Ficbit: Andrea
Oct. 31st, 2006 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalPart of a longer work I'm writing, examining the background of Andrea, the tack maker/adult toy vendor from an earlier Tez and Maria story.
10
Andrea sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair in the center of the study and stared at her toes, while Master Tez glowered at down at her. The objects of his ire, a couple of worn bits of scrap leather, and an improvised scraper made from a discarded kitchen knife, sat on the end table beside her chair.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Andrea?” he asked coolly.
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” she mumbled.
“Incorrect answer,” he said. “Now look up at me and try again.”
She raised her head and looked into his green eyes. He wasn’t angry with her. Angry would have meant she could have yelled back without feeling too bad about it. No, he looked disappointed, which had to be ten times worse. “Sorry,” she whispered, feeling stupid.
“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing isn’t what it was.”
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Better,” he allowed. “Do you know what you’re sorry about?”
“Taking those bits of scrap and the broken knife from the garbage.”
He hrumphed at her. “Partially correct. Stealing the scraps is minor offense. You’re a slave, you aren’t supposed to know better. That,” he tapped the knife, “is a weapon.”
“It’s a table knife,” she protested. “It’s not even a sharp table knife anymore.”
“Elven Law doesn’t make a distinction over that sort of thing. It is a knife, found in your quarters, outside the kitchen and the dining chamber, ergo it is a weapon in the possession of a slave.” His fist slammed down on the table, and she jumped in her seat. “Slaves are executed for that, Andrea. Do you fancy me having to order Arthur to lop your head off in front of Cook and the rest of the household?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said.
Now Master Tez looked genuinely upset. “If it had been any other elf but me who found you with those things, they would have ordered it without a second thought. If I had found them with another elf in my company, they would have expected me to order it, and questioned why I would not.”
“You would have killed me?” she asked, starting to shake.
Master Tez sighed, the anger disappearing. “No,” he admitted. “But I would have been forced to do… something… damned inconvenient to fix the situation. Perhaps even decamp to another country.”
“Give up the manor?” she asked weakly.
“Possibly,” he said. “Though fortunately it was I, not anyone else, who found you with these things, so it doesn’t matter. But that doesn’t change that you did something very foolish, and will be punished for it.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, her voice properly meek.
“No food for two days, only water.”
“Yes, Master.” And Cook was making baked pork tonight, of course.
“In the stocks.”
“Yes, Master.” Well, that could be worse.
“Without a book.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. “That’s not… I mean, yes, Master.” She revised her opinion. Master Tez must have been truly angry to deny her a book.
It was only mid-morning when Master Tez had called her into his study to chastise her, so she had a chance to beg a large meal from Cook before her punishment began at noon. Cook, who looked like an ordinary human, (and generally was except during certain phases of the moon) gave her as many omelets and pieces of bacon as she could stuff herself with. Then she marched herself over to the punishment stocks at the corner of Master Tez’s manor.
It was set under a shady willow tree, beside the kitchen’s herb garden. The herb garden itself was part of the extensive lawns of Master Tez’s manor, some ten acres of sculpted landscape behind his home, an equal amount hemming it in on the remaining three sides. Like the few other elven homes Andrea had been privy to see, the landscape looked almost wild, but in truth was the product of careful tending, lacking anything like real predators, or (heavens forbid) a weed.
The manor house itself was a series of interconnected towers, some six in all, ranging from two to five stories in height, the circles interlocking each other in some sacred Elven pattern which didn’t make much sense to Andrea, but which Master Tez had assured her was aesthetically pleasing. The highest tower was set aside for Master Tez’s chambers, and rooms for the rare honored guest. The second lowest was the kitchens, and the lowest housed the manor’s slaves. The last was where Andrea had her small room, which wasn’t much bigger than a pair of wardrobes stuck together, but it was certainly more privacy than she’d ever had in the girls dormitory in the orphanage. Most of the other manor slaves were housed similarly, though the groom slept with his charges in the stables, and Miss Layla’s family had several rooms together for her husband and children.
