Page 13 of Ironling
“Just have them switch rooms,” Aislinn muttered under her breath.
Brenna sniffed, unamused.
Stepping forward, she left Brenna behind as a guard opened the chamber door for her and slipped into a meeting already well underway.
The melee of vassals talking over one another didn’t abate, but it did lull as she stared down thirty of the Darrowlands’ vassals and yeomen. Her mother had prepared her for such moments, even if the sudden attention and fact that she was late itched at her like rough wool, and she remembered her mother’s lessons well. She held her head high and glided through the chamber, taking the seat to her father’s right.
“Never rush. Enter the room like it’s yours.”
So she didn’t rush, and didn’t apologize either, merely placed her notebook on the table and opened it to a fresh page to begin a new sketch of her latest design.
She did, however, catch her father throwing her an amused if exasperated look—one Aislinn was far too familiar with. Bowing her head demurely, she threw him a wink back.
The meeting resumed around them, Margrave Cravan continuing with his complaints over this year’s dues from the upcoming harvest. It was a time-honored tradition to have these seasonal meetings with the vassals and yeomen to hear their complaints over too many taxes, it seemed. Aislinn couldn’t remember a time when her father wasn’t complaining himself over dinner about the dues owed to the crown and the earful he’d get from his landholders because of it.
Yet, as he’d always stressed to Aislinn, and Jerrod when hewas still in Dundúran, it was the liege lord’s place to hear their complaints. The liege lords of Eirea ruled over their demesne for the benefit of everyone—the nobles, the craftsmen and tradesmen, the farmers.“It’s a system of many parts,”he liked to say,“and each part needs to work with the others to be most effective.”
Jerrod always rolled his eyes, but Aislinn found comfort in the familiar metaphor. It was something her logical mind could comprehend, and she never tired of her father’s quip. She enjoyed the reminder that their family was a part of a whole, their role within it to keep the system running smoothly.
An unpleasantly familiar swoop of her stomach accompanied the thought of one day being Liege Darrow. Over the past decades, the Eirean nobility began to follow a more Pyrrossi style of inheritance, from father to eldest son, thanks to the half-Pyrrossi King Marius and his Pyrrossi cousins that now dominated the court in the capital of Gleanná. With an, albeit younger, brother, Aislinn had spent her life assuming the mantle would never fall upon her shoulders, even if she performed many of the duties anyway in Jerrod’s absence.
The only new responsibility she truly enjoyed was the task her father had just recently given her: integrating all the otherly folk who were coming to settle in the Darrowlands. There was once a time, more than fifty years ago, when nonhumans were commonplace through the human kingdoms of Caledon, Eirea, and Pyrros. However, most fled during the wars of succession, when the Eirean royal family ripped itself apart and drowned many in their undertow in an effort to eradicate the other. After decades of fighting, the rift was only mended by the union of distant cousins, the half-Pyrrossi Prince Marius and the full-Eirean Princess Ygraine, now the King and Queen of Eirea. However, despite thirty years of relative peace since their betrothal, otherly folk had yet to return to Eirea in anysignificant number.
That was until her friend Sorcha returned from her ordeal mated to a half-orc from the southern wilds. Orek was a darling and made her friend wildly happy. His presence and union with Sorcha had opened the possibility of welcoming back more otherly folk, something her father was keen to foster.“Having strong bonds with the others can only strengthen the demesne,”he believed.
Already, she had ideas about where the otherly folk might like to settle, a few choice places near various towns and villages outside Dundúran. Her father thought it wise for them to establish themselves nearby but not directly on top of existing villages; they couldn’t force their people to accept newcomers immediately. Yet, if the rumors from the taverns were anything to go by, the manticores in particular were already quite popular.
The numbers of otherly folk trickling into the Darrowlands was beginning to flow, and Aislinn was excited by the prospects. She’d need to go out to the Brádaigh estate soon to have Orek introduce her to any new arrivals.
Her other duties were far less…stimulating. Or far too stimulating—namely, greeting guests and organizing banquets. There was always this lordling or that magistrate dropping by, expecting to be entertained and chatted with. It was an exchange of sorts, one in which Aislinn always felt a step behind. She also didn’t quite understand the ease with which some dropped in uninvited on others’ homes and expected everything to pause for them. Ghastly.
“Forgive me, my lord, but it may make us all feel more assured in your stance if your heiress would do us the courtesy of paying attention rather thandoodling.”
Aislinn’s quill paused, as did all conversation. She looked up to find everyone staring at her with mixed expressions. It’d taken practice, but she was fairly good at determining expressionsnow, and it helped that most of those currently directed at her were similar—general exasperation and annoyance.
I haven’t even said anything yet,she grumbled to herself.
The man who’d spoken, Baron Morraugh, sat imperiously across the table from her, his beard twitching. The stares and sudden quiet had her wanting to shrink into her seat, but Aislinn kept her spine stiff and met each stare.“Never look away first,”her mother had instructed,“you don’t need to be belligerent or rude, but don’t waver.”
Aislinn counted her breaths, heeding her mother’s advice. Beside her, her father leaned forward to place his folded hands on the polished tabletop.
“If you want my assurances, Baron Morraugh, be assured that my daughter is paying attention and has heard every word.”
Morraugh sniffed behind his impressive beard, twitching the overlong whiskers beneath his nose. Aislinn looked away before she became fixated on the uneven cut of the hair at his lip.
Her father gestured for her to speak.
“I’m not doodling,” Aislinn explained, “I’m sketching plans for the new bridge we intend to build upriver of the existing one to relieve load and expand the industrial section of Dundúran. Keeping my hand at work helps me listen.”
She looked to her father, who nodded for her to keep going. “As to your complaints, it’s unfortunate that dues are rising, but it isn’t my father’s doing. The crown has imposed higher concessions from all liege lords, and this in turn is passed on to all landholders. My father’s rate is the lowest in the region. We ourselves are making concessions in Dundúran to ensure that rates are not so painful for you and your people. Should we ask for anything lower, we wouldn’t fulfill the crown’s demands, which may cause my father to fall out of favor. King Marius has been looking to appoint his relations to demesnes further from Gleanná. Should he see the opportunity, there is everypossibility that the king would replace my father with a Pyrrossi cousin who would charge you the maximum or more. So no, Baron Morraugh, we don’t enjoy the higher rates, but we all must make do until the crown decides on another course of action.”
Aislinn sucked in a breath, a little winded, and attempted to keep her cheeks from reddening. Fates, she was trying to be better about that. Be more succinct.
Her father nodded. “There you have it.”
After a heavy pause, the meeting continued when Morraugh decided not to push the matter. The vassals’ tenor lowered now that the obvious had been stated.
Aislinn took up her quill again, but the ideas wouldn’t come quite so quickly with the embarrassment prickling her chest. She resisted the urge to truly doodle.
