Post by devilinthedetails on Nov 12, 2018 1:42:34 GMT 10
Title: Seasons of Happily Ever After
Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and references to violence including domestic violence.
Prompt: Happily Ever After
Summary: Liam searches for his happily ever after with the Scanran princess he is betrothed to at the end of the Scanran war.
Seasons of Happily Ever After
Spring, 465
“The peace negotiations with the Scanran ambassador have concluded,” Mama told Liam in a tone that should have been light as the sun’s rays streaming through the window of the royal quarter’s parlor. Rulers, Liam thought, were supposed to sound triumphant after they had defeated an enemy, not as if they had been vanquished themselves. “Your father and I have signed the treaty.”
“That’s happy news.” Liam wished he could feel happy at the war being truly over rather than temporarily in truce while negotiations proceeded, but instead he felt numb. For years, the Scanrans had been the foe he must fight and fear. What would he do with his life now that there was no war to wage against a surrendered adversary?
“Yes, but in negotiations both sides must give and gain.” Mama’s eyes—hazel on as Liam’s—fixed on his, and the somberness there filled Liam with foreboding. “The Scanrans have agreed to give us the daughter of their new king, Princess Janna, to secure the peace, but they demand the match be made with you.”
“Why me?” Liam frowned. He had known since he could talk that he would one day be bound into an arranged marriage as Roald and Kalasin before him had, but that day had always been so far in the distance that he could pretend it was unreal until suddenly his fate was upon him. “Why not Jasson?”
“The Scanran ambassador said that tales of your heroism in battle have reached King Gustav in Hamrkeng.” Papa’s reference to the war stories that had sprung up around Liam, whom many called the greatest warrior prince Tortall had seen since Jasson the Conqueror, would normally have made Liam glow with pride, but now made him grimace. He would rather not have attracted Scanran attention if it resulted in an arranged marriage with a strange princess from that frigid country. “King Gustav sets much in store by warrior prowess.”
“Obviously.” Liam snorted like a horse even though he knew it was, as Master Oakbridge would have fussed, behavior unbecoming a prince. If he was to marry a Scanran savage, he might as well have the manners to match her barbaric ones. “That’s why he assassinated King Maggur last year to steal the throne.”
“King Maggur had taken his children hostage to ensure his loyalty,” pointed out Mama.
“Which didn’t work,” Papa added, dry as a bone. “Many Scanran kings came to power through assassination, you know that, Liam. It’s referred to as the Bloody Throne for a reason.”
“A perfect argument against me marrying this Princess Janna.” Liam seized on this opening, because conversation to him was as aggressive as sword fighting, all thrusts, attacks, and parries. “Why would we want to ally ourselves in marriage with a king who might only be one for a season, Papa?”
“It’s the cost of ending the war.” Papa spoke as firmly as he always did when he was about to declare that something disagreeable was Liam’s unescapable duty. “It’s the price of peace, son. You must pay it or our realm will continue to bleed.”
“Scanra will bleed more.” Liam’s chin lifted, his statement that he was prepared for battle on any front. “I’ll make certain of that.”
“Our spies in Scanra report that Princess Janna is a beautiful young lady.” Papa was plainly pursuing a different path to persuade Liam to accept and embrace the marriage to Princess Janna.
“You don’t need spies to tell you that.” Liam was torn between derision and a sudden, strong flaming of desire for the blonde, blue-eyed beauties that were rumored to cover Scanra. Among Tortallan squires, it was whispered that the only riches Scanra had were its furs and its women. “All Scanran women are beautiful.”
When Liam met Princess Janna for the first time, he thought that she might be even more beautiful than most Scanran women. She had a slim figure, icy blue eyes, and hair that shone white as snow as she climbed down from the carriage that had taken her from Hamrkeng to Corus with a number of jolts Liam didn’t want to contemplate.
It was still spring and the ink on the treaty stipulating their marriage barely dried while the roads in Scanra and northern Tortall were muddy where they weren’t blocked by unmelted snow—when she arrived in Corus. She would spend a year as his betrothed, becoming acquainted with him and Tortallan customs.