She sat beside the stocks, waiting for Master Tez to arrive. He came walking up in a few moments, looking considerably calmer than when he’d ordered her punishment.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Master Tez,” Andrea replied. She settled herself on the wooden bench, and lay her ankles in the stocks, which Master Tez closed and locked. It was lined with leather, and not terribly uncomfortable. She’d ended up here twice before for infractions of the manor’s rules, though never for longer than two days, and not without food or reading.
She’d been told by Cook and Groom that other elves sometimes used far harsher punishments, whippings, beatings, sometimes worse things, to keep their servitors in line. Master Tez had never touched her in such a manner. Indeed, he’d instructed the staff more than once to act more cowed when the rare visitor stopped by, in order to keep up the pretense of a normal household. Andrea wasn’t sure why Master Tez was so kind, when other elves were so cruel, but she was grateful for it. Grateful for her own little room in the slave quarters. Grateful for the two meals a day she was granted, with vegetables other than lentils, bread that was never moldy, and actual meat. Grateful for having friends here, both Master Tez and her fellow slaves, who all seemed to be in on their own joke against elven society.
Perhaps that was why Master Tez’s anger had frightened her so. She could talk back willingly to him, and often had, but this one minor theft (if you could call rooting through the refuse a theft) seemed to have made him angry as nothing else ever had.
“You’ll be let out at the usual times to relieve yourself,” Master Tez noted. He set done a water jug and cup in the grass beside her. “Now at least attempt to think about what you just did, all right?”
“Yes, Master Tez,” she answered meekly. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice. No book?
“Good girl,” he said, and absentmindedly patted her on the head, before turning about and leaving her.
Alone.
With no book.
It wasn’t all bad. She had a good view of the gardens. Cook came out once to gather herbs, and spoke to her briefly. Layla’s children, all of them friends, spent an hour or so with her talking (but knew better to bring out cards or a board to play checkers or backgammon). But as the afternoon wore on the visitors left, and she started to grow bored. When Arthur finally came by, with her leash cradled under his stump, she was so happy to see him that the ogre started to blush even through his dark green skin.
Arthur clipped the lead to her collar, unlocked the stocks, and lead her back inside briefly to the Necessary. Then he lead her back, and re-secured her. Then too her surprise, he took one of his ever present chapbooks from the pocket of his vest and held it up to his pence-nez to read.
“Master Tez said I wasn’t to have a book,” she told him.
“Yer not readin’, I am,” Arthur said primly. Then he opened the chapbook to its first page, and began to read aloud the story of The Lord of the Island. It was a fantastic tale of a distant island in the Middlesea, ruled for generations by one family, but secretly controlled by an evil, immortal vizier. It was one of Andrea favorites, though she sure not one of Arthur’s. He tended to go for either history plays, or silly comedies.
He finished just as the summer sun began to got below the horizon, and Andrea yawned. “Thank you, Arthur.”
“Y’r welcome, Missy,” Arthur said. “Try to sleep.” Then he laid down on ground and propped up his head with his good arm.
“Master Tez isn’t making you watch over me, is he, Arthur?” she asked. “You don’t have to.”
“Na’,” Arthur answered. “The grass is comfy, compared to some beds I been in.” Then he closed his eyes, and shortly began to snore.
Andrea tried to sleep as best she could, but being forced to sit up by the pole behind her back defeated any chance, except for brief catnaps. In the morning Arthur brought her food, and allowed her another trip to the Necessary, and by the end of the day she was feeling very sorry indeed for upsetting Master Tez as she had.
The second evening Arthur read in her general vicinity again, and she actually fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion rather than comfort. Sometime during the night she must have been granted her release, for when Andrea awoke she was lying in her own bed, dressed in her sleeping gown.
She was sore all over from the stocks, but at least it was done. She got dressed quickly, and headed down to the kitchen to get some of the heavenly pancakes she could smell Cook fixing. She was well into her second stack when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Master Tez standing over her.
“Hu’lo, M’ster,” Andrea mumbled, then swallowed a mouthful pancake and syrup.
“Hello, Andrea. Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Master Tez didn’t look angry anymore at least. His face was back to the friendly, faintly amused expression that seemed to be most normal for him.
“Yessir,” she answered, ducking her head.
“Walk with me then,” he ordered, and she followed him out of the kitchens and to a secluded place in the gardens, near a pavilion used during the rare times when he invited guests to his estate. “Do you understand why you were punished?”
