The Realm of the Sun

Broken Laws

"Raina, I'm going to win again!" Furbaide muttered with remarkably contained excitement as they sat in the east wing common room playing cards a few days later. Eirainna produced some sort of generic encouraging answer to appease him, but her mind was elsewhere. It was a rainy afternoon and the heavy dust-filled tapestries that hung from the walls were lit only by an assortment of candles and the meager flames in the fireplace. Eirainna was always amazed how Tara could be so beautiful at times and so dismal at others, although there was an overall fog that had enveloped the land since the war had begun. It seemed to have settled like an ominous mist on the moor that menacingly seeped in through the stones of the castle and dampened the empty corridors.

            "I win!" Furbaide shouted, though he clearly did not understand the rules of the game, if there existed any.

            "Oh, again?" Eirainna played along, laughing and pretending to be crushed by this devastating loss—the tenth one that day. He clapped with delight and pranced around the room victoriously.

            "Eirainna..." Maeve's voice filled the space as she appeared in the doorway, dressed in a mauve evening gown with jewels adorned to the square collar, "I did not expect to see you away from the salon with the other ladies." She always made it seem accidental if she ran into someone she just happened to require information from. The fire in the wide hearth seemed to reflect off the jewels that lined the front seam of her bodice and flicker in her eyes. Maeve cast a skimming glance over Furbaide, who had stopped running around and sat down at the entrance of her presence, bringing his knees into his chest.

            Eirainna greeted her with as cheerful a smile as she could produce and said, "I don't much care for gossiping in the salon, you know. I prefer to spend my afternoons in this handsome young knight's company." Eirainna winked at Furbaide, who sat taller and prouder at her word.

            "You've been keeping the child busy I see," she said, with a subtle but odious smirk at all of the cards Furbaide had strewn messily across the room. Maeve was as natural around children as Eirainna was on the battlefield. Despite their best efforts to seem objective around both situations respectively, their enthusiasm was never quite convincing.

            "Yes, we've been having great fun. Furbaide is winning round after round, and I must admit, it's become rather embarrassing," she laughed and looked at the boy, whose playfully devilish smile came back to his face at the mention of his ten consecutive victories.

            "I see," Maeve sat down across from Eirainna at the cards table, "Eirainna, Sir Niall and I have been discussing your most recent trip to the village."

            "Oh, yes," Eirainna recalled, as if fondly reminiscing, "Sir Niall was so kind to offer his riding services to me."

            "Indeed. He mentioned your plan with the old nursemaid to build an orphanage, if I remember correctly?"

            "That's right," Eirainna confirmed, calmly and without a single hint of nervousness about her air, "Nessie and I decided it would be our project to help the poor. It would be an orphanage and also a shelter. Something built more sturdily than the thatched, clay dwellings they are used to in the village, should any conflict arise that might threaten..." she trailed off for a moment, remembering she was speaking to the biggest threat of violence herself, "should there be any uncalled for destruction."

            "I see," Maeve said, noticing but certainly not minding the subtle jab, "well it's a very ambitious undertaking, I daresay."

            "It is, but we will have help, of course."