I Cheated, of Course

"A ten year old girl murdered my unborn child," Lady Snowpearl said, and Sera and Six both shuddered. "That was when I decided there had to be changes. I filed for divorce and reached out to Redwillow. He did not want to break off his engagement, so with his fiancee's consent we agreed to a contract for children."

"A what?" Sera blurted out.

'Being mated doesn't mean you're compatible,' Six said. 'Look at me and Three.'

'Three's an idiot, and he cares more for you than he wants to admit,' Sera thought back. And then berated herself for sharing the latter thought. Six would not benefit from false hope that Three would learn to appreciate her.

"A contract for children," Lady Snowpearl repeated. "It wasn't common at the time, and it's even less so now, but . . . it does happen. In fact, that is part of what I would like you to consider. But that is only part."

She took another sip of her coffee, made another face, and then muttered, "This is in tolerable."

As Lady Snowpearl went and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, Sera tried to wrap her head around the idea of a contract to have children. She supposed it wasn't all that odd. But how would she have felt if, instead of filing for divorce, her ex-husband had announced he'd arranged to have another woman bear children for him? Would she have agreed? Or would she have called him every name she could think of and filed for divorce?

'And that's why it's not common,' Six said silently, amusement clear. 'It sounds perfectly reasonable. After all it's just a contract. No emotions involved. With modern medicine, the pair don't even actually have to have sex. But someone always gets jealous. No doubt because there's so many movies and novels and songs about how your mate isn't just a genetic match, but the perfect match for your soul. There's hundreds of stories about mates kept apart, or giving up everything to be together, or falling in love after they contract with each other. And supposedly the sex with your mate is completely different than with anyone else.'

'Mmm hmm. Before your mind wanders too far down that line of thinking, allow me to point out that Three is not MY mate,' Sera said. Six gave a mental smirk.

'You were appreciating his finer points just as much as I was earlier,' she pointed out wickedly.

'I will agree that he is very easy on the eyes,' Sera conceded, determinedly not thinking about Three's 'finer points'. 'Just remember that it's not just you and Three at the moment. It's you, Three, me, and Gunnar.'

"Who is Gunnar?" Six asked aloud. At which point Sera realized that Six was not aware that Three had a Traveler of his own, nor did she know about the agreement Sera had made with him. But now was not the time to explain. Captain Nightfire was frowning at Six in concern, and Lady Snowpearl had returned to the table. 'We need to deal with Lady Snowpearl right now, but you missed a lot last night.'

"Gunnar?" Lady Snowpearl inquired.

"Err," said Six, uncertainly.

"An acquaintance," Sera supplied. Captain Nightfire's frown deepened, suggesting she'd noted the difference. Sera turned to her and nodded in greeting. "My name is Sera Conroy. I am Six's guest."

The captain's eyes widened and her lips moved to form the word, 'Traveler', but she didn't actually speak. After a moment her gaze flicked to Lady Snowpearl, and then back to Sera and Six. She bowed as best she could from her chair and said formally, "We are honored by your presence."

Sera snorted, "We'll see how you feel about that in a week, if we're still here."

A smile tugged at the corners of the captain's mouth, but she said nothing. Sera turned back Lady Snowpearl and prompted, "You were telling Six the terms for your protection."

"I thought Travelers were supposed to be diplomatic," Lady Snowpearl observed. Sera gave a small shrug, and she and Six waited. The noblewoman sipped her coffee and then sighed. "You understand now, I trust, why the fact that you are my son's mate is so important?"

It was Six who answered. "Yes and no. I understand that there are very few women of your line remaining. But you must have blood ties to other houses. You could choose an heir from among those."

"I can," Lady Snowpearl agreed. "And that is what I expected I would do until you arrived. In fact I've even begun reaching out to some of my cousins in other houses. But it's not as simple as merely drawing a name out of a hat and declaring that woman to be the heir."

"Why not?" Six asked. She was genuinely curious, leaning forward to rest her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. "I understand that it's not 'How Things Are Done' in noble houses, but normal families do it all the time when there's no mated couple to inherit the land or the business."

"Because my aunts and sisters and cousins nearly destroyed this family fighting over it, and the other Houses have been picking at our bones since then," Lady Snowpearl answered. "I told you I contracted with Redwillow for children. Our contract was for four daughters, or ten children, whichever came first. After my first son's birth I approached the council and attempted to claim the seat as Lady Llinn. They told me I had to wait until Goldenmaple's daughters were old enough to make their own claims, or it wouldn't be fair. The youngest was three years old at that point, so I had to wait another seventeen years. Seventeen years during which Goldenmaple's offspring tried to kill my sons--and me--repeatedly. Seventeen years during which they built alliances within the House and outside it, building power. Seventeen years during which five of them managed to find their mates and whelp children. By the time the youngest was twenty and the council agreed to settle the succession, the house was so badly divided that we could easily have been overrun by any of the major houses."

"Why weren't you?" Six asked.