“Because I stole a knife.”
“Partially, but there’s a more serious reason. Now why did you steal the knife and those leather scraps?”
She blinked at the question. “I was gonna carve them, the leather I mean.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted t’ figure how it was done.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make something nice for Arthur.” Arthur usually wore a leather belt or harness of some sort, to hang tools and pouches for books, or just to help with things too awkward to carry one-handed.
“I see,” Tez said. He frowned a moment, then fished out a leash from the pouch at his belt. He hooked the leash to her collar and led her towards the manse's gate. They were heading to town then, Andrea realized. Animals and slaves were required to be leashed at all times when inside the limits of the elven city. Master Tez's manse was less than a mile outside the city, though it often felt to Andrea as if it was in the wilderness by itself, so skilled was elven agriculture and architecture at hiding evidence of civilization in the Wood.
“Where are we going, Master Tez?” she asked as they walked.
“Hush, servitors do not speak unless spoken to,” he admonished.
She bit down on her lip and obeyed, conscious of the other elves they'd begun to pass on the path leading into town. Occasionally Tez received a nod of recognition from a passerby, but no one seemed to notice her. She was a slave, invisible. It was almost comforting, not receiving the abuse that had been habitually directed at her during the few times she'd dared venture out of her old orphanage. Slightly less comforting when she remember the explanation Master Tez had given her about the reaction. “Most elves simply do not care. You will, after all, be long dead before their children leave their homes.”
He led her to a small compound in the merchant's grove, consisting of a few small free standing turrets around a central courtyard, where some half dozen elves of both sexes were working at long tables, carving and decorating hunks of leather with fine steel tools. A small, sallow faced goblin slave trotted up to them, kneeling before Tez and asking, “How may this one serve you in his master's house, honored sir?”
“Inform your master that Tez, Merchant to Outlanders, desires to speak to him,” Tez stated politely. As the goblin scooted off, he muttered softly, “I do hate it when they're made to address everyone in the third person. Makes for some terribly stilted conversations.” Andrea ducked her head down and bit hard on her lip to keep from laughing.
In a few moments the workshop's master appeared, an elf thinner and taller than Tez by at least four inches, with long white blond hair. He looked down on Tez and gave him a short bow, from a one who created to one who merely served as conduit for commerce. A sharp and important difference in Elven society, so Tez had taught Andrea. “Tez,” the other elf greeted. “How do you fare?”
“Acceptably, Artisan Velan” Tez replied. “I've much time for recreation, since traffic over the border has become so difficult.”
Velan made a neutral sound. 'The humans do us a favor, eliminating half-breeds at least. The momentary disruption in traffic for a decade or three is a small price to pay.”
Andrea swallowed and stared down at her toes, not trusting herself to look up at the elf artisan right at that moment.
“I have heard that opinion several times in the past few years,” Tez noted, his voice carefully flat. “How does your Art fare?”
Valen's voice took a proud tone. “Acceptably. Permit me to show you.” He led Tez into the largest of the turrets and Andrea followed. Unusual that, given that normally she was left tethered outside or sent to the slave quarters when he visited with other elves. Valen noted it too, pausing at the doorway.
“Permit the indulgence,” Tez asked. “She has expressed some interest in the art of leather working and it amuses me to feed it.” Andrea glanced at Master Tez out of the corner of her eye. After the browbeating she'd received earlier, could he be serious?
“As you wish,” Valen said grudgingly. He gestured them inside and Andrea dared to look up, her breath catching in her throat. The first floor of the turret was a single room, lit by wide, open windows at the four cardinal points. At its center was... well, she supposed it was armor, though it couldn't be anything that had ever appeared on a battlefield. It was a full suit of leather armor, from boots to body to a finely crafted face guard, made in overlapping layers of supple, dark brown leather the shade of oak, fashioned in the shape of oversized leaves. Nearly every square inch of the armor was covered in patterns of twining rose vines, with flowering red buds painted in clever dyes. The carving appeared to be complete, with only a few rose petals remaining to painted into blood red life.
“Nice,” was the only thing Master Tez said. Andrea very nearly bit through her tongue at the outrageous understatement.
