but clearly happy smile towards Hannah. 

The fox returned his smile, feeling far happier than she might have thought she would. Being able to give what was for all intents and purposes a gift was such an amazing feeling. Especially one that was so clearly enjoyed. She hoped once he had read some that they might have a conversation about it, even if it had been so long that she might not recall all that he had to talk about.

“Have you ever met an elf?” Neila asked from across the table from Hannah.

“No. Elves never cross the Divide, but I have heard some fisherman come across their ships off of the Forbury coast.”

“I’ve never heard of the Forbury coast,” Mr Williams said, a little intrigued.

“It's on the northeastern side of Everlail. I don’t believe even Treysia stretches that far east to reach the sea, unless things have changed in the past seven years.”

“Do all beastkin from Everlial speak Elven,” Eda asked.

Hannah shook her head. “No. My father had some old elven books. Some other people in my village spoke a little, but no one was as well versed as my father or I. Now it's really only a language you learn for fun instead of something that can be used in the norm.”

“Would you say something else?” Neila asked.

Memories of the night before when Rayne asked Hannah to speak in her native tongue flashed through Hannah’s mind. Would the lady want to hear more of her language in the future? What if Hannah was able to teach her mistress some. The idea of speaking to Rayne in Everlian filled Hannah with quite a bit of joy. “What would you like me to say?” Her words were met with the same kind of awe from those who were impressed before.

“What did you say?”

Hannah smiled. “I asked what would you like me to say.”