Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Maids of Silva ❯ Chapter 9 ( Chapter 9 )

Maids of Silva by Happily Ever After

Chapter Nine by Iris Anthe

Though joy had returned to the cottage near the woods at the return of the wayward animals, the fates were still busy weaving on their ageless loom. Slowly and intricately the simple and straight strands of the two maidens, one white as new fallen snow and one as red as summer's glorious rose were being brought into an old and intricate pattern woven of many great and beautiful threads, a pattern that seen from close up resembled nothing if not an enormous knot. Who but the fates themselves could see the outcome of such a complex design?

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The day had brought a heavy storm full of wet, driving snow, but with the onset of night the bitter north wind returned in harsh, dry gusts that blew the snow off of rooftops and made ancient trees protest in their sleep with creaking groans and an occasional shocking crack as an old limb was torn free. Dorothy listened to the bitter music of winter and wanted to be out, out dancing with the wind and bending with the trees, rather than be indoors waiting for that odious little dwarf, J to return with tidings of the enchanted princes and the seemingly helpless maids. She hated being kept indoors. She felt stifled and trapped. The cold did not affect her as it seemed to affect everyone else. She knew what people thought of her. "Practically a man," she'd heard whispered behind her back numerous times. She had excellent hearing.

She had excellent vision. She had an often maddeningly keen sense of smell, and though only two had ever heard it, she also had a beautiful singing voice. One of those people had been her father, the other was her childhood companion, the mysterious Lucrezia.

Lucrezia.

Dorothy looked over to where her captive fairy sat, erect and vacant where she'd been told to sit two hours ago. Lucrezia was just no fun anymore. She could recall as a child how beautiful she had found the fairy woman, more beautiful than anyone, than her father's rare smile, than the sunlight through the trees. She remembered her voice singing in a different tongue, songs of endless spring and long nights full of starlight and the fragrance of flowers, songs of loss and love. It all seemed like magic then, such beauty, but looking at the figure sitting there she sensed nothing, no magic not even the sorrowful beauty she had once loved. Her father's greatest prize, an obedient servant. How annoying she was, really.just a fake, a shell, a lie.

"Why don't you do something, instead of just sitting there like an idiot!"

Without shifting her gaze from its distant focus, somewhere far beyond the wall at which she appeared to be staring, Lucrezia answered in a hoarse whisper, "What would you have me do?"

Dorothy snarled in disgust. "What do you do while I'm away? Do you just sit like a doll waiting to be played with? How can you be so stupid? Get up and DO something!"

The fairy woman had remained still through the entire tirade, but at Dorothy's final words, her fingers sprang apart and her eyes finally came to focus on her surroundings. Blinking as if waking from a dream, she turned towards her young mistress with a look of sorrow so profound that even the icy anger that encased Dorothy's heart began to crack. It had been so long, years now since she had seen Lucrezia's eyes alive with any sign of intelligence or emotion. So long without her. Some crying child within her hoped that Lucrezia would come and stroke her golden hair as she used to long ago, that she would hold her and whisper words of love and protection in that other tongue. For a moment it seemed it might actually happen and Dorothy was betrayed by the happy beating of her heart. But alas, as the world has known through many turns of history, anger breeds anger, even in the kindest hearts. In that golden moment of hope Lucrezia failed to give Dorothy the touch she so ached for. Instead her eyes shifted to the white head of the unicorn hanging over the mantelpiece. With a slow and deliberate grace, she rose from her chair, walked to the head of the slain beast and quicker than seemed possible lifted it from the wall and threw it into the great fire burning in the hearth.

The room filled with Dorothy's keening wail as she ran towards the hearth in a vain attempt to save her proudest trophy. Before she was even within reach, however, the spiral of the unicorn's white horn flared into light and the entire head became wreathed in blue flame and vanished, instantly. All that was left was the burning board to which it had been mounted and a poignant smell of Spring hanging in the room.

Dorothy panted with rage, clenching and unclenching her calloused fists as she stared at the captive fairy woman.

"Why did you DO that?" she ground out through her teeth.

Lucrezia stood with a look of sadness and relief as she breathed in the gift of a moment of eternal Spring from the departed Unicorn. "He is at rest now. He is free."

Dorothy was betrayed. "That is what you would do if you had the chance, isn't it? Leave? You would give anything to be free of me, wouldn't you? Well you will never leave! I will never let you go. You will stay with me until you die." The last words were a hiss of spite, filled with venom and hurt.

Lucrezia simply bowed her head and said nothing.

At that moment there was a knock at the door, and after a short pause a skittish maid, dressed in a shift stitched with the family crest at the neck curtsied halfway into the room. "Is everything alright, Miss? You sounded upset."