“A minor work, for a local lord's daughter,” Valen agreed. “It only required some five year's effort. Would you be interested in commissioning something for yourself, of a finer quality?”
“Not at this time,” Mater Tez demurred. “My business is of a more practical nature today.” Valen tilted his head in question, and Master Tez continued. “My servitor has expressed some interest in learning the craft of leatherworking. I would be most pleased if she could apprentice under you.”
Valen's face grew sour. “You wish to train a slave in an Art? Why bother granting skill to an ephemeral?”
Tez's expression of polite respect did not change a whit, but Andrea imagined his voice grew a shade frostier. “Because it would please me. Will you do it?”
“Arrangements could be made,” Velan said reluctantly. “I have an apprentice who lacks patience in her pursuit of the Art. Dealing with a half-breed would be an effective way of learning patience in trying build her own skills.”
Master Tez smiled coolly. “You misunderstand. I do not want my servitor passed off to an apprentice. I want you to instruct her.”
“What?” Velan exclaimed in outrage. “You joke poorly, Tez. I will not sully my Craft by lowering myself to teach an ephemeral half-breed.”
“Yes, you will. I desire that Andrea being given all the training she able to absorb, which I suspect might be a great deal, given proper motivation. You will be the one to give it to her.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“Yes, you will,” Master Tez repeated, “Doshinavar”
Andrea didn't recognize the High Elven word that Master Tez had used to address Velan, but evidentially the craftsman did. His face, already naturally pale, went stark white and his eyes widened in shock.
“How... how could you know of that?” Valen demanded. “My clan does not speak of it to anyone! It would be our death!”
“Only your family knows of it,” Tez agreed. “Your family, and the one who helped them bury this shame so deeply that it would not be heard.”
Velan shook his head. “You aren't... you can't be that Tez! It is impossible! You would not be a mere merchant!”
“I am, whatever I choose to be,” Tez said calmly. Velan's only response to this was to drop to his knees, kowtowing, his forehead touching the polished wooden floor. “Please,” the craftsman begged, “what do you want of me?”
“To train my servitor, to the best of your ability.”
“But... but what else?” he cried.
“Nothing,” Tez replied. “All that I desire is training for Andrea. Do this, and your clan may consider their debt to me paid. Fail...” He let the word hang in the air. Valen looked up... Good God, was the elf crying?
“I will! I will! I swear to you I will!” Velan promised. “Mercy, please, Tez!”
Master Tez ignored Velan's blubbering and went on. “Andrea will take up residence in your household in a day or two. I will expect her to be allow one free day during the week to attend me and demonstrate what progress she has made. You will, I expect, treat her with the same respect that you would your other apprentices. Complete. Respect.”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
“They you need never fear hearing that word spoken aloud again, outside of your clan. Good day, Master Velan.” Tez bowed politely and led her out the door. Andrea trailed behind him, biting back the questions running through her mind until they were well away from the town and far from any listener on the road.
“Master Tez, please, what was that all about?” she asked.
Tez made a dismissive wave of his hand. “Velan's family committed an act of... well, the details hardly matter at this date, but suffice it to say that by burying it, rather than admitting their error from the very beginning, they have managed to make a minor sin into a powerful shame. One I helped hide some time ago, out of a sense of pity to the parties involved. It left them indebted to me.”
“So Velan is scared you'll tell everyone?”
“Exactly.”
“But... if he's that afraid of you, if they all are, why would you use that against them, just to get some training for me?”
“It removes the debt they owe, which make them breath easier, More importantly to me, it will give you the opportunity to receive training you'd otherwise have no chance to get (Velan is an excellent craftsman, I should tell you) and it cuts what ties connect me to his clan of idiots. That means quite a bit to me.” After they walked in silence for a few moments, he added. “Mind, actually chatting with that speceist idiot was annoying. I will expect you to assuage my irritation by putting your utmost effort into your training. If I discover you are not... I will have to make the decision as to whether to keep you in my household.”
Andrea swallowed hard, feeling her collar rub against her throat. “I'll try, Master Tez. I promise, I'll try really hard!”
Master Tez smiled. “Good. I am looking forward to seeing what you will create for Arthur then.”
