Lora of Two Worlds

In Lora's Long Gallery, the three brothers sat around her. When she asked about Rosalind and Odile's families, Alvin said:

"Rosalind comes to our house to find you all the time, you two were thickest at the convent school. Her father, Edmund Ashby, came down from Yorvik when the Yorvik Liaison Office was set up in Lohenheim; he's risen to be the liaison commissioner himself."

Roland, seeing she didn't quite follow, added:

"Every marcher lord in the Empire, every warden, every marcher duke, keeps a liaison office in the two capitals. They carry word between the Crown and the country; they gather the realm's news for the Crown; and of course they're the eyes and ears of the marcher lords, sniffing out what the court is about."

Lora thought the marcher liaison offices sounded rather like provincial representative offices in a modern capital.

And, to her surprise, they served another function straight out of modern banking: the "flying cash" remittance.

Say you wanted to take five hundred thousand florins from the capital up to Yorvik to buy a house. You could hand the five hundred thousand to the Yorvik Liaison Office; they would write you out a sealed bill, and you could take that bill up to Yorvik and draw the coin at the march's treasury.

Roland, explaining these dull matters that women weren't supposed to care for, expected Lora's eyes to glaze. He didn't know that her mind was already racing:

They say Eastern finance began with the Lombard era. Not so. Wasn't this a banker's draft?

With the liaison "flying cash" as a model, and the old Aurelian Empire's foundation in moneylending, could one legally open a bank?

Her thoughts came back to Rosalind. She remembered that all day Rosalind had been calm, composed, smiling, even when she'd "exposed" Daphne, she'd been warm and friendly.

Was she really my bosom friend?

"Brothers, what you're saying is, Rosalind's family has no conflict of interest with us, so no motive to kill me?"

Gareth nodded: "Right. Yorvik is a long way off; the Three Transriver Marches are at odds with the Crown in all but name, they care for their own land and their own coin, not for us. No clash of interest with us in Lohenheim. The other young lady is another matter."

"Odile Legard? Today she seemed cross, like she was taking my side."

"She's connected to someone you mentioned today." Alvin took the rosemary infusion a maid brought and handed it to Lora, smiling:

"You were fierce today. Hearing someone slander Father, you wanted to hit them. That's just like Gareth."

"What's wrong with being like me? If she'd learned my martial arts too, no one would dare bully her!"

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Gareth, the second, was the sandwich child. But he was easygoing, didn't take offense, loved sword and spear. He didn't have Brendan's troubles.

"Odile Legard is the granddaughter of Marquess Legard, the man about to take up as Lord Regent of Lohenheim." Roland said. "Tonight Daphne's probably getting the scolding of her life from her father, she's poked a hornets' nest."

"Really? No wonder... that last line she threw at Daphne, I thought she was taking my side, but she was taking her family's!"

Lora finally understood. That was why everyone on the boat had looked the way they did. That was why Daphne had gone to the length of eating poison and jumping. Not just over Felix, but to cover the hole her loose tongue had dug, to keep the blame off her father, and especially off her aunt the Dowager Lady.

And Odile was clever. Saying what she did meant that when her grandfather arrived, Lora's father couldn't very well oppose him, in fact, he'd better curry favor and support him, or the "enemy" label would stick.

My my. Every girl in this age had a head on her shoulders. She'd thought she'd come here and clean up with her modern wits. One careless step, and she'd fallen straight into a pit they'd dug. She couldn't underestimate them.

She held the steaming rosemary infusion but didn't drink. She let the steam wash over her face, the herb tea here was full of spices and smelled odd.

"We can't rule them out entirely, either," Alvin said, standing and clapping her head. "Someone on the boat could have put on the green and white dress deliberately to hide who they were. So we can't look only at these two."

"Hurry up and remember, knowing nothing is the easiest way to get fooled. my older brother will just tie you to his belt and take you to camp to keep you safe."

"Not that, if she goes to camp, I'm out. Let Roland trail around after her and mop up her messes. Ha ha ha." Gareth, a soldier to the bone, but more careful than most, stood too:

"Little sister, rest early. Whatever happens, none of them has any direct quarrel with you. I'd guess this was a warning to the Odenheims using you. Father and we'll handle the rest. You just drink your chicken broth and build yourself back up."

Lora laughed: "I'm not in my lying-in, what's with the chicken broth?"

"There's chicken broth. I heard Mother tell Petra to stew some for you." Gareth remembered something and laughed:

"When you can't finish it, save a little for Brendan. He's going to be on his stomach for days."

The three brothers rose to leave. Lora ran after them: "Why didn't you stop them? You just let Brendan get beaten, chicken broth won't fix that."

"He did wrong, why should we stop him? Apart from you and Carl, which of us hasn't been beaten by Father? my older brother, any of your Wyrm Bane Salve left? If there's, squeeze a little out for him. Ha ha ha ha."

Thinking of Brendan's beating, Gareth couldn't stop laughing.

"Little sister, don't see us out. Rest well. We'll go look in on the two convicts."

"Carl's punishment? If I were Brendan I'd be mad, they should have beaten him too."

"You try copying the entire Office of the Dead in one night."

"No thanks, I'd rather take the beating. Ha ha ha ha."

Lora stood under the plaque of the Long Gallery and watched the three brothers walk away, laughing. Her heart was warm.

Outside the arched gate of her little courtyard stood a tall oak tree. Looking up, it seemed to be covered in tens of thousands of tender green little fans, all waving happily in the breeze.

"Young lady, why are you standing in the wind?"

Margaret came with a young maid, both carrying food boxes, Lora's supper. Margaret followed Lora's gaze to the oak and smiled:

"Did you remember something? When you were little, you and Brendan and Carl used to climb this tree to pick the nuts. One day Carl lost his grip and fell. Brendan was made to stand in the corner for two hours. Back then the sun set early and the evenings were cold, you took a cloak out to put over him, and then fell asleep next to him, wrapped up in the cloak yourself."

"Oh... the branches are so high now. I couldn't climb it if I wanted to."

Lora sighed.

"How could they not be high? The Count had the low branches cut so you couldn't climb. That was years ago, the tree's grown."

Amnesia was nice. Everything people helped you remember was the gold that had settled out of time.

Not having to remember two people's past, perhaps that was my luck.

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