Disclaimer: This is not the final version as it will be available from the usual e-book sellers and eventually, bookstores. Rather, it should be seen as an (almost) final draft. If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, or you have any comments, suggestions or thoughts that you feel I should consider before publishing please drop me a line using the contact form.
Learning Things
Ala still went to the school every now and again, usually for a few months or weeks at a time. Normally she would go again whenever a new temple sister arrived from outside Thetwick. New sisters tended to bring new knowledge with them, which was exciting. The temple always offered a few years of schooling to the villages’ children, officially until the age of ten, but Ala’s repeated presence was always tolerated as long as she helped whoever was teaching where she could. The sisters took turns teaching the classes in the mornings. Children with aptitude for it were taught to read, write and do basic sums. Ala already knew how to write in elven from before she came to Thetwick, but she always wanted to improve her command of the human language. She knew she had a ever so slight accent that she’d never quite been able to shake.
New sisters teaching in the school seemed to be better trained in sums than the ones who had been there decades before, like Deirdre. It made it worthwhile to go back every few years. There was usually at least something new to be learned. Ala was certain she had learned all that anyone around her knew about the history of Taladaria and Thetwick. She’d experienced most of what had recently happened in Thetwick herself, which the humans seemed to collectively forget all the time. It sometimes made things awkward, when people claimed that their father or grandfather had done something which she knew to be untrue since she’d actually known the person in question.
Very occasionally, school was very interesting. Not long after the meeting hall had been erected in Thetwick, the Temple of Ceres seemed to have taken a renewed interest in its flock in Thetwick. In the summer of 924, the Temple was visited by a woman, a Canoness, whose arrival caused quite some consternation in the Thetwick Temple. The sisters almost decided to send Ala away from school, until Gera, now advanced in age herself pointed out that Alagariel only looked ever so slightly older than the customary ten years of age that most ended their schooling in Thetwick. So, thanks to Gera’s intervention Ala was attending class, keeping to herself when the Canoness, a stern looking lady named Clair Fichot attended the lesson to observe. The sister who was teaching the class was clearly unnerved by the woman’s presence. Ala had to admit she did look quite severe.
The lesson continued. It was a history lesson that Ala had heard many times. Most of the sisters did not have much of an interest in history and today’s teacher was no different. Not much changed about in that respect, even when new Sisters arrived. Ala, seeing as she had heard it all before was mainly paying attention to the way the stern woman’s scowl was rapidly turning more pronounced as the lesson progressed. Only a few minutes in, she spoke.
“Sister, if you don’t mind, I’ll take over today’s lesson. Why don’t you sit down and observe?”
The sister nodded and quickly say down in the back, not far from Ala. The Canoness made her way to the front of the classroom and cleared her throat.
“Now children, today I’m going to tell you a bit more about the history of your home. I will be asking questions later, so pay attention.”
The woman certainly had Ala’s attention. She’d always been curious about the history of the Westmarch, but the sister’s usually didn’t go back very far and only covered a time that Ala had actually experienced. Ala had long learned that it wasn’t a good idea to point out discrepancies that she knew about because she’d been alive during the events being described.
“First of all, is there anything any of you particularly wants to know about?”
Ala was excited, since she had lots of things she wanted to know about. It was only after no one else reacted that she dared to raise her hand.
“You, young lass, what is it you want to know?”
“Err… Canoness.. I… well I was hoping you could tell us something about how the Westmarch came to be?”
“Those are things that happened very long ago. But alright, why not? So, how the Westmarch came to be a march, let’s discuss that, shall we?”
Ala nodded eagerly.
“Around 601… you do know all know the current year is 924, don’t you?”
From the blank looks it was clear not everyone did.
“So that’s… three hundred and twenty three years ago, when a peace agreement was reached between Selinus and Iurrak after eighty years of war. That peace was signed at the Ford Inn, where the road to Taladaria crosses the Iceflow river. It was agreed between King Gabriel the first of Iurrak and King Selinus the seventh of Selinus.”