10
Andrea sat on the edge of the hard wooden chair in the center of the study and stared at her toes, while Master Tez glowered at down at her. The objects of his ire, a couple of worn bits of scrap leather, and an improvised scraper made from a discarded kitchen knife, sat on the end table beside her chair.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Andrea?” he asked coolly.
“I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” she mumbled.
“Incorrect answer,” he said. “Now look up at me and try again.”
She raised her head and looked into his green eyes. He wasn’t angry with her. Angry would have meant she could have yelled back without feeling too bad about it. No, he looked disappointed, which had to be ten times worse. “Sorry,” she whispered, feeling stupid.
“You’ll have to speak up, my hearing isn’t what it was.”
“I said I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Better,” he allowed. “Do you know what you’re sorry about?”
“Taking those bits of scrap and the broken knife from the garbage.”
He hrumphed at her. “Partially correct. Stealing the scraps is minor offense. You’re a slave, you aren’t supposed to know better. That,” he tapped the knife, “is a weapon.”
“It’s a table knife,” she protested. “It’s not even a sharp table knife anymore.”
“Elven Law doesn’t make a distinction over that sort of thing. It is a knife, found in your quarters, outside the kitchen and the dining chamber, ergo it is a weapon in the possession of a slave.” His fist slammed down on the table, and she jumped in her seat. “Slaves are executed for that, Andrea. Do you fancy me having to order Arthur to lop your head off in front of Cook and the rest of the household?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said.
Now Master Tez looked genuinely upset. “If it had been any other elf but me who found you with those things, they would have ordered it without a second thought. If I had found them with another elf in my company, they would have expected me to order it, and questioned why I would not.”
“You would have killed me?” she asked, starting to shake.
Master Tez sighed, the anger disappearing. “No,” he admitted. “But I would have been forced to do… something… damned inconvenient to fix the situation. Perhaps even decamp to another country.”
“Give up the manor?” she asked weakly.
“Possibly,” he said. “Though fortunately it was I, not anyone else, who found you with these things, so it doesn’t matter. But that doesn’t change that you did something very foolish, and will be punished for it.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, her voice properly meek.
“No food for two days, only water.”
“Yes, Master.” And Cook was making baked pork tonight, of course.
“In the stocks.”
“Yes, Master.” Well, that could be worse.
“Without a book.”
Andrea’s jaw dropped. “That’s not… I mean, yes, Master.” She revised her opinion. Master Tez must have been truly angry to deny her a book.
It was only mid-morning when Master Tez had called her into his study to chastise her, so she had a chance to beg a large meal from Cook before her punishment began at noon. Cook, who looked like an ordinary human, (and generally was except during certain phases of the moon) gave her as many omelets and pieces of bacon as she could stuff herself with. Then she marched herself over to the punishment stocks at the corner of Master Tez’s manor.
It was set under a shady willow tree, beside the kitchen’s herb garden. The herb garden itself was part of the extensive lawns of Master Tez’s manor, some ten acres of sculpted landscape behind his home, an equal amount hemming it in on the remaining three sides. Like the few other elven homes Andrea had been privy to see, the landscape looked almost wild, but in truth was the product of careful tending, lacking anything like real predators, or (heavens forbid) a weed.
The manor house itself was a series of interconnected towers, some six in all, ranging from two to five stories in height, the circles interlocking each other in some sacred Elven pattern which didn’t make much sense to Andrea, but which Master Tez had assured her was aesthetically pleasing. The highest tower was set aside for Master Tez’s chambers, and rooms for the rare honored guest. The second lowest was the kitchens, and the lowest housed the manor’s slaves. The last was where Andrea had her small room, which wasn’t much bigger than a pair of wardrobes stuck together, but it was certainly more privacy than she’d ever had in the girls dormitory in the orphanage. Most of the other manor slaves were housed similarly, though the groom slept with his charges in the stables, and Miss Layla’s family had several rooms together for her husband and children.
She sat beside the stocks, waiting for Master Tez to arrive. He came walking up in a few moments, looking considerably calmer than when he’d ordered her punishment.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Master Tez,” Andrea replied. She settled herself on the wooden bench, and lay her ankles in the stocks, which Master Tez closed and locked. It was lined with leather, and not terribly uncomfortable. She’d ended up here twice before for infractions of the manor’s rules, though never for longer than two days, and not without food or reading.