“The Tortallan court must seem strange to you,” Liam commented as he took her on a tour of the tulip garden. Mama and Papa had emphasized in no uncertain terms that he was to teach Princess Janna all she needed to know about Tortall and to do that he had to be understanding of her and the land she had left behind forever. This was Liam’s clumsy attempt at being understanding. “I imagine that it doesn’t feel anything like home but soon it will.”
“It feels very much like the court in Hamrkeng when Maggur was king.” Princess Janna shook her head as if to rattle the memory out of her, the ribbons in her plaits rippling. “I was a hostage then, and I’m a hostage now.”
“You aren’t a hostage here.” Liam couldn’t bring himself to admit the truth in her words. It made him seem more of a kidnapper than a reluctant groom. “You’re an honored guest.”
“I was an honored guest in Hamrkeng too.” Princess Janna’s smile was slight and sardonic. “As long as my father remained loyal to King Maggur, that is. King Maggur was more than happy to hint to my father and me on numerous occasions that his hospitality would end with an ax to my neck if my father’s allegiance to King Maggur wavered.”
“Then the difference between here and Hamrkeng should be clear to you.” Liam wasn’t about to tell her that he was impressed with her ability to cope with the horror that must have been the constant threat of the executioner’s ax without leaping off the cliff into insanity. He had his pride that she had offended with her prickliness. “You won’t be beheaded here. You’ll be married to me, and I’m not so awful that you’d wish for decapitation over marriage to me.”
Princess Janna studied him skeptically, and Liam had to resist the urge to inform her haughtily that none of the women he had charmed into his bed had expressed a yearning to be decapitated, since that was unlikely to flatter even someone as tart and tough as her. Her hardness reminded him of a spring frost in a garden that froze dirt and killed plants. He would have to find a way to make the Scanran frost in her thaw. That would be his challenge since she was to be his wife, his happily ever after in the peace following the bloodshed of the war with Scanra.
Summer, 465
Midusmmer dawned warm and radiant. As he stood on the banks of the Olorun and watched the children dance around the ribbon-and-flower spangled pole, while the adults drank and sang, Liam remembered last Midsummer when, on a leave from war, he had flirted with too many court ladies to bother with their names and snuck into the bushes to find gasping pleasure with one of them, who was probably now married to some uptight lord who could never satisfy her as Liam had...
To take his mind off the wild oats he could no longer sow–he was certain that Mama would geld him if he even thought about being disloyal to his wife–he glanced at Janna, who had woven marigolds and zinnias into a crown over her head.
“You look beautiful,” he said before wincing at the realization that he had paid her that same compliment only a few moments past.
“Do I still?” Janna, obviously unwilling to let his blunder pass without comment, arched an eyebrow.
“Yes, you still look fair as the marigolds in your hair.” Liam decided to change the subject before he suffered any more of her snideness. “Do you celebrate Midsummer’s like this in Scanra?”
“Of course, but we celebrate a month later when the sun shines longer, and more flowers have been grown.” Janna’s eyes were suddenly bright as the sunlight reflected in them. “In northern Scanra, where I’m from, the sun doesn’t set on Midsummer’s, and it’s our happiest day of the year, but we pay for that joy with long, bleak winter days where the sun doesn’t rise.”
“I’ve heard Scanra referred to as the Land of the Midnight Sun.” Liam had vague memories of his childhood tutors trying to hammer that fact into his head when he was more interested in doodling imagined battles on the parchment where he should have been dutifully scribbling notes or staring out the window at the stables where he longed to escape for some semblance of adventure. “I’ve been to the border with Scanra, and it didn’t look so different from northern Tortall, so I assumed it was an exaggeration.”
“It’d be an exaggeration for southern Scanra, but not for northern Scanra.” Janna’s face softened into a smile, and Liam wondered if she was too caught up in her reminisces of Midsummer in Scanra to notice his allusion to fighting her people. “Southern Scanra isn’t so different from northern Tortall in blood or geography, you know. Most northern Tortallans are descendants of Scanrans who were conquered by the Old Ones, and then joined Tortall at its founding in the uncertainty that followed the collapse of the Thanic Empire.”
“The Scanrans were so barbaric that the Old Ones built a wall spanning what’s now northern Tortall to keep them out.” With a chuckle, Liam described the wall the Old Ones had erected to defend what was now Tortall against Scanran incursions had fallen over the centuries. Normally he didn’t remember his history facts, but this history fact had turned into the foundations for many of the Tortallan forts used to defend against Scanran raids. He forgot for an instant that it was a Scanran princess who stood beside him, and he nudged her shoulder as if she were a soldier friend who would appreciate a joke about Scanran savagery.
“More like the Scanrans were so fierce and proud the Old Ones finally found in them an enemy they couldn’t conquer and in a panic threw up a wall to protect their empire from our great warriors.” Janna’s chin lifted defiantly as she responded to his nudge with a sharp elbow to his ribs.
“What special customs do the proud and fierce people of Scanra engage in on Midsummer’s?” Liam massaged his ribcage as he steered the conversation to safer waters.
“Our children have a frog dance where they leap like frogs and sing about how funny frogs look.” Janna giggled, and Liam joined her laughter even if the suspicious part of him feared she had invented this up to make a laughingstock of him. “Our unmarried girls also have a tradition where if they pick a bouquet from seven types of flowers and tuck it under their pillow, they’ll dream of their future husband.”
“Ah.” Liam leaned over to scoop up a purple coneflower. “If I collect six more flowers for me, you’ll dream of me then.”
“No.” Janna shook her head, but there was a teasing twinkle in her gaze that seemed to encourage rather than reject Liam’s advances. “I have to pick the flowers myself if I wanted to dream of you, and you haven’t convinced me that I should want to dream of you yet.”
“I’m picking you gorgeous flowers.” Liam was baffled that his romantic gesture wasn’t being appreciated by Janna when all women–even Mama who had a soft spot a league wide for wildflowers–got sentimental about flowers. “What more can I do to convince you that you should want to dream about me as your husband?”
“Pick me strawberries instead of flowers.” Janna pointed at a berry bush that grew along the bank of the Olorun. “They’re a Midsummer’s delicacy in Scanra when the sun smiles enough to give us a harvest of them.”
Autumn, 465
“Tell me a Scanran campfire story,” Liam said to Janna as they perched on a mossy log in front of a roaring fire outside the Royal Forest. It was All Hallow’s Eve, and the dark trees behind the orange flames that cast an eerie glow over the faces of the young knights and their ladies provided an appropriately scary backdrop for the festivities.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Janna’s gaze was fixed on the dancing figures in the flames. “We have many campfire stories in Scanra, since during the winter we can do nothing but feast and share stories by the fires in our longhouses. We’d freeze if we tried to do anything else.”
“Tell me a scary Scanran story.” Liam elaborated on his request as he admired how the firelight made her hair shine like moonbeams. “One to give me shivers on an All Hallow’s Eve night.”
“I could tell you an ancient one about a great warrior and his wife.” Janna’s eyes flicked from the fire to him as if seeking permission to continue. When he nodded, she went on, “A long time ago, there was a great warrior who fell in love with a strong, beautiful woman. He fought bravely in many battles for his clan lord, and when the clan lord distributed the loot from conquests, the warrior was always richly rewarded. The warrior saved the treasures his clan lord bestowed on him for his valor until he could woo the woman with them and pay her father the bride price. They were married just when the spring flowers began to bloom…”
“Is this where the story starts to get scary?” Liam interrupted, thinking this story sounded more like a boring romance than a tale to make him shiver on a chilly autumn evening.
“Yes.” Janna paused as if to punish him for his impatience and then resumed her tale. “His clan lord invited him and his new wife to a feast in their honor. At the feast, the warrior’s wife argued with the older women in the clan and embarrassed the warrior. On their way home from the feast, the warrior berated his wife for disgracing him, and when she told him he was wrong to yell at her, he slapped her across the face.”