Lady Snowpearl smiled sourly, "Because too many of them had ties to one of my cousins. None of them were willing to risk a confrontation with all of the others if they acted. So they all waited to see if they'd backed the winning candidate."

She paused and sipped her coffee, and gave another sour smile. "As the youngest was presumed to be at the most disadvantage, she was allowed to decide the method for how we would settle who would be the next Lady Llinn. And because she didn't want her sisters around plotting against her after she was seated, she chose Right by Combat."

Six goggled, and asked, "Is that even still legal?"

"The council had the same question," Lady Snowpearl said, with a more genuine smile. "So they inquired with the Court. After eight weeks of debate, the Queen announced that it was still legal. Apparently she had a bet with one of her Ladies in Waiting on the outcome."

"And you won," Six concluded. Lady Snowpearl nodded grimly.

"I won. We were paired off according to age, with the youngest allowed to sit out the first combat, because, of course, she was at a disadvantage because of her youth. She sat out the second round, as the winners of the first fought one another, and the third, for the same reason. Obviously, I won all three of my fights. I offered my opponents mercy, but only one accepted it. She is now Shield Maiden," Lady Snowpearl said. She paused and said thoughtfully, "We get along quite well now that she is no longer part of the House. Or possibly it's that it's been almost forty years."

"I'm not sure I could make peace with someone who killed my sisters," Six murmured.

"It did take time," Lady Snowpearl acknowledged. "And Goldenmaple's daughters were not close to each other. Remember, they'd spent their lives scheming to seize power and they plotted as much against each other as me."

"And the youngest?" asked Six.

"Thought I would be easy to finish after three fights already, against successively more skilled opponents. She was also known to be the strongest of the sisters when it came to combat. She had the backing of the House guard, who also praised her as the strongest warrior the House had seen in living memory," Lady Snowpearl answered. "I'd defeated three of her sisters, so she had to know I had my own skills, but she went into our fight so confident she would win that she gave orders to have her last sister killed and the bodies of her other sisters . . . never mind."

"You defeated her," Six concluded. Lady Snowpearl nodded. "How?" When the noblewoman's eyebrows rose, Six rolled her eyes and said, "You'd already fought to the death three times, and she was completely fresh. She was significantly younger. And unless she was receiving false praise, she was highly skilled. So, how did you win?"

Lady Snowpearl grinned behind her coffee cup and said, "And with that question you have proven I am not making a mistake." She traded a glance with Captain Nightfire, whose expression was inscrutable, and then continued, "I cheated, of course. In fact I cheated the entire way through the Proof by Combat. My sword was poisoned, I took several highly controlled substances prior to each fight and an entirely illegal one in between. Goldenmaple's daughters also cheated, naturally, but I'd built up a tolerance to numerous toxins during seventeen years of waiting, and I had antidotes on had for many others. The youngest underestimated my skill, my endurance, my resolve, and my ruthlessness and she died for it."

Lady Snowpearl drank her coffee in silence after that, allowing Six to think about what she'd said. Six turned to look out over the garden while she considered. Her thoughts were unformed, more emotion than analysis, and Sera could not blame the other woman for that, as she wasn't certain how she felt about Lady Snowpearl's tale herself. Eventually Six asked silently, 'How much danger do you think we're in if I refuse her?'

To that Sera had an immediate answer, 'Minimal. She won't gain anything by murdering us--in fact she potentially loses quite a bit--and she's already promised she won't hold you here if you choose to go.'

'Do you really believe she'll let us go?'

'I believe Captain Nightfire was sincere in her promise to help if we need it, as was Doctor Roseleaf, and between the four of us we can get out of this place. What we do after that is more problematic,' Sera answered. 'Also, after what she's told us, we might have to flee the country to get beyond her reach. What do you know about Ostreck, and could we go there?'

Six gave a snort of amusement. 'Ostreck won't be far enough, we'd have to run half way around the world.'

'Which could be interesting,' Sera pointed out lightly, and Six snorted again.

'Not with no money, it couldn't,' she replied. Six sighed. 'So we'd better hear the rest and decide if we can live with it.' That decision made she turned back to Lady Snowpearl and prompted, "How does this story explain why you can't select an heir from one of the other houses?"

"After I was seated as Lady Llinn, I was head of a house splintered into nine different camps, with as many other Houses poised to leap on us. We were broken and weak, and it is more luck than anything else that we survived. It is a miracle we did not end up a client house to one of the stronger ones. I promised when I was seated that I would make this house strong again and that I would never allow the house to be broken by internal fighting again. My heir MUST put the Llinn house first. Any heir I choose from another House will always have bonds to the house they were born to, and that makes choosing someone tricky. My heir must also remember that the House of Llinn is a family first and foremost, and that we protect our own. We do not fight each other," Lady Snowpearl, turning fierce and passionate as she spoke. She flushed faintly and paused to gather herself before she continued a bit stiffly, "Sister Forty-Six, your ties to your family were broken when you entered the temple, and even if they were not, your family bonds offer nothing but advantage to Llinn. I do not want you to merely breed heirs for my house. I want you to be the next Lady Llinn."