She’d been told by Cook and Groom that other elves sometimes used far harsher punishments, whippings, beatings, sometimes worse things, to keep their servitors in line. Master Tez had never touched her in such a manner. Indeed, he’d instructed the staff more than once to act more cowed when the rare visitor stopped by, in order to keep up the pretense of a normal household. Andrea wasn’t sure why Master Tez was so kind, when other elves were so cruel, but she was grateful for it. Grateful for her own little room in the slave quarters. Grateful for the two meals a day she was granted, with vegetables other than lentils, bread that was never moldy, and actual meat. Grateful for having friends here, both Master Tez and her fellow slaves, who all seemed to be in on their own joke against elven society.
Perhaps that was why Master Tez’s anger had frightened her so. She could talk back willingly to him, and often had, but this one minor theft (if you could call rooting through the refuse a theft) seemed to have made him angry as nothing else ever had.
“You’ll be let out at the usual times to relieve yourself,” Master Tez noted. He set done a water jug and cup in the grass beside her. “Now at least attempt to think about what you just did, all right?”
“Yes, Master Tez,” she answered meekly. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice. No book?
“Good girl,” he said, and absentmindedly patted her on the head, before turning about and leaving her.
Alone.
With no book.
It wasn’t all bad. She had a good view of the gardens. Cook came out once to gather herbs, and spoke to her briefly. Layla’s children, all of them friends, spent an hour or so with her talking (but knew better to bring out cards or a board to play checkers or backgammon). But as the afternoon wore on the visitors left, and she started to grow bored. When Arthur finally came by, with her leash cradled under his stump, she was so happy to see him that the ogre started to blush even through his dark green skin.
Arthur clipped the lead to her collar, unlocked the stocks, and lead her back inside briefly to the Necessary. Then he lead her back, and re-secured her. Then too her surprise, he took one of his ever present chapbooks from the pocket of his vest and held it up to his pence-nez to read.
“Master Tez said I wasn’t to have a book,” she told him.
“Yer not readin’, I am,” Arthur said primly. Then he opened the chapbook to its first page, and began to read aloud the story of The Lord of the Island. It was a fantastic tale of a distant island in the Middlesea, ruled for generations by one family, but secretly controlled by an evil, immortal vizier. It was one of Andrea favorites, though she sure not one of Arthur’s. He tended to go for either history plays, or silly comedies.
He finished just as the summer sun began to got below the horizon, and Andrea yawned. “Thank you, Arthur.”
“Y’r welcome, Missy,” Arthur said. “Try to sleep.” Then he laid down on ground and propped up his head with his good arm.
“Master Tez isn’t making you watch over me, is he, Arthur?” she asked. “You don’t have to.”
“Na’,” Arthur answered. “The grass is comfy, compared to some beds I been in.” Then he closed his eyes, and shortly began to snore.
Andrea tried to sleep as best she could, but being forced to sit up by the pole behind her back defeated any chance, except for brief catnaps. In the morning Arthur brought her food, and allowed her another trip to the Necessary, and by the end of the day she was feeling very sorry indeed for upsetting Master Tez as she had.
The second evening Arthur read in her general vicinity again, and she actually fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion rather than comfort. Sometime during the night she must have been granted her release, for when Andrea awoke she was lying in her own bed, dressed in her sleeping gown.
She was sore all over from the stocks, but at least it was done. She got dressed quickly, and headed down to the kitchen to get some of the heavenly pancakes she could smell Cook fixing. She was well into her second stack when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Master Tez standing over her.
“Hu’lo, M’ster,” Andrea mumbled, then swallowed a mouthful pancake and syrup.
“Hello, Andrea. Do you think you’ve learned your lesson?” Master Tez didn’t look angry anymore at least. His face was back to the friendly, faintly amused expression that seemed to be most normal for him.
“Yessir,” she answered, ducking her head.
“Walk with me then,” he ordered, and she followed him out of the kitchens and to a secluded place in the gardens, near a pavilion used during the rare times when he invited guests to his estate. “Do you understand why you were punished?”