Dorothy turned her wintry gaze on the poor housemaid and replied, "Get out of here. What makes you think you could be of service to me, you weak, inconsequential wretch?"

The maid was actually shaking in fear, being new to the household and having heard terrible things of her renowned and deadly mistress. But, she was well trained and had been raised in the service of none other than Treize himself so she stood her ground knowing she would be in even more trouble if she failed to deliver the message she'd been sent with before hearing her mistress' yell behind the door.

"Are you deaf as well as stupid? Why are you still standing there?" came Dorothy's inevitable sharp reproach.

"Sorry Miss. There's a message, Miss."

Dorothy sighed with exasperation. Someone please save her from all the spineless wretches in the world. At least Lucrezia still had some spirit left in her.

"What is it. Tell me quick, before I skewer you with my sword." Seeing the maid's response to the threat she added, "And don't you dare faint on me, or I'll feed you to the Manticore."

Eyes rolling back in her head, the maid clutched the doorframe and through a dry mouth replied, "Mistress Sally is here from the palace, and so is the little man, J. You wanted to know immediately when he arrived."

Dorothy visibly cooled at the news and an unpleasant smile turned the corners of her mouth. Ah, at last she could get back outside and into the hunt. Without looking at the maid she dismissed her, telling her to send in the midwife, Sally Po and have J wait for her by the aviary. Once the maid was gone, Dorothy turned a calculating gaze at the not so docile fairy. To think, she still had a little spark left in her after all those years in service to her father and now to Dorothy. It was amazing really. Such a fighting spirit should be rewarded. She was truly a prize to be cherished. She picked up the wrought iron poker from the hearth side, and began breaking up the burning plank of wood that remained in the fire after the unicorn disappeared. She spoke with her back to Lucrezia while thoughtfully stabbing into the flames.

"I see I underestimated your strength Lucrezia. It has been such a long time since you displayed any will at all it took me by surprise. Luckily for you, I do so enjoy a good surprise." Dorothy's smile was brittle as she replaced the poker and continued, hands now clasped behind her slender waist. "I feel that you are lonely by yourself all day in your quarters. I have decided to find you a companion. A mate to be precise." She turned in the hopes of catching some thought flickering through the fairy woman's eyes. She was rewarded with an emotional response acute enough to look like dread. "It strikes me that you have been without one for a very long time. I have asked the Midwife Po here to examine you. You will answer all of her questions and comply with her examinations." Lucrezia visibly shook with some unknown emotion hearing these words, but as always said nothing.

"Is that clear?" Unable to speak through the tightness of her throat, Lucrezia merely nodded. "Excellent." Dorothy stood for a while staring at the regal but wan fairy woman in a sack dress. For the first time in years she saw an echo of the beauty she had admired so as a child, but it had grown thin and sorrowful. She was almost moved to pity, but her father had taught her far to well, not to pity one's prey. Magical beasts were still just beasts. They could be captured or killed or even bred like any other beast. Lucrezia was no different. She only seemed that way; that was her magic, to seem human. It would be a great accomplishment to add another fairy to the Catalonia collection, perhaps even to breed one in captivity.

She moved to the door. Before leaving she spoke over her shoulder. "And don't worry yourself over that poor unicorn. I will find another one and hang his head where you will not be able to harm it. The stupid beasts eat right out of my hand you know."

As soon as the door closed, Lucrezia sank to the floor and pounded it once with both fists, and then stayed that way, huddled like a child, her head bowed to her knees.

And that is how the midwife, Sally Po found her some moments later. She immediately rushed to her side, thinking her a woman in physical pain. But as soon as she laid hands on her, Lucrezia sprang up and away into a fighter's stance, one quite familiar to Sally, being wed to the captain of the royal guard.

"It's alright dear, I won't hurt you. Look at me, I couldn't hurt a fly now, could I? Here now, let me have a look at you." Sally stopped short with a quick gasp of recognition. Her hand slowly crept up towards her gaping mouth but lowered again before it ever go there. That face, it was the exact likeness. Her family had a portrait of that face painted by no human hand. It was their most secret and prized possession. Immediately she fell to one knee, her head bowed in obeisance. "Your Majesty, forgive me for touching you. I thought you were ill." She waited for some response her head still bowed. After a long awkward silence, she dared to peek a look at the Queen of Fairy, and saw her standing, her mouth opening and closing without words, a look of desperation on her face.

Sally immediately looked down again, trying to come to terms with the situation. Standing before her, in nothing but a rough sack dress and iron cuffs around her wrists, ankles and neck was the Queen of Fairy, Lucrezia Noin, protector of birth for all living creatures, and the original teacher and guide to the long line of Midwives of which Sally was the latest generation in the land. Sally had heard ugly rumors of the Catalonia penchant for collecting magical items, animate and inanimate, living or dead. She could only guess that the ugliest rumor of all, that the old Catalonia Lord had captured a live fairy nearly 20 years ago was in fact true, and here was the proof.the Queen of Fairy herself. She was stunned.

