“What are they?” Amren inquired.

Lara explained.

“So in Hetar there is a distinct social strata, as there is here in Terah,” he said.

“Even more so,” Lara told the young man. “In Terah there is the Dominus, his family, and an underclass of merchants, farmers, artisans and the like. In Hetar there is the Lord High Ruler, the High Council made up of representatives from the provinces, as well as a Merchants Guild to which all merchants and shopkeepers belong. There is a Mercenary Guild, the order of the Crusader Knights, the Pleasure Mistresses Guild, the Guild of Pleasure Women. There are farmers and traders, healers and those who perform miscellaneous services.”

“It sounds very complicated,” Amren noted. “But you must teach me so I know it all, and do not embarrass my father.”

“Must? How dare you speak to me so, Amren, grandson of Magnus Hauk. In Hetar how one appears is paramount, and good manners are all-important. If you are loud and rude, Hetar will believe that all who live in Terah are the same way. Your first impression will be the most important impression you make. You cannot allow Hetar to continue their foolish fantasy of being the only civilized kingdom in our world. Still I must consider if I will educate you in the ways of Hetar. Is it even possible to do so, considering how you have been raised?”

Amren was a very handsome young man. In many ways he reminded her of Magnus Hauk with his dark blond hair and his blue eyes. But his lips were thin, and his jaw weak. Yet he had a certain charm, Lara thought, and perhaps he could be taught to represent Terah with dignity and elegance. He smiled at Lara now. “Please teach me what I must know, Grandmother,” he said.

Lara laughed aloud. “Never since any of you were born have I heard the word Grandmother directed toward me,” she said. “Come back tomorrow in the second hour after midday. I will have decided by then if I will help you.”

“Could you really turn me into a toad?” he asked her half-seriously.

Lara nodded slowly. “If I choose to,” she told him.

“The old aunts say you are evil,” Amren said.

“Narda and Anselma are a pair of dried-up old biddies. And they were the same in their youth. They know far more of evil than I do. Your aunt Sirvat was the only one among Magnus Hauk’s family who befriended me, and she is now gone.”

“My mother loves them,” Amren said.

“I am glad for them that someone does,” Lara remarked tartly. “Now, go away, boy. When you return tomorrow we shall talk again.”

“If I return,” he replied.

Lara laughed again and waved him from her. Of course the next afternoon Amren came, and for the next two months he spent time with his grandmother each afternoon learning all about Hetar. When she thought he was near to being ready, she called in the royal tailor and personally oversaw the creation of his wardrobe. The royal tailor, being a clever man, smiled and nodded in agreement with the Domina Vineeta and the Ladies Narda and Anselma when they told him what to do in regard to Amren’s clothing. Then, following Lara’s careful instructions, the tailor created a magnificent wardrobe of silks, velvets and satins, trimmed in gold and bejeweled with semiprecious stones and crystals. Shoes and boots of the finest leather, some of the shoes burnished with gold or silver. There were capes and cloaks trimmed with fur, some lined in cloth of gold or silver. His sword and the several daggers among his ambassadorial possessions had handles and hilts studded with precious jewels.

When Dominus Taj saw all his mother had done for his younger son, he felt both pleased and sad. Briefly he recalled the childhood before his father had been killed, when she had loved him, and indulged him shamelessly. He remembered warm Autumn days when she would put him before her on her horse, Dasras, and gallop across the plains of Terah into the blue skies above, so he might see their world as others could not. When his father had died she had been his strength, gently but firmly guiding him, putting his interests, and those of Terah, first. Taj now knew by virtue of his years that only his magical faerie-woman mother could have been that bighearted. He realized now that she had saved Terah far more than once, and he was ashamed of his behavior. Looking at her, he said, “I have not the words.”

“You do, and I hear them with my heart,” Lara replied softly. Then she turned to look at Amren. “He is an intelligent young man, and will serve Terah well, my son.”

Domina Vineeta sat nervously nearby with the Ladies Narda and Anselma, watching her husband and his mother.

“Which vessel is to conduct our Amren to Hetar?” Narda asked Vineeta.

“No vessel,” was the reply. “He will be accompanied by a Shadow Prince.”

Narda and Anselma both hissed their strong disapproval.

“It is practical, and swift,” Vineeta dared to say. “And he has been given two personal faerie post creatures to carry his messages back and forth.”

“And you allowed the faerie woman to corrupt your son, Vineeta?” Anselma said.

“I am astounded that after all these years of protecting your children from her you would do such a thing. Amren’s wardrobe indicates that she has already begun to corrupt him. It is obvious she ensorcelled the tailor into doing her bidding, and not following our most careful instructions. Your younger son looks Hetarian now, not Terahn.”

Lara had heard them. It had been years since she had spoken to either of her sisters-in-law, and she was surprised to find they still irritated her. “Amren is most handsome in his new garments. The richness of them gives him more value with the Hetarians with whom he must deal than if he had dressed himself in plain clothing. With Hetar it is always the first impression that is the lasting one. After all these years have you no concept of what Hetar is like?”

They had had no answer for her. Recalling it now, Lara remembered that day as if it were yesterday. Narda and Anselma were long gone of course. Magnus’s youngest sister, the Lady Sirvat, Lara’s dearest friend, was dead, too. And since her passing Lara had had no friend among the Terahns. Her mother had, some fifty years ago, sent her a serving woman, Cadi, as Lara’s longtime serving woman, Mila, had grown old, too.

Cadi was the daughter of a casual encounter between a faerie man and the strong spirit that inhabited an Aspen tree in the domain of the Hetarian Forest Lords. She had been found cradled in the aboveground roots of the tree one May morning by her father, who had been summoned by his former lover. The Aspen told the faerie man that the child was his, and he must take it as she could not raise it. He agreed, bringing the infant to his queen and begging for her aid.

Though he was a faerie of the lower castes, Ilona agreed to raise his daughter, educate her and one day put her in service with Lara. The queen of the Forest Faeries knew her daughter would need one of their own kind by her side eventually. Mortals died off much too soon. And their bodies became infirm, as well. So Cadi had come to serve her mistress when she reached the age of fourteen.

She was a delicate and slender creature with faerie green eyes that she had inherited from her father. But it was her hair that was her most interesting feature. It appeared leaf like. In summer Cadi’s head was a bright green that seemed to quiver and quake when the winds blew. In autumn her hair turned bright red and gold. By winter her head seemed nothing more than short brownish twigs that, once the spring came, began to sprout green buds that grew again into odd flat round pointed shapes that so resembled the leaves of the Aspen tree.

Ilona had trained the girl well. Sweet-natured, but intelligent, she served her mistress with loving kindness. And Lara was relieved to have a serving woman who understood her mistress and her magical ways, someone who could be trusted to keep Lara’s secrets. Cadi had traveled with Lara to the New Outlands to bid the friend of her youth a final farewell. It had been a poignant and difficult moment for Lara.

Word had come via faerie post that Noss was in her final days. She would not live, her daughter Mildri wrote, to see this year’s Gathering. No longer having any official duties in Terah, Lara had called to Cadi, newly come to her then, to join her. Going to the stables, they had mounted Lara’s great horse, Dasras, and together they had traveled to the New Outlands.

Seeing Lara again, Noss, now silver-haired and wrinkled, had laughed knowingly. “This journey I will take without you, Lara,” she said. “But Liam is waiting for me.”

“Do not go just yet,” Lara begged her friend. “We are only newly come.”

“Who is the girl with the odd hair who accompanies you?” Noss wanted to know.

“Her name is Cadi, and she is my new serving woman,” Lara answered.

“Come here, child.” Noss beckoned to Cadi, and when the girl knelt next to the old woman Noss chuckled. Her hand reached up to ruffle the faerie girl’s head. “She is magic,” Noss said. “’Twas past time your mother sent you someone. How difficult it must be to have us all dying about you, dearest Lara. I remember your mother saying ’twas the curse of being a faerie who loved mortals.” Noss lay back upon her pillows, and closed her eyes briefly. Then she sighed. “I know my time has come, Lara, and though I am now ancient and crippled I am still loath to leave this world. What lies beyond for us? Do you know?”

Lara shook her head. “I know no more than you, dearest Noss. They say for those good mortals, and you are surely one of them, there is another, but different world of joy, where you will be united with those you love who have gone before you. And for those wicked mortals an entirely different place of punishment exists. ’Tis all I know.”