“Did she slap him back?” demanded Liam indignantly, forgetting that this was an old story with characters who had probably never existed. He could only imagine that was what Mama would do, not that Papa would ever slap Mama…
“After a fashion.” Janna flashed him an enigmatic grin that kept him in suspense as the story continued to unfold. “She went about her wifely duties without complaint, but in her heart she vowed vengeance for the humiliation he heaped upon her when he slapped her face. One day, their clan was attacked by enemy raiders. The warrior reached for his bow to defend himself against the raiders and saw its string was frayed. Frantically, he asked his wife for a strand of her hair to strengthen the string, but she refused, reminding him of how he had embarrassed her by slapping her face and announcing that this was her revenge. All the clan’s warriors were slain that day. Only the women and the children since the raiders spared them as honor requires.”
“That is a scary story.” Liam shuddered at the description of the slaughter and the wife’s bloody vengeance against her husband.
“Yes, but one that teaches a man to respect his wife if he wants her to have his back in battle.” Janna’s chin was boldly uplifted.
“Scanran women are fierce.” Liam whistled—the habit had never left him no matter how many times Master Oakbridge insisted it was a vulgar one—and wondered if Roald had ever been subjected to a Yamani story that sounded more a warning than entertainment. He doubted it. The wives in Yamani tales were probably all graceful, quiet, and obedient to their husbands. “I will keep that in mind and treat you with the highest respect.”
“Good.” Janna’s face didn’t soften from its battle hard readiness. “Then I’ll have your back forever like a good Scanran wife.”
Winter, 465
The sun had barely risen on the first morning of Midwinter when there was a pounding on Liam’s parlor door. Wondering who would dare to call upon him so early when he was infamous for being a bear before noon, he opened the door with a scowl that turned into a shocked stare when he saw Janna standing there in a pearl-white dress. A blood-red girdle wrapped around her waist and a flickering crown of candles topped her hair that shimmered in the light cast from the candles hovering above her head.
“Are you impersonating a candelabra?” Liam asked when he had recaptured enough of his scattered wits to speak. “The masque isn’t until this evening, my dear.”
“I’m not impersonating a candelabra.” Janna brushed past him into his parlor and for the first time he realized that she was bearing a tray of saffron buns. The tantalizing aroma and steam that wafted over him as she pushed past him suggested that they were fresh from the kitchens. Liam’s mouth watered even if daybreak was far earlier than he usually ate breakfast. “I’m dressing up to bring you saffron buns as is Scanran Midwinter tradition.”
“I like this Scanran tradition much better than the ones that involve storming across our border and slaughtering our people.” Liam snatched a bun from the tray as she set it down on a tea table. He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed before continuing, “I don’t suppose your people could be tricked into believing that every day was part of the Midwinter holiday?”
“The passing of the seasons might make that a difficult tale for any Scanran to accept.” Janna smiled at him, and he wondered if the warmth flowing through him was because of the way she looked at him or because of the saffron bun he was munching. “Besides you can’t say that you enjoy this Scanran custom until you’ve experienced it in its entirety?”
“What is it’s entirety?” Liam grabbed a second saffron bun when he finished his first. Instead of eating it himself, he brought it to Janna’s lips. “Is the climax a sword to the chest?”
“Nothing so dramatic.” Janna took a bite of the bun he had put to her mouth. “The full Scanran custom would just involve me serving you saffron buns in bed, but that seemed too bold to be appropriate this year.”
“Maybe next year, once we’re married, it won’t be so bold.” Liam watched Janna’s lips, waiting for her to swallow so he could kiss her in accordance with the Tortallan custom, but Janna apparently had different plans for her mouth when it wasn’t filled with food.
“Maybe it won’t,” she commented, eyes dancing with his.
“Midwinter luck.” He pressed his mouth against hers, smelling and tasting the pungent honey of saffron on her lips, and felt something inside him swell when her mouth was consumed by his. “That’s a Tortallan tradition.”
Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and references to violence including domestic violence.
Prompt: Happily Ever After
Summary: Liam searches for his happily ever after with the Scanran princess he is betrothed to at the end of the Scanran war.
Seasons of Happily Ever After
Spring, 465
“The peace negotiations with the Scanran ambassador have concluded,” Mama told Liam in a tone that should have been light as the sun’s rays streaming through the window of the royal quarter’s parlor. Rulers, Liam thought, were supposed to sound triumphant after they had defeated an enemy, not as if they had been vanquished themselves. “Your father and I have signed the treaty.”
“That’s happy news.” Liam wished he could feel happy at the war being truly over rather than temporarily in truce while negotiations proceeded, but instead he felt numb. For years, the Scanrans had been the foe he must fight and fear. What would he do with his life now that there was no war to wage against a surrendered adversary?
“Yes, but in negotiations both sides must give and gain.” Mama’s eyes—hazel on as Liam’s—fixed on his, and the somberness there filled Liam with foreboding. “The Scanrans have agreed to give us the daughter of their new king, Princess Janna, to secure the peace, but they demand the match be made with you.”
“Why me?” Liam frowned. He had known since he could talk that he would one day be bound into an arranged marriage as Roald and Kalasin before him had, but that day had always been so far in the distance that he could pretend it was unreal until suddenly his fate was upon him. “Why not Jasson?”
“The Scanran ambassador said that tales of your heroism in battle have reached King Gustav in Hamrkeng.” Papa’s reference to the war stories that had sprung up around Liam, whom many called the greatest warrior prince Tortall had seen since Jasson the Conqueror, would normally have made Liam glow with pride, but now made him grimace. He would rather not have attracted Scanran attention if it resulted in an arranged marriage with a strange princess from that frigid country. “King Gustav sets much in store by warrior prowess.”
“Obviously.” Liam snorted like a horse even though he knew it was, as Master Oakbridge would have fussed, behavior unbecoming a prince. If he was to marry a Scanran savage, he might as well have the manners to match her barbaric ones. “That’s why he assassinated King Maggur last year to steal the throne.”
“King Maggur had taken his children hostage to ensure his loyalty,” pointed out Mama.
“Which didn’t work,” Papa added, dry as a bone. “Many Scanran kings came to power through assassination, you know that, Liam. It’s referred to as the Bloody Throne for a reason.”
“A perfect argument against me marrying this Princess Janna.” Liam seized on this opening, because conversation to him was as aggressive as sword fighting, all thrusts, attacks, and parries. “Why would we want to ally ourselves in marriage with a king who might only be one for a season, Papa?”
“It’s the cost of ending the war.” Papa spoke as firmly as he always did when he was about to declare that something disagreeable was Liam’s unescapable duty. “It’s the price of peace, son. You must pay it or our realm will continue to bleed.”
“Scanra will bleed more.” Liam’s chin lifted, his statement that he was prepared for battle on any front. “I’ll make certain of that.”
“Our spies in Scanra report that Princess Janna is a beautiful young lady.” Papa was plainly pursuing a different path to persuade Liam to accept and embrace the marriage to Princess Janna.
“You don’t need spies to tell you that.” Liam was torn between derision and a sudden, strong flaming of desire for the blonde, blue-eyed beauties that were rumored to cover Scanra. Among Tortallan squires, it was whispered that the only riches Scanra had were its furs and its women. “All Scanran women are beautiful.”
When Liam met Princess Janna for the first time, he thought that she might be even more beautiful than most Scanran women. She had a slim figure, icy blue eyes, and hair that shone white as snow as she climbed down from the carriage that had taken her from Hamrkeng to Corus with a number of jolts Liam didn’t want to contemplate.
It was still spring and the ink on the treaty stipulating their marriage barely dried while the roads in Scanra and northern Tortall were muddy where they weren’t blocked by unmelted snow—when she arrived in Corus. She would spend a year as his betrothed, becoming acquainted with him and Tortallan customs.
“The Tortallan court must seem strange to you,” Liam commented as he took her on a tour of the tulip garden. Mama and Papa had emphasized in no uncertain terms that he was to teach Princess Janna all she needed to know about Tortall and to do that he had to be understanding of her and the land she had left behind forever. This was Liam’s clumsy attempt at being understanding. “I imagine that it doesn’t feel anything like home but soon it will.”
“It feels very much like the court in Hamrkeng when Maggur was king.” Princess Janna shook her head as if to rattle the memory out of her, the ribbons in her plaits rippling. “I was a hostage then, and I’m a hostage now.”
“You aren’t a hostage here.” Liam couldn’t bring himself to admit the truth in her words. It made him seem more of a kidnapper than a reluctant groom. “You’re an honored guest.”
“I was an honored guest in Hamrkeng too.” Princess Janna’s smile was slight and sardonic. “As long as my father remained loyal to King Maggur, that is. King Maggur was more than happy to hint to my father and me on numerous occasions that his hospitality would end with an ax to my neck if my father’s allegiance to King Maggur wavered.”
“Then the difference between here and Hamrkeng should be clear to you.” Liam wasn’t about to tell her that he was impressed with her ability to cope with the horror that must have been the constant threat of the executioner’s ax without leaping off the cliff into insanity. He had his pride that she had offended with her prickliness. “You won’t be beheaded here. You’ll be married to me, and I’m not so awful that you’d wish for decapitation over marriage to me.”
Princess Janna studied him skeptically, and Liam had to resist the urge to inform her haughtily that none of the women he had charmed into his bed had expressed a yearning to be decapitated, since that was unlikely to flatter even someone as tart and tough as her. Her hardness reminded him of a spring frost in a garden that froze dirt and killed plants. He would have to find a way to make the Scanran frost in her thaw. That would be his challenge since she was to be his wife, his happily ever after in the peace following the bloodshed of the war with Scanra.
Summer, 465
Midusmmer dawned warm and radiant. As he stood on the banks of the Olorun and watched the children dance around the ribbon-and-flower spangled pole, while the adults drank and sang, Liam remembered last Midsummer when, on a leave from war, he had flirted with too many court ladies to bother with their names and snuck into the bushes to find gasping pleasure with one of them, who was probably now married to some uptight lord who could never satisfy her as Liam had...
To take his mind off the wild oats he could no longer sow–he was certain that Mama would geld him if he even thought about being disloyal to his wife–he glanced at Janna, who had woven marigolds and zinnias into a crown over her head.
“You look beautiful,” he said before wincing at the realization that he had paid her that same compliment only a few moments past.
“Do I still?” Janna, obviously unwilling to let his blunder pass without comment, arched an eyebrow.
“Yes, you still look fair as the marigolds in your hair.” Liam decided to change the subject before he suffered any more of her snideness. “Do you celebrate Midsummer’s like this in Scanra?”
“Of course, but we celebrate a month later when the sun shines longer, and more flowers have been grown.” Janna’s eyes were suddenly bright as the sunlight reflected in them. “In northern Scanra, where I’m from, the sun doesn’t set on Midsummer’s, and it’s our happiest day of the year, but we pay for that joy with long, bleak winter days where the sun doesn’t rise.”
“I’ve heard Scanra referred to as the Land of the Midnight Sun.” Liam had vague memories of his childhood tutors trying to hammer that fact into his head when he was more interested in doodling imagined battles on the parchment where he should have been dutifully scribbling notes or staring out the window at the stables where he longed to escape for some semblance of adventure. “I’ve been to the border with Scanra, and it didn’t look so different from northern Tortall, so I assumed it was an exaggeration.”
“It’d be an exaggeration for southern Scanra, but not for northern Scanra.” Janna’s face softened into a smile, and Liam wondered if she was too caught up in her reminisces of Midsummer in Scanra to notice his allusion to fighting her people. “Southern Scanra isn’t so different from northern Tortall in blood or geography, you know. Most northern Tortallans are descendants of Scanrans who were conquered by the Old Ones, and then joined Tortall at its founding in the uncertainty that followed the collapse of the Thanic Empire.”
“The Scanrans were so barbaric that the Old Ones built a wall spanning what’s now northern Tortall to keep them out.” With a chuckle, Liam described the wall the Old Ones had erected to defend what was now Tortall against Scanran incursions had fallen over the centuries. Normally he didn’t remember his history facts, but this history fact had turned into the foundations for many of the Tortallan forts used to defend against Scanran raids. He forgot for an instant that it was a Scanran princess who stood beside him, and he nudged her shoulder as if she were a soldier friend who would appreciate a joke about Scanran savagery.
“More like the Scanrans were so fierce and proud the Old Ones finally found in them an enemy they couldn’t conquer and in a panic threw up a wall to protect their empire from our great warriors.” Janna’s chin lifted defiantly as she responded to his nudge with a sharp elbow to his ribs.
“What special customs do the proud and fierce people of Scanra engage in on Midsummer’s?” Liam massaged his ribcage as he steered the conversation to safer waters.
“Our children have a frog dance where they leap like frogs and sing about how funny frogs look.” Janna giggled, and Liam joined her laughter even if the suspicious part of him feared she had invented this up to make a laughingstock of him. “Our unmarried girls also have a tradition where if they pick a bouquet from seven types of flowers and tuck it under their pillow, they’ll dream of their future husband.”
“Ah.” Liam leaned over to scoop up a purple coneflower. “If I collect six more flowers for me, you’ll dream of me then.”
“No.” Janna shook her head, but there was a teasing twinkle in her gaze that seemed to encourage rather than reject Liam’s advances. “I have to pick the flowers myself if I wanted to dream of you, and you haven’t convinced me that I should want to dream of you yet.”
“I’m picking you gorgeous flowers.” Liam was baffled that his romantic gesture wasn’t being appreciated by Janna when all women–even Mama who had a soft spot a league wide for wildflowers–got sentimental about flowers. “What more can I do to convince you that you should want to dream about me as your husband?”
“Pick me strawberries instead of flowers.” Janna pointed at a berry bush that grew along the bank of the Olorun. “They’re a Midsummer’s delicacy in Scanra when the sun smiles enough to give us a harvest of them.”
Autumn, 465
“Tell me a Scanran campfire story,” Liam said to Janna as they perched on a mossy log in front of a roaring fire outside the Royal Forest. It was All Hallow’s Eve, and the dark trees behind the orange flames that cast an eerie glow over the faces of the young knights and their ladies provided an appropriately scary backdrop for the festivities.
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Janna’s gaze was fixed on the dancing figures in the flames. “We have many campfire stories in Scanra, since during the winter we can do nothing but feast and share stories by the fires in our longhouses. We’d freeze if we tried to do anything else.”
“Tell me a scary Scanran story.” Liam elaborated on his request as he admired how the firelight made her hair shine like moonbeams. “One to give me shivers on an All Hallow’s Eve night.”
“I could tell you an ancient one about a great warrior and his wife.” Janna’s eyes flicked from the fire to him as if seeking permission to continue. When he nodded, she went on, “A long time ago, there was a great warrior who fell in love with a strong, beautiful woman. He fought bravely in many battles for his clan lord, and when the clan lord distributed the loot from conquests, the warrior was always richly rewarded. The warrior saved the treasures his clan lord bestowed on him for his valor until he could woo the woman with them and pay her father the bride price. They were married just when the spring flowers began to bloom…”
“Is this where the story starts to get scary?” Liam interrupted, thinking this story sounded more like a boring romance than a tale to make him shiver on a chilly autumn evening.
“Yes.” Janna paused as if to punish him for his impatience and then resumed her tale. “His clan lord invited him and his new wife to a feast in their honor. At the feast, the warrior’s wife argued with the older women in the clan and embarrassed the warrior. On their way home from the feast, the warrior berated his wife for disgracing him, and when she told him he was wrong to yell at her, he slapped her across the face.”
“Did she slap him back?” demanded Liam indignantly, forgetting that this was an old story with characters who had probably never existed. He could only imagine that was what Mama would do, not that Papa would ever slap Mama…
“After a fashion.” Janna flashed him an enigmatic grin that kept him in suspense as the story continued to unfold. “She went about her wifely duties without complaint, but in her heart she vowed vengeance for the humiliation he heaped upon her when he slapped her face. One day, their clan was attacked by enemy raiders. The warrior reached for his bow to defend himself against the raiders and saw its string was frayed. Frantically, he asked his wife for a strand of her hair to strengthen the string, but she refused, reminding him of how he had embarrassed her by slapping her face and announcing that this was her revenge. All the clan’s warriors were slain that day. Only the women and the children since the raiders spared them as honor requires.”
“That is a scary story.” Liam shuddered at the description of the slaughter and the wife’s bloody vengeance against her husband.
“Yes, but one that teaches a man to respect his wife if he wants her to have his back in battle.” Janna’s chin was boldly uplifted.
“Scanran women are fierce.” Liam whistled—the habit had never left him no matter how many times Master Oakbridge insisted it was a vulgar one—and wondered if Roald had ever been subjected to a Yamani story that sounded more a warning than entertainment. He doubted it. The wives in Yamani tales were probably all graceful, quiet, and obedient to their husbands. “I will keep that in mind and treat you with the highest respect.”
“Good.” Janna’s face didn’t soften from its battle hard readiness. “Then I’ll have your back forever like a good Scanran wife.”
Winter, 465
The sun had barely risen on the first morning of Midwinter when there was a pounding on Liam’s parlor door. Wondering who would dare to call upon him so early when he was infamous for being a bear before noon, he opened the door with a scowl that turned into a shocked stare when he saw Janna standing there in a pearl-white dress. A blood-red girdle wrapped around her waist and a flickering crown of candles topped her hair that shimmered in the light cast from the candles hovering above her head.
“Are you impersonating a candelabra?” Liam asked when he had recaptured enough of his scattered wits to speak. “The masque isn’t until this evening, my dear.”
“I’m not impersonating a candelabra.” Janna brushed past him into his parlor and for the first time he realized that she was bearing a tray of saffron buns. The tantalizing aroma and steam that wafted over him as she pushed past him suggested that they were fresh from the kitchens. Liam’s mouth watered even if daybreak was far earlier than he usually ate breakfast. “I’m dressing up to bring you saffron buns as is Scanran Midwinter tradition.”
“I like this Scanran tradition much better than the ones that involve storming across our border and slaughtering our people.” Liam snatched a bun from the tray as she set it down on a tea table. He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed before continuing, “I don’t suppose your people could be tricked into believing that every day was part of the Midwinter holiday?”
“The passing of the seasons might make that a difficult tale for any Scanran to accept.” Janna smiled at him, and he wondered if the warmth flowing through him was because of the way she looked at him or because of the saffron bun he was munching. “Besides you can’t say that you enjoy this Scanran custom until you’ve experienced it in its entirety?”
“What is it’s entirety?” Liam grabbed a second saffron bun when he finished his first. Instead of eating it himself, he brought it to Janna’s lips. “Is the climax a sword to the chest?”
“Nothing so dramatic.” Janna took a bite of the bun he had put to her mouth. “The full Scanran custom would just involve me serving you saffron buns in bed, but that seemed too bold to be appropriate this year.”
“Maybe next year, once we’re married, it won’t be so bold.” Liam watched Janna’s lips, waiting for her to swallow so he could kiss her in accordance with the Tortallan custom, but Janna apparently had different plans for her mouth when it wasn’t filled with food.
“Maybe it won’t,” she commented, eyes dancing with his.
“Midwinter luck.” He pressed his mouth against hers, smelling and tasting the pungent honey of saffron on her lips, and felt something inside him swell when her mouth was consumed by his. “That’s a Tortallan tradition.”
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!