Fire Angels

Chapter 14 Part 1 A visit to Silva

I was very glad when I received a message from Silva inviting me to come and visit her at Tomas' house. I had half feared she had forgotten all about me. I have noticed that people often take their families for granted, but I could not forget that Silva was almost a stranger to me despite our blood ties. I had not felt able to go and see her without an invitation.

There was also the issue of Dally which had been sitting like a small black stain on my conscience. After I had seen her coming out of my room, I had made a mental note to try and form some kind of relationship with her, but I was yet to do so. When I had first been named Elector I had been very pre-occupied and it was during that period that Silva had taken the children back to Tomas' house and removed Dally from easy reach. I knew in my heart of hearts this was only an excuse. I was a little scared of Dally. Aside from guilt, I sensed that she was very like Tasha in personality, with the same passionate overwhelming emotions. Enough of such cowardly thoughts! This time I would find out if there was anything I could do, even if it was just to be a supportive aunt.

Silva's letter asked if I would like to come mid-morning, which meant missing a council meeting, a fact which made me hesitate for about 30 seconds. I doubted that the issue of liberating the south would come up and otherwise they would hardly miss my silent, but "amazingly disruptive" presence.

I told Lady Julia I was going and she must have told Karac for as I was sneaking down the hallway trying to avoid the escort Lucien insisted I must take, Karac appeared round a corner and handed me a package.

"Since you're so keen to be a do-gooder, you can give this to Dally from me," he said coldly.

What an ungracious man he was I thought, as I put the gift into my basket beside the other gifts from Lucien and the preserves from the housekeeper.

This was the first time I had actually been into the town of Lammerquais. Its broad well-paved streets compared very favorably with the small mean streets of Glassybri and the fine buildings spoke of cheerful prosperity. The bustling activity of buying and selling was going on everywhere and on the street corners ballad-singers and acrobats, whose activities had been forbidden under the Burning Light, were performing to appreciative audiences. Once or twice I even glimpsed some Wanderer's walking through the crowds, but always they were some distance away and mindful of Symon's instructions I did not bother them. Everywhere on posts and over doorways hung garlands made of the Gallian colors of red and white and the Morian colors of Black and gold, giving the streets a festive air.

I had thought it ridiculous to make some poor man follow me around all day, when I was perfectly capable of protecting both myself and him, but I quickly discovered why Lucien had insisted on an escort. There were Gallian soldiers everywhere, lolling in doorways, walking with their arms around the waists of women or reeling along the street drunk even this early in the morning. It's odd how men feel free to bother a woman walking alone even when she is wearing mages robes. I held my head up and looked straight ahead and no one actually approached me, but it is annoying to have people speculate loudly on the niceness or otherwise of your legs or remind you that your chest measurement is not of the largest.

Annoying but hardly a good enough reason to fireball people, though by the time I reached Silva's I was feeling sorely tempted. Much later it occurred to me that I could have turned their whole bodies or maybe just their private parts an iridescent, shining through your clothes, kind of purple. Another good idea thought of too late. Life is full of regrets.

Tomas's house was in a pleasant part of town very near the town walls. You could see the orchards and fields outside the town through the gate at the end of the street. It was a tall half timber house about four stories high and there was a shop in the bottom story of it. Not bad for an inn servant's son. Tomas was still in Rougelammer earning the wherewithal to keep such a house, but Martin was playing ball in the street outside and when I saw him he waved and darted into the house shouting. The next minute Silva came bustling out, enfolded me in a hug and hustled me back into the house "before all those busynoses in the street see you are here."

"This is Ren Mara," said Silva. I had already heard of Ren Mara, who was Silva's particular friend. He was a cloth merchant who lodged nearby over his warehouse and who rented the shop at the street level of Tomas's house. Somehow I had pictured the beautiful Silva with someone quite different from this chubby little man who only came up to her shoulder. As he shook my hand in his fat little paws, his eyes twinkled as if he was fully aware of the reasons for my surprise.

"Dion," cried a voice behind us. Hamel was standing in the doorway of the shop with his arms spread wide. He seized me round the waist and squeezed me hard.

Silva hustled us out of the shop and up a set of stairs.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Hamel anxiously, for I could see a faded bruise around his eye.

"Just visiting," he said, steering me down the corridor and into a room. Here two strange women and a small child where sewing in the sunlight from the window with Needra and Dally.

"Girls, come and give your aunt a kiss," cried Silva. Needra came forwards, but Dally jumped up from her chair and ran out of the room. Oh dear I thought. I tried to tell myself it was just because I was a stranger.

Hamel and Silva exchanged looks and Silva said, "Dally is very shy at the moment. I apologize for her."

"This is my wife Radiance" said Hamel introducing a shyly smiling young woman, "and her mother Jeanne." The older woman nodded stiffly. "And this little beast is my boy, Shine," he continued swinging a crowing toddler up off the floor. "Give your auntie a kiss brat."

After I had admired the handsome and incredibly energetic little boy, we sat down and ate cake and chatted while Silva bustled up and down the stairs seeing to the midday meal.

Radiance and Jeanne were in hiding because of the Duke of Gallia's decree that all Burning Light worshippers be sent to prison till the whole of Moria was liberated. Hamel was hoping that here in the town where nobody knew them they would escape notice. It did seem and unnecessarily harsh decree to me. I could not see what harm women and children could pose to Duke Leon's hold on Moria, especially since Burning Light women had even less authority outside their homes than other women. All over Moria now people must be hiding friends and relatives as just Silva and Hamel were.

"Have you had to leave the mill?" I asked Hamel, anxiously pointing at his eye.

He laughed and said he could leave the mill in his journeyman's care for a while. In a week he'd go home, so that people would think he had made a longer journey.