“Because I stole a knife.”
“Partially, but there’s a more serious reason. Now why did you steal the knife and those leather scraps?”
She blinked at the question. “I was gonna carve them, the leather I mean.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted t’ figure how it was done.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make something nice for Arthur.” Arthur usually wore a leather belt or harness of some sort, to hang tools and pouches for books, or just to help with things too awkward to carry one-handed.
“I see,” Tez said. He frowned a moment, then fished out a leash from the pouch at his belt. He hooked the leash to her collar and led her towards the manse's gate. They were heading to town then, Andrea realized. Animals and slaves were required to be leashed at all times when inside the limits of the elven city. Master Tez's manse was less than a mile outside the city, though it often felt to Andrea as if it was in the wilderness by itself, so skilled was elven agriculture and architecture at hiding evidence of civilization in the Wood.
“Where are we going, Master Tez?” she asked as they walked.
“Hush, servitors do not speak unless spoken to,” he admonished.
She bit down on her lip and obeyed, conscious of the other elves they'd begun to pass on the path leading into town. Occasionally Tez received a nod of recognition from a passerby, but no one seemed to notice her. She was a slave, invisible. It was almost comforting, not receiving the abuse that had been habitually directed at her during the few times she'd dared venture out of her old orphanage. Slightly less comforting when she remember the explanation Master Tez had given her about the reaction. “Most elves simply do not care. You will, after all, be long dead before their children leave their homes.”
He led her to a small compound in the merchant's grove, consisting of a few small free standing turrets around a central courtyard, where some half dozen elves of both sexes were working at long tables, carving and decorating hunks of leather with fine steel tools. A small, sallow faced goblin slave trotted up to them, kneeling before Tez and asking, “How may this one serve you in his master's house, honored sir?”
“Inform your master that Tez, Merchant to Outlanders, desires to speak to him,” Tez stated politely. As the goblin scooted off, he muttered softly, “I do hate it when they're made to address everyone in the third person. Makes for some terribly stilted conversations.” Andrea ducked her head down and bit hard on her lip to keep from laughing.
In a few moments the workshop's master appeared, an elf thinner and taller than Tez by at least four inches, with long white blond hair. He looked down on Tez and gave him a short bow, from a one who created to one who merely served as conduit for commerce. A sharp and important difference in Elven society, so Tez had taught Andrea. “Tez,” the other elf greeted. “How do you fare?”
“Acceptably, Artisan Velan” Tez replied. “I've much time for recreation, since traffic over the border has become so difficult.”
Velan made a neutral sound. 'The humans do us a favor, eliminating half-breeds at least. The momentary disruption in traffic for a decade or three is a small price to pay.”
Andrea swallowed and stared down at her toes, not trusting herself to look up at the elf artisan right at that moment.
“I have heard that opinion several times in the past few years,” Tez noted, his voice carefully flat. “How does your Art fare?”
Valen's voice took a proud tone. “Acceptably. Permit me to show you.” He led Tez into the largest of the turrets and Andrea followed. Unusual that, given that normally she was left tethered outside or sent to the slave quarters when he visited with other elves. Valen noted it too, pausing at the doorway.
“Permit the indulgence,” Tez asked. “She has expressed some interest in the art of leather working and it amuses me to feed it.” Andrea glanced at Master Tez out of the corner of her eye. After the browbeating she'd received earlier, could he be serious?
“As you wish,” Valen said grudgingly. He gestured them inside and Andrea dared to look up, her breath catching in her throat. The first floor of the turret was a single room, lit by wide, open windows at the four cardinal points. At its center was... well, she supposed it was armor, though it couldn't be anything that had ever appeared on a battlefield. It was a full suit of leather armor, from boots to body to a finely crafted face guard, made in overlapping layers of supple, dark brown leather the shade of oak, fashioned in the shape of oversized leaves. Nearly every square inch of the armor was covered in patterns of twining rose vines, with flowering red buds painted in clever dyes. The carving appeared to be complete, with only a few rose petals remaining to painted into blood red life.
“Nice,” was the only thing Master Tez said. Andrea very nearly bit through her tongue at the outrageous understatement.
“A minor work, for a local lord's daughter,” Valen agreed. “It only required some five year's effort. Would you be interested in commissioning something for yourself, of a finer quality?”
“Not at this time,” Mater Tez demurred. “My business is of a more practical nature today.” Valen tilted his head in question, and Master Tez continued. “My servitor has expressed some interest in learning the craft of leatherworking. I would be most pleased if she could apprentice under you.”
Valen's face grew sour. “You wish to train a slave in an Art? Why bother granting skill to an ephemeral?”
Tez's expression of polite respect did not change a whit, but Andrea imagined his voice grew a shade frostier. “Because it would please me. Will you do it?”
“Arrangements could be made,” Velan said reluctantly. “I have an apprentice who lacks patience in her pursuit of the Art. Dealing with a half-breed would be an effective way of learning patience in trying build her own skills.”
Master Tez smiled coolly. “You misunderstand. I do not want my servitor passed off to an apprentice. I want you to instruct her.”
“What?” Velan exclaimed in outrage. “You joke poorly, Tez. I will not sully my Craft by lowering myself to teach an ephemeral half-breed.”
“Yes, you will. I desire that Andrea being given all the training she able to absorb, which I suspect might be a great deal, given proper motivation. You will be the one to give it to her.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“Yes, you will,” Master Tez repeated, “Doshinavar”
Andrea didn't recognize the High Elven word that Master Tez had used to address Velan, but evidentially the craftsman did. His face, already naturally pale, went stark white and his eyes widened in shock.
“How... how could you know of that?” Valen demanded. “My clan does not speak of it to anyone! It would be our death!”
“Only your family knows of it,” Tez agreed. “Your family, and the one who helped them bury this shame so deeply that it would not be heard.”
Velan shook his head. “You aren't... you can't be that Tez! It is impossible! You would not be a mere merchant!”
“I am, whatever I choose to be,” Tez said calmly. Velan's only response to this was to drop to his knees, kowtowing, his forehead touching the polished wooden floor. “Please,” the craftsman begged, “what do you want of me?”
“To train my servitor, to the best of your ability.”
“But... but what else?” he cried.
“Nothing,” Tez replied. “All that I desire is training for Andrea. Do this, and your clan may consider their debt to me paid. Fail...” He let the word hang in the air. Valen looked up... Good God, was the elf crying?
“I will! I will! I swear to you I will!” Velan promised. “Mercy, please, Tez!”
Master Tez ignored Velan's blubbering and went on. “Andrea will take up residence in your household in a day or two. I will expect her to be allow one free day during the week to attend me and demonstrate what progress she has made. You will, I expect, treat her with the same respect that you would your other apprentices. Complete. Respect.”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
“They you need never fear hearing that word spoken aloud again, outside of your clan. Good day, Master Velan.” Tez bowed politely and led her out the door. Andrea trailed behind him, biting back the questions running through her mind until they were well away from the town and far from any listener on the road.
“Master Tez, please, what was that all about?” she asked.
Tez made a dismissive wave of his hand. “Velan's family committed an act of... well, the details hardly matter at this date, but suffice it to say that by burying it, rather than admitting their error from the very beginning, they have managed to make a minor sin into a powerful shame. One I helped hide some time ago, out of a sense of pity to the parties involved. It left them indebted to me.”
“So Velan is scared you'll tell everyone?”
“Exactly.”
“But... if he's that afraid of you, if they all are, why would you use that against them, just to get some training for me?”
“It removes the debt they owe, which make them breath easier, More importantly to me, it will give you the opportunity to receive training you'd otherwise have no chance to get (Velan is an excellent craftsman, I should tell you) and it cuts what ties connect me to his clan of idiots. That means quite a bit to me.” After they walked in silence for a few moments, he added. “Mind, actually chatting with that speceist idiot was annoying. I will expect you to assuage my irritation by putting your utmost effort into your training. If I discover you are not... I will have to make the decision as to whether to keep you in my household.”
Andrea swallowed hard, feeling her collar rub against her throat. “I'll try, Master Tez. I promise, I'll try really hard!”
Master Tez smiled. “Good. I am looking forward to seeing what you will create for Arthur then.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 03:14 pm (UTC)Thanks, writer!
T.L.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 06:56 pm (UTC)