Page 178 of Silverbow
forty-three
Enya
The late morning sun was glaring through Enya’s window by the time she opened heavy lids. Her mouth tasted like Blackash Keep and when she coughed, her lungs rattled. Groaning, she dragged herself from bed to pad to the bathing chamber. Her face was ghastly in the mirror, stained with the remnants of Alsbet’s cosmetics.
Harshilda swept in with a tray when Enya rang the little silver bell on her table. Not a hair of the woman’s intricate braids were out of place. Enya squinted. She had definitely swung past Harshilda on the dance floor in the Great Hall, but the woman looked as if she’d gotten a full night’s sleep. She took one look at Enya, passing judgment and sentence with a single glance and started drawing a bath.
Enya was still nursing her tea when Alsbet flitted through the door. The Princess of Dwarves passed her own judgement and planted fists on hips. Enya squinted up at her in a vain attempt at a smile.
“Did you get into the stonebrew?” She sighed.
“Maybe,” Enya croaked with a voice raspy from the brew and the smoke and shouting over the din. “That’s the one that tastes like the forges of hell?”
Alsbet threw back her head and roared a laugh that made Enya flinch. “Aye. Best leave that to the stone folk. Fortunately for you, there’s only one thing you must do today.”
“And that is?” She asked with an inkling of dread.
Alsbet poured herself a cup of tea and regarded Enya with raised eyebrows. “Open your hearth gifts, of course.”
“My-”
Her question was cut off as Harshilda reappeared with a mountain of paper wrapped parcels in her arms.
“What’s this?”
“Did Oryn tell you nothing?” Alsbet hissed with exasperation. “When an honored guest is hosted in Drozia, it is custom for the members of my court to send a gift for your hearth.”
“Alsbet, no. I can’t possibly accept,” Enya gasped. For starters, she didn’t have a hearth, it was borrowed, but she thought pointing that out might violate some custom or another. Her eyes widened as more servants appeared in the doorway laden with gifts.
“Of course you can,” Alsbet sniffed. “It’s terribly rude not to.”
When the gifts were mounded like Greenridge, Harshilda perched on the edge of a chair with a quill poised over a little leather bound notebook.
“Go on, open them,” Alsbet clucked excitedly. “Read the cards. Hilda will record the invitation and respond.”
Enya reached for a small box with a white silk bow and lifted the sealed parchment. She opened it and read, clearing her throat. “Mistress Oakfoot has invited me to tea.”
“Well-to-do merchants,” Alsbet said. “Import and export. Go on, go on.”
Enya tentatively pulled away the bow and lifted the lid on a small box to find a beautiful glass bottle of perfume oil. She blinked at it and looked to Alsbet. “What do I do with it?”
The woman peered across the plateau of gifts between them and sniffed. “You wear it, of course.”
Dumbfounded but waved on by the princess, Enya opened silk shawls and leather riding gloves that accompanied invitations to tea. There were bracelets and rings with invitations to dine. Bolts of fine silk and mountain furs accompanied invitations to take up various activities. An invitation to go hawking with Lady Goldmont, one of Alsbet’s ladies-in-waiting, accompanied a hair net so heavy with emeralds that it madeEnya gasp.
The demi-elves had sent gifts too. Aiden sent a set of throwing knives. From Colm came a shirt of fine chain mail and the staff that came without a note could only be from Bade. Alsbet waved her to a small box from her own house.
“Oh Alsbet, your hospitality is already a gift I could never repay,” Enya said, shaking her head.
The woman made a vexed sound. “Has Estryia changed so much that you do not know what a gift is, girl? It’s not meant to be repaid. It’s a gift.”
Enya sighed and lifted the lid. Nestled in a bed of silk sat a long, curved belt knife, the blade a deep smoky gray.
“It’s a sung blade,” Alsbet said excitedly. “Orimum chose it from the royal collection. It will never go dull.”
“Oh,” Enya stared at it, running a finger along the fine hilt. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Alsbet pursed her lips at the address and sniffed at the mountain of discarded paper and boxes. “I see Prince Oryn has neglected to send a gift.”