But a midwife deals in life and in death and in pain and hidden strength with every woman she tends and after a lifetime in such service, not much can stun her for long. Sally was immediately putting together pieces in the puzzle that stood before her. She knew one thing more certainly than any other. She had to help. She had to find a way to free the Queen. It was the very least she could do to repay humanity's eternal debt to her for teaching women so long ago to guide one another through the hazards of birth. So, putting aside the useless stance of genuflection, Sally stood and approached the regal figure before her.

"Your Highness, how is it that you are here?"

Lucrezia's breath exploded out of her in relief. "I was captured many of your years ago by the lord of this house."

Sally saw desperate intelligence burning in the Queen's eyes and wondered why she didn't say more.

"Can you tell me more?"

Lucrezia furrowed her brow in frustration, and through a tight throat ground a one word reply, "Yes."

Sally frowned in return. This was very strange. She watched the Queen run her fingers over the metal at her throat with a look of pain at the corners of her mouth. Could those bands be magic? Could they possibly be strong enough to hold sway over the Queen of Fairy herself?

"Your Highness, do those bands keep you from answering me fully?"

Taking a calming breath, Lucrezia nodded her head once.

"I see. Who could have devised magic strong enough to hold the Queen of Fairy?"

Sally had merely been thinking aloud, but Lucrezia unexpectedly answered, "The King of the Fifth House of Dwarves," with such hatred in her voice that Sally's flesh rose into winter's bumps in reaction, and she could see the metal bands that bound the Queen turn a hot and ugly red that visibly burned the flesh around them. Then it seemed to Sally as she watched that the bonds grew heavy, heavier than they'd been before and the Queen sank tiredly to the floor, returning to the curled position she'd been in when Sally entered the room.

Sure not to make the same mistake twice, Sally did not put her arms across the shoulders of the Queen. Instead she kneeled at her side and with a small voice, but true began singing her the songs of strength she sang to mothers in the long hours of labor.

Lucrezia heard the music filtering through her weary pain as it had been crafted to do. She herself had made those songs for the human women over a thousand years before. It touched her strangely to hear them sung, almost unchanged, only with words in the human tongue instead. It was sung in compassion and its magic gifted to her by this kind woman lifted the burden of her old anger and sorrow and brought a feeling of liquid light into her chest.

She raised her head and smiled, for the first time in a very long time.

"Your Highness, let me help you. Tell me how to take these binds off." Sally gestured to the iron at wrists and feet.

"I cannot," was all Lucrezia could say.

Sally let out an exasperated sigh. If only Wu Fei were here. He had quite a way of making things go his way even if it meant using violence. He wasn't the captain of the royal guard for nothing. At that thought, Sally realized that the Queen might have someone who could help as well if only that person were here. Perhaps she could get word to her people of their Queen's plight. Once she began thinking of this, she started to wonder why no-one had come to rescue her already.

"Your Highness, how can it be that you are here in bondage for so long? Why have your people not come for you?"

Lucrezia lowered her head once more, her smile a mere wisp of longing left on her lips. She tried to think of how to answer, what would be allowed. "My spirit is bound; it cannot breathe." She raised her banded wrists and then gestured towards the collar around her neck. She wanted to say more, so desperately. Would this descendent of her long dead friend, Yulian Po be clever enough to ask the right questions? Could she actually help? Hope stirred nervously within old chambers of despair.

Sally tried very hard to intuit more meaning into those words. "You say your spirit cannot breathe. I don't exactly understand. Most importantly I need to know how it would stop your people from coming here."

Ah, clever little human woman! This was just the opening she needed. "They cannot sense my existence."

A long, quiet moment passed while Sally muttered to herself and contemplated that bit of news. She had started to realize that somehow the Queen's ability to communicate was greatly curtailed. She just couldn't figure out how. This King of Dwarves must be very talented with these enchantments if the Queen of Fairy herself could barely answer a question. "How long have you been under an enchantment that limits your ability to speak?"

Lucrezia couldn't help but be disappointed by this question. The midwife had been so close to the train of thought she wanted her to pursue, but she'd been ordered to answer all the midwife's questions and cooperate, so that is what she had to do.

"Only for the past six years has it been as it is now."

"As it has been now." Sally knew there was more to that statement. "How was it before then?" She saw the Queen react with a mixture of impatience and resignation that told her more than words that these were not the questions she should be asking. But she needed to figure this out and she'd need a lot more information before she could succeed.

"There were certain things of which I was never allowed to speak, save in my own tongue."

"And now.?" Sally prompted.

"And now, I can only answer questions and still cannot speak of those things whether in my own tongue or any other."

Sally couldn't help but feel smug at having figured this much out. She was about to ask what were the forbidden topics, when she remembered the Queen would not be allowed to answer. She let out a sigh of frustration that was echoed by the woman across from her.

"I'm not asking the right questions, am I?"

Lucrezia had to smile. Right then she looked so much like that tenaciously clever human girl that Lucrezia found alone and savage living without speech in the ancient forests that once stretched across the land. She had loved that girl as a mother loves her child, fiercely and joyfully and it was with pride and sadness that she saw her leave her house one day to find her own path in the world of her own kind as a healer and teacher to women in the dark passage of birth, life and death. Long had Lucrezia kept watch over the descendents of her foster child, Yulian, but this one had come into womanhood after Lucrezia's captor had found her wandering in the woods almost twenty years before. She did not know her, but the spark of Yulian lived in Sally's blue eyes.

"What question do you want me to ask?"

Sally had asked this question rhetorically in irritation and so did not realize just how clever a question it truly was. The Queen beamed at her so lovingly she blushed like a child who has pleased her mother.

"Ask me how you can help me."

Of course! Why hadn't she thought of that? Such a simple question and so perfect. She cleared her throat to be sure it came out clearly. "How can I help you, your Highness?"

Lucrezia felt her heart beating fiercely enough that she imagined it would leap out of her chest entirely any moment.

"Find the magic wood and tell my king that I am still alive and am waiting for his arrival."

"He thinks you are dead? No wonder the wood has been closed," Sally mused to herself. She noticed a look of misgiving pass across the Queen's features and had to explain. "My Grandmother took me to the wood when I passed into womanhood that I might gain the blessing of our guide," she nodded to the woman across from her to make her point, "the Queen of Fairy, Lucrezia Noin. We were told quite fiercely to go back the way we had come, that no human was welcome anymore in the borderland of Fairy, let alone in the kingdom itself."

Lucrezia's heart sank. Poor Milliardo. She imagined him in his war mask, answering only to his warrior's name and showing no mercy to any human who was unwise enough to cross his path. There was no hope then. She had only one choice now and that was to seek the release of death. No bonds magical or mundane could hold her spirit then.

"Your Highness?" Sally sensed the withdrawal in the Queen and feared the look of placid acceptance that filled her very posture. That was the look of defeat, she knew it quite well. It was the look many women who realized they would never live to suckle their child got as they made their last push to bring life into the world. It was a look of death.

Sally got down onto her knees and dared to clasp the hands of the Queen of Fairy in her own, though she could not make her raise her eyes. "Your Highness, do not give up yet. I promise you, I will find a way to the Fairy Realm and I will be safe. My husband is the greatest living swordsman and loves me quite fiercely. He will protect me and your message will get through. This I vow."

Such a brave, foolish child. Ah, Yulian you have sent me your finest heir in my hour of need. I thank you. Lucrezia nodded once to acknowledge the pledge, but did not put much faith in this vulnerable human's strength, though she did not doubt her courage.

Sally felt the need to start out for the magic wood that was the border of the Land of Fairy immediately. She was torn between wanting to stay and comfort the obviously despondent woman before her and knowing that the best comfort would come with her release. She stood and straightened her woolen, winter skirts and meeting the Queen's sad gaze resolutely she nodded once and headed for the door.

She was about to leave when she remembered the reason she had been summoned here in the first place. Biting her lip at the delay, she turned and addressed the Queen once more. "I'm sorry your Highness, I just remembered, I was summoned here by the Mistress Catalonia for a specific purpose and I must be able to answer her in some way, or she will become suspicious."

Lucrezia frowned knowing full well what Dorothy's desires were.

"Please forgive me, your Highness. She wanted to know if you were fit for childbirth. My grandmother told me once long ago that a Fairy woman enters estrous only a few times in her long life, and can only bear young during those times. May I ask, when was your last fertile time?"

Lucrezia smiled and said, "You may."

The Midwife Po had to laugh at the response but played along asking, "When was your last fertile time, your Highness?"

"Almost twenty years ago."

Sally was taken aback. The Queen had been captive for about twenty years. Could she have missed her possibly only chance to have a child? She blurted out the slightly rude question before thinking. "Did you have a child?"

Lucrezia ran her fingers along the edge of the heavy iron collar around her neck and rather than speak simply nodded her head once in reply.

"Oh, you poor, poor woman to be separated from your child for so long."

The Queen's mouth formed a bitter line that Sally thought she understood, but the thought in Lucrezia's mind was how there are things more painful for a mother than to be separated from her child--far, far more painful.