Lora of Two Worlds

Roland went to arrange a storehouse check and a search. Leon stayed, he had more to say. When they were alone:

"Next time, don't hide in your room drinking."

Lora knew she was in the wrong: "I was just tasting."

"Tasting, and drank half a jar? Is that what a young lady does?"

Lora hid behind a handkerchief, silent. In the palace, a princess caught doing wrong would be weeping by now.

He couldn't bear it. Teased her, yanked the handkerchief away. And found a grin she hadn't had time to hide.

"You rascal... This spirit burns the stomach. You're young, your digestion can't take it. Give me the recipe. I know a wine fanatic, formerly the imperial brewery director. He resigned rather than water down the official wine with his co-director for profit. Came back to Lohenheim. I don't know where he lives, but I can find him."

"Oh! I'll write it up "

She turned to go, then looked back, grinning: "You didn't stay just for the recipe, did you?"

"Mm. I wanted to ask, how do we move to the next step of our courtship?"

Leon said it with a straight face. Lora pursed her lips, ignored him, sat at the desk, spread paper. He wheeled beside her:

"I do have real business."

"Then talk. Why did you pull my handkerchief?"

"Isn't that a suitor's right?" Leon dropped the teasing: "I came to borrow something."

"What?"

"The medallion around your neck."

Puzzled, but she reached up and untied it. Leon explained:

"My brother the King gave me a Frost Raven token. He said it was left by the old King, and could command three hundred Frost Raven guards. Passed down through eight reigns, no one ever found them. So he gave it to me."

"The old King? That's nearly a hundred years! The soldiers would be saints by now."

"Everyone thought so. So they stopped looking seriously. Passed down so long, not always hand-to-hand, the token was split into two pieces."

Lora was beginning to understand. The medallion was one piece?

"Strange, isn't it? When I was born, my father gave me this medallion... After he died, my my older brother found the token in his study. Then it passed to my Gareth. When I came to Lohenheim, he gave it to me."

"So the relic is two pieces, token and medallion. Twenty years apart, you ended up with both." Lora stared: This was too cinematic. Even a novelist wouldn't dare.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Claude Sheffield found someone who'd been watching the token. The man hinted that he still needed one more piece. If not for the medallion, and the fact that I'd noticed the patterns matched, we'd have missed him."

Leon sighed deeply, then smiled:

"They're tenacious. Generation after generation, using the cover of stonemasons at the Cliff Sanctuary, rotating, renewing. Keeping the Frost Ravens alive to this day."

"Remarkable..."

"I'm sending Linn and Claude Sheffield again. This time, we should make contact. Three hundred men isn't many. But their loyalty and conviction, far exceed their number."

Lora was impressed by their sustainability model. Right here in Lohenheim, under the court's nose, hiding hundreds of loyalist troops from a bygone era. She wanted to study this method.

She finished writing the distillation steps, complete with diagrams of the still and condenser, connected by a hollowed reed tube.

"Method based on Eastmarch's grape-wine distillation... There. All annotated. He's a brewer, he'll understand at a glance."

She handed the full page to Leon, then reminded him:

"You know him, but once the wine is made, money is involved. You can't use royal authority to pressure him now. Better to open a distillery and hire him as master brewer."

"He's a proud man... All right. I'll take your advice. Give him the title 'Wine Doctor.' At Harvest Home, host a tasting and poetry gathering under the distillery's name. He gets fame. We get profit."

"Doesn't a distillery need government approval? So conspicuously..."

Leon smiled: "Even if I'm not a prince, is a barony worth nothing? Besides... word needs to reach Augustburg. My brother the King will love hearing that I've sunk into wine and debauchery."

"Wine, not debauchery." Lora corrected.

Leon laughed: "Is that the lady exercising her rights? Fine, I promise. I should go. I wonder how your household matter turned out..."

"My lady!" Margaret knocked, peeked in, saw Leon, curtsied, then looked at Lora, hesitating.

"I'm leaving. Thank you for the recipe."

After seeing Leon out, Margaret burst out: "My lady, trouble. I went with Lord Roland to the storehouse. It was locked. We sent for Steward Weber, he's gone too.

Lionel the steward said Weber went to the farms to collect summer grain, left days ago. Didn't leave the keys with anyone. Then... Lord Roland reported to Lord Alvin. They got the third key from the General.

Opened the door. Everything valuable and portable, gone. The General had them open the Countess's cabinets. Her jewelry boxes... the deeds... gone too!"

"Deeds? What use are deeds? In Lohenheim, would someone buy Odenheim land, change the household registration at the prefecture, and the Odenheims wouldn't know?"

A thief stealing from his own master would take gold, copper, portable valuables. Not recognizable gems or crystal, too traceable.

Deeds, even less. Land and houses couldn't be carried off. Sold to someone, the buyer would have to change the registered owner at the prefecture.

An ordinary household, maybe inside collusion. The General's land? No prefecture clerk would dare conspire with a house thief.

Whatever the case, go to Father.

When Lora reached the Count's study, all three brothers were there. Laney, Lionel the steward, and the Countess's maids, Dulcie and Mellie, knelt on the floor. Aziz was reporting:

"I've checked the prefecture. The General's seven farms, two forests, and two Lohenheim residences, all unchanged. No transfers."

The Count exhaled. The farms were intact. Annual income was safe. The stolen goods could be found later. He said, cold:

"Fine. When Denton Quinn brings Weston Gray back, I'll question him myself. Take these four, who know nothing, out. Beat them until they remember."

Laney wept: "General! I've been wronged! Susannah and I, one east, one west. The Countess gave the keys to Susannah. I only assisted. How could I watch her every move?"

"You were with her daily. I don't believe she could rob the storehouse and the Countess's jewels, something this big, without leaving a trace."

A household theft. Humiliating.

The Countess away. Sons unmarried. Daughter young. Internal affairs left to a maid-mistress of twenty years. And she'd fled with the valuables.

Outrageous.

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