This was all new to Ala and she was loving it.
“Now, this peace led to the Westmarch being formed. The two Kings were tired of all the war between their countries and they were looking for a way to stop it happening again. So, they agreed that three fiefs would become a buffer between Iurrak and Selinus. In the North, bordering the sea, that was Saskill, then Oakharrow in the middle and in the south, the Westmarch, where we are now. Of course, it wasn’t called the Westmarch back then. I’m not completely sure what it was called but one name I’ve heard for it is ‘Difayakwininos’, which I’m probably pronouncing wrong. It’s said that it’s elven in origin but it doesn’t sound anything like any elven I’ve ever heard.”
It sounded familiar to Ala, though it wasn’t quite normal elven she was sure. Part of it sounded like the elven word for ‘house’. She decided not to let on that she understood elven. As Ala was thinking about the old name, Canoness Fichot looked around the room. She had the children’s attention. It was hard to know why but somehow, when she talked about history it seemed far more interesting than what Ala was used to.
“So, Saskill and Oakharrow were independent counties. The Westmarch was made into a march, probably because it also had to guard against attacks from the Orck Mountains and a Marchioness has more rights to hold troops than a Count does. You do all know that the Orck Mountains are south of the Irins that border the Westmarch in the south? The orcks come down in great hordes every few decades and the Westmarch is the first line of defence against them.”
Ala knew about the orcks of course, but the revelation of there being a Marquis was strange news to Ala. She was certain there was no current Marquis in the Westmarch. The Canoness spotted her look of puzzlement.
“Do you have a question, young lady?”
“Eh… well… what happened to the Marquis? There isn’t one is there, mistress?”
Clair Fochet smiled, the first time Ala had seen her do so. It was a very different look.
“Very astute. Actually, there is though. Does anyone know who the current Marquis of the Westmarch is?”
This drew blank stares all around, eventually Sister Penny, who was still sitting in the back, raised her hand.
“Yes, Sister?”
“It’s the Duke of Taladaria, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. It’s not really a part of the story about how the Westmarch came to be, as it happened much later, but the title of the Westmarch passed to the Dukes of Taladaria much later by marriage. Now, it’s not customary for a Lord to hold two regnant titles, but it’s the way things are in the case of the Westmarch. It’s generally frowned upon and I imagine the King of Iurrak accepts it because the Westmarch is so sparsely populated that it needs the Duke’s soldiers if it is to be able to defend Taldaria both from the Orcks and Selinus. Mostly, Kings are quite strict about the one regnant title per person rule. Anyway, now back to the story of the Westmarch and the Peace of 601.”
Ala was sure she’d never had quite as interesting a history lesson in the Temple of Ceres ever before.
“Well anyway, it seems that the intention was that eventually Saskill, Oakharrow and the Westmarch would become a small Kingdom that would stop Iurrak and Selinus becoming angry at one another. It never happened that way though. Selinus soon annexed Saskill though I don’t really know how that happened without it leading to another war. Perhaps it was through marriage, I would have to study it more than I have so far and I simply haven’t had the time.”
Ala went home that day with a lot to think about. Unfortunately the Canoness didn’t stay for long and school went back to being more or less the same immediately after the woman left. It made her sad, she could think of many more questions she wanted to ask the woman. The subject went back to religion, which the Sisters seemed to spend a lot of the school’s time repeating. Mostly, they went on and on about their goddess, Ceres, who was a very boring goddess who was seemingly mostly interested in bovines and agriculture, two subjects that Ala always found it difficult to concentrate on. While she could kind of understand why such a goddess was important in a farming community like Thetwick, she wished the sisters wouldn’t talk about it as much. She preferred hearing about different gods, which the sisters infrequently discussed. Sometimes Guanshiyin, the lady of Compassion was mentioned or Mars, the god of War. Sancus, Belus and Wotan existed too, Ala knew, but their jobs were hard to understand. Belus seemed to be popular in the south and Wotan in the North. There were even more, but other than acknowledge that more did exist, the sisters of Ceres did not consider it fitting to discuss them in their classroom. Ala tried to convince them too, but they told her it wasn’t allowed. Pressing them further only resulted in finding out that the High Priestess in Dirstad had forbidden talk of other gods. Ala didn’t even know there was a place called Dirstad.
Still, despite her many irritations with the Sisters of Ceres, it was there that she had learned about the geography of Vatan. Across the Iceflow River which was the Westmarch’s eastern border lay the rest of Taladaria, the first fief you encountered to the south east was the Barony of Sheffield. To the north east was the County of Verdon which bordered a small stretch of the Westmarch across the river. The western bank of the river was very marshy there making it very difficult to get directly from the Westmarch to Verdon. Other than a few trappers, not many people lived in that part of Verdon as it was almost always damp and misty. Large sections flooded every year and the only settlement of note was a place called Landing, a community of wooden buildings on stilts where trappers came to trade their wares and rest. It was mostly empty during the winter months.
Oakharrow County lay to the North, though there wasn’t a clearly defined natural border there. There was a line of low hills, but it lacked clear demarcation compared to the Iceflow river in the East. For a long time, contact between Thetwick and Oakharrow had been regular and generally amicable, with people frequently visiting each other’s markets and occasional marriages between the fiefs. The ground in Oakharrow was rocky and hard, unsuitable for much more than sheep and goat herding, making it even poorer than Thetwick, especially since it had been independent for a long time. There was never an influx of gold like when the Duke had the meeting hall built in Thetwick or when he’d sent former cavalrymen to breed warhorses.
Ala had seen her share of armies march through the Westmarch as well as attacks by orcks from the South. The fortifications that the Westmarch had had in the distant past, most notably the tower where Ala liked to go and play had already been destroyed a long time before Ala arrived in Thetwick. Taladaria and Selinus seemed to violently disagree about things quite regularly. During her life the Duke’s men had come to deal with incidents with Oakharrow and Selinus, as well as the intermittent bands of orcks coming down from the southern mountains. It didn’t happen often and normally they didn’t get very far but Ala would never forget the great orck horde that came down from the mountains in 861. Everything had been topsy-turvy for almost a year and when they returned after having had to flee Thetwick, it took a long time for the town to recover.
Incursions from Selinus had been something that would happen several times a year for in some periods, then nothing might happen for a decade or more. Sometimes it was a cattle raid and sometimes Selinan nobles decided to plunder a hamlet and once even Thetwick itself had been raided. It was during that raid that Ala’s human twelve year old sister Emma had been abducted. It had been a great shock for everybody in Palady’s family. Emma had been taken by a group of mounted warriors, black knights from Selinus. Ala had only been in Thetwick for about a decade then. Such raids were a part of life in the Westmarch, but even though that was dramatic and shocking, for the most part Thetwick was peaceful during Ala’s time there. Relations with Oakharrow did noticeably deteriorate after King Justus was crowned in Selinus and interaction between Oakharrow and the Westmarch decreased after that. In later years Ala came to understand that the frequency of the raids tended to be related to the presence of young nobles in the regions closest to the Westmarch, mainly the Barony of Greythorn. Abduction, for the purpose of indentured servitude was a disgusting sport for the Selinan nobility. It was also Emma’s probable fate.
For the most part, the people of Thetwick had little to do with the outside world. News from other lands was scarce as travelers from far away were rare. Any news from lands beyond Taladaria or Selinus seldom made it to Thetick. Ala heard the news of a Duke’s passing in the year 920 when she’d been in Thetwick about eighty years. She didn’t really understand its significance at the time. To her, the fact that the old Duke had died and a new Duke, Ivan the Second, had inherited, didn’t change anything for her daily life. As far as she could tell it didn’t really change anything in Thetwick either. She didn’t understand why it was the talk of the town for several weeks. It wasn’t until much later that she realised that the building of the new town hall and the assigning of a permanent Constable a few years after the inheritance was an example of the new Duke setting his house in order and bolstering his Western defences.
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