Ragan: Chronicles of Arowana, Book One

It is vital that you know how to conduct yourself. That is not stealing books from the library, climbing trees in the forest or trying to shoot targets with your younger brother’s bow. You just may take my place one day as one of the queen’s ladies in waiting,” Maribelle reclined on a couch; her belly huge under the coverlet thrown over her.

“Yes, Mama,” Rinna poked her needle into her scrap of linen. The flower she tried to embroider was not going to turn out like it was supposed to. They never did. Rinna hated embroidery finding it impractical and boring. She would rather anything considered inappropriate for a daughter of a noble. Instead, she was stuck indoors in a hot dress trying yet again to untangle her thread while her mother lectured Rinna about her daughter’s many inadequacies.

The lecture was familiar, one that started two years ago when Rinna turned nine. They had grown in frequency as Rinna had grown closer to the age of womanhood when her courses would begin, and she would be considered eligible for marriage. Prior to then, her mother had barely acknowledged she existed, her attention focused on pregnancy with yet another son, her duties to the queen and her social outlets.

Maribelle was plump even when she wasn’t pregnant, which was often, with pale blonde hair and golden toned skin common among the Arowanian upper and middle classes. She took care to stay out of the sun, to prevent her skin from darkening further as did others who weren’t as careful. She never left the house without the attire expected of the wife of an advisor to the king. Even at home, she was always prepared to meet with guests, her hair styled in braided loops and whorls against her head or covered in a wimpled headdress, her body presented in beautiful ornate gowns that displayed her skill with a needle.

The girl who poked clumsily with her own needle was a disappointment to Mirabelle who realized she should have taken firmer control of when Norinna was much younger. Gregor had spoiled his only daughter, letting her run wild like his sons at that age. Mirabelle now had to undo the girl’s near ruination.

“Sit up straight Norinna,” Mirabelle snapped wondering where the maid was with her watered wine and the little shrimp stuffed pastries she liked, “no proper lady slouches like you do.”

She watched as Norinna straightened her back. The girl grabbed her wimple which tilted to one side, shoving it back to the top of her head with one hand. Mirabelle clucked her tongue in disapproval unable to understand why the child had such a hard time keeping them on her head. She was glad when the maid entered the room and set down a tray. Norinna set aside her embroidery, slid off her chair so she could pour her mother a goblet of wine. Maribelle noticed that Norinna completed the task smoothly without a single drop of wine spilt on the white linen that lined the tray.

“Well done. You’ve not spilled any wine all week, at least that’s one thing you can do properly,” Mirabelle sipped from her goblet as she eyed one of the pastries. Norinna went back to her chair and picked up her embroidery, “I’ve heard that you’ve been snooping around the library again. If you want to read, the court librarian will be happy to supply you with the proper material.”

Rinna didn’t look at her mother or the pastries. She’d not eaten since breakfast thanks to required time at the palace with the princess all day, “I don’t like poetry and fairy tales. They are boring and silly. Besides, I’ve read them all.”

Mirabelle popped a pastry into her mouth, “excellent, then you can devote more of your time to deportment, dance, embroidery and other things proper for a young woman of your status. Your stitching is abysmal, and you will only embarrass yourself and us if you have failed to learn any of the dances for the princess’s wedding. One day you will thank me, especially when we find you a husband.”

She had overheard her parents discuss future husbands, hoping to arrange for a choice during the festivities. Rinna didn’t want to think about marriage, especially to any of the boys she knew, then spend the rest of her life pregnant like her mother.

Only high-born girls were expected to marry young, usually no later than age fifteen, the goal to produce sons as soon as possible. Thanks to centuries of inbreeding among the families of the upper class, problems with producing healthy children persisted. Mirabelle was fortunate that all seven of her pregnancies had resulted in healthy sons, save one, when Rinna was born.

Yet it was considered in very bad taste to marry out of the accepted families unless the family was of similar status from a different country. Such marriages were always tied to treaties or contracts. The pending nuptials of the princess was one such case and the first such marriage in decades.

Rinna hated time with the other children at court. They teased her over her smaller size, her wrong colored eyes, her pale skin, her dark brown curly hair and her unorthodox manners and hobbies. Most of the girls didn’t know how to read, that many outside the city felt forgotten or ignored by the king, know which mushrooms were not poisonous, or that a wood deer had a cold wet nose just like a puppy.

The other girls at court excluded her from their games and conversations which suited Rinna just fine. The boys rejected her attempts to join in their activities dismissing her as a girl and one who didn’t look or act as she should. She was only tolerated when necessary because Rinna’s father was one of the king’s advisors.

She’d learned to read at age five by sneaking in early to the schoolroom and hiding in a cabinet while her older brothers had lessons. Once discovered and banished by the outraged teacher, Rinna tucked her hair under a cap, stole some clothes from her brothers and headed to the library, where she read every book she could get her hands on while she hid in a corner unobserved, or that she could sneak out past the somber men who oversaw the famous library.

Her favorite topics were on botany, zoology, and how to make things from poisons to parasols. Rinna often grabbed books at random either from the shelves or tables where they’d been left to be put away by library workers. She read those as well whether about astronomy, shipbuilding, history, or someone’s opinion about how a certain battle should have been fought. She’d sneak them out in an oversized pocket she had sewn into the dresses she was forced to wear, one of the only sewing projects she had willingly taken on.

Rinna suffered through many court functions in preparation for the royal daughter, Princess Esmeralda and her upcoming nuptials to the ruler of the Khaetor Empire, King Corbaine. At least after tomorrow, things would calm down. Rinna hated court clothing even more than the usual dresses she had to wear. They were always made of heavy fabric and adorned with layers of lace and embroidery. She was also expected to wear a wimple that matched her mother’s, an elaborate affair of linen and brocade that was heavy and itchy.

“Why do we have to wear these?” Rinna had asked the nursemaid Lucinda, “they are uncomfortable, and it’s so hot and stuffy at court.”

“Because you are the daughter of a Lord,” Lucinda adjusted the beaded cap that sat over the headdress Rinna was to wear that evening, “You need to look the part in order to attract a husband of the correct breeding and to make you look less like the gardener’s by-blow.”

Rinna had recently learned what by-blow meant. It bothered her enough to ask her mother about it.

“I will have to have a word with Lucinda about that,” Mirabelle stabbed at her embroidery angrily for a moment before setting it aside. She reached for her goblet of watered wine before speaking again, “yes, you’ve inherited some family traits that make you appear different than your brothers. Look at the princess. She looks nothing like her parents.”

Rinna managed to keep from rolling her eyes. Princess Esmeralda looked just like her parents with her dominant chin and pale blue eyes. The princess’s personality was quite like Queen Eileen’s which in Rinna’s opinion was not an asset.

To the small kingdom of Arowana, the pairing between Princess Esmeralda and King Corbaine was considered a political coup. Arowana's best resources were its 400-year-old library, its proximity to the next continent across the sea and its sheltered deep-water harbor.

An alliance with Corbaine who had taken control of all the countries around them meant they would be safe from his usual means of expansion his empire and gain needed protection, and from pirates who had been harassing merchant ships in recent years. Khaetor would gain a harbor and access to more resources. King Senneck would be a vassal king, but it was a far better fate than had awaited those who had resisted the military might of the Khaetor army.

Rinna disliked the Khaetor monarch on sight, those with him as well. His arrival had been full of ceremony, with music and thrown flowers strewn before his horse. There were pavilions draped in cloth of orange, red and gold carrying what turned out to be the king’s fire magician and his entourage. Soldiers with plumed helmets and short red capes marching in perfect precision followed in row after row.

Rinna watched with her family and the rest of the court from the steps of the palace as the king and those with him arrived. The girls near her all twittered and whispered behind their hands at how attractive the king was. Rinna just wished he’d turn around and go home and leave them all alone.

King Senneck and Queen Eileen waited at the top of the steps, with their daughter. Corbaine dismounted off his black charger then surveyed the buildings around the palace and the people gathered. Then he climbed swiftly up the stairs to be greeted by the king and queen. He barely acknowledged his future bride with a mere pause in front of her before he went inside as if was his own house.

Meanwhile, the fire magicians had emerged from their pavilions and had followed Corbaine but at a more leisurely pace. They acknowledged no one sweeping inside without a word. Something about the magician priests frightened her. No one else followed, something that more than just Rinna found odd.