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Calanthe House, Syvonna, Losshen, in the 2954th Year of the Common Age
The physician carefully ran his hand over the Heris of Losshen’s abdomen, his inborn healer’s ability enabling him to see the infant berthed within. He had not told either parent-to-be about his concern over the sudden swelling of the Heris’s belly. Not until the fourth month of the half-year gestation period did a breeding Deir begin to show.
At four months, Ildris Calanthe looked quite ready to whelp.
Barion stopped moving his hand when he sensed a faint but steady heartbeat. Well, that was a relief. The heartbeat’s strength was consistent with that of a four-month old foetus. But it did not account for the enlarged size of Ildris’s womb. The physician felt a prickle of fear.
What if there was a growth alongside the child? And what if it was not benign but needed to be surgically removed? The infant would likely not survive so invasive a procedure.
The healer glanced up worriedly at his patient.
Ildris was no longer that young or fertile. It was doubtful he would conceive again. Furthermore, his womb was not particularly sound—he’d miscarried three times already. Barion could not count on a hardy womb to help protect the foetus during surgery nor was he sufficiently strong or gifted to guarantee the safety of the Heris should the procedure induce another miscarriage and cause excessive bleeding. But neither did the healer relish suggesting to Desriq Calanthe that perhaps he should try being childbearer if he wanted an heir.
It was not meet for a Herun to breed and birth. The sight of a fief-lord going about his day thick-waisted and sporting a bump up front was deemed unseemly.
Swearing under his breath followed by a quick prayer to the Maker and St. Ovran, patron saint of physicians, Barion resumed his search for the suspected tumor even as he tried to remember all the highly gifted healers in the kingdom. He paused and stopped his hand once more. Frowning in concentration, he focused all his mind’s energy on the area beneath his palm. A moment later, he gasped and straightened up.
“Saints above,” he softly exclaimed.
At Ildris’s side, Desriq looked at him sharply. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Barion shook his head. “Naught is wrong, Herun-tyar. But I’m surprised as this is quite uncommon.”
“What is?”
A smile curved Barion’s lips. “Twins, Your Grace. You’ve been blessed with twins.”
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Year 2969 C.A.
Calanthe House seemed like a misnomer. The estate was far more than the eponymous manor at its heart. Indeed, it was one of the most extensive in the kingdom, its total acreage taking up nearly a tenth of Syvonna’s size. But then Losshen’s capital city developed and expanded because of the estate and the family whose seat it was, not the other way around.
Once upon a long time ago, there was only a small town when the first of the Calanthes to be created Herun returned to the fief after the wars of the Interregnum. Not unexpectedly, the town flourished under the new dispensation. It quickly evolved into a thriving city and before long became the economic and political hub of Losshen. Whereupon Syvonna was named the new capital of the fief. Naturally, Calanthe House reflected the city’s prosperity and grew into the impressive holding it was today.
The estate was beauteous in springtime in that strange charming way of the north. The uppermost bounds were as windswept as the uncultivated heather-blanketed tracts of land that dotted the more sparsely populated areas of the fief. Here could be found the hardy flora only rarely seen in the more southerly regions. These blossoms needed the colder climate of the north in order to flourish. They grew in abundance in the estate gardens along with copses of sturdy fruit trees and thickly leafed shrubs that could withstand the blizzards that periodically swept across the land during the winter months.
It was in this largely bucolic setting that the brethren Zykriel and Gilmael were raised. Their striking features, wildly curling dark hair and strong, lithe bodies made them almost perfect matches for their home fief. Except in one respect.
Neither child was as quiet or placid as the land that had bred the twins.
To the folk who maintained Calanthe House and served Losshen’s ruling family, the word gamesome was a woefully inadequate description for the Herun’s sons. New servants quickly got used to the topsy-turvy nature of daily life when the twins were about. They were not willfully destructive, but they had a knack for turning things on their metaphorical heads or taking apart what could not be put back together without much difficulty. If at all.
Desriq Calanthe had that in mind as he approached his young sons.
They were arguing vociferously in the garden amidst the topiaries and fountains. He came up to them where they had planted themselves beside the smallest fountain. He reached out and taking hold of each child by a shoulder, compelled them to face him. Two startled gazes met his and he wondered what the boys had done to induce the alarm he espied in the depths of their sky blue eyes.
“Is there really a need to squabble?” he asked, his tone mildly stern. “Or is it a vain hope that a sennight might go by in reasonable peace?”
The brothers swallowed in concert and their features scrunched up in distress. Desriq blinked. He wondered if he would ever get used to the sight of two identical faces making the exact same expression at the exact same time. It was unsettling on occasion.
“We’re sorry, Aba!” Gilmael blurted, his eyes wide with apprehension.
Desriq shifted his gaze to Zykriel. The older twin looked terrified. “It was an accident,” he explained, his voice edged with a whimper. “We didn’t know it would fly that way.”
“I can see that,” Desriq said.
He eyed a mammet where it lay in the depths of the fountain. A gift to his sons from their birthing father’s sire, the cunningly crafted wooden puppet clad in minstrel’s garb arrived just a few days ago. It immediately spurred a figurative tug-of-war between the brothers that evidently turned literal much to the doll’s detriment. Its bright colors would likely fade after its dousing.
Desriq rolled up his right sleeve, thrust his arm into the chilly water and plucked the mammet from the pebbled bottom of the pool. He shook his head.
The vivid shades of the doll’s clothing were already starting to run and blend together into indeterminate muddy hues.
“Your Opa will be disappointed. He ordered this especially from Arvalde.”
To Desriq’s surprise, the twins gazed at him with seeming puzzlement.
“You’re not angry, Aba?” Zykriel cautiously asked.
“Angry? Why should I be?”
“Because we broke the statue!”
Desriq stared at his sons. They never paid particular attention to any of the garden sculptures to the extent of being barely aware of the existence of a few. Yet now they claimed they’d done harm to one of those few. He looked at the fountain again.
It was quite old, one of the first built as the estate expanded.
Atop a tiny island in the middle of the pool was the sculpture of a gelran child—a pre-adolescent female of the long extinct native race of Aisen. The third Lord Calanthe had nursed a fascination with that period of engineered racial evolution known as the Inception.
The little girl was clad in naught but a garland of tiny blossoms upon her head. In her chubby hands, she held a washcloth and a small bar of soap. She was poised to step down into the water presumably for a bath.
The Herun stared at the statue wondering what the twins were referring to.
Yes, the mammet had struck it before toppling into the water below. But the stone from which the figure had been fashioned showed no trace of damage beyond the hairline fissures that came with age. Surely something that had survived intact for nigh a thousand years would not come to grief just from a glancing collision with a spindly doll.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What is it you broke?”
The brothers looked at each other accusingly.
“This is on your head, Gil,” Zykriel insisted. “You couldn’t wait for me to finish playing with the mammet!”
Gilmael let out a sound between a squeak and a sob. “Nay, it was an accident! If you hadn’t tried to grab it from me, it wouldn’t have flown into the statue!”
“You snatched it from me first!”
“Because you were taking so long!”
“Silence!”
The twins stopped arguing at their sire’s roar. They stared at him in round-eyed abashment and mouths tremblingly agape.
Desriq rubbed the crease between his eyes. He did not recall being subjected to constant headaches prior to his sons’ births.
“Zyk, Gil, what exactly did you break?” he asked as patiently as he could muster.
Gilmael frowned. “Can‘t you see it, Aba?”
Zykriel snorted. “How can he see it now that it’s gone?”
Desriq barely refrained from growling at them. “What is gone?”
Both lads turned and pointed at the statue. Desriq followed the direction of their fingers. His eyes zeroed in on the statue’s groin. For several heartbeats, he stared in bewilderment at the breadth of painstakingly sculpted prebuscent genitalia.
“I don’t underst—”
He caught his breath as he realized what he was seeing. Or rather what was not there to see. He swallowed back laughter he was certain would sound hysterical.
A tug on the hem of his tunic drew his attention downward and he looked into the teary eyes of a morose Gilmael.
“Will it grow back?” he whispered.
Desriq dissolved into guffaws. It was a long time before he could explain to his sons that they could not have damaged what had never been there to begin with. Their disbelief coupled with a lack of comprehension only served to rekindle his mirth.
At length, the twins ran off in a huff leaving him to deal with the ruined mammet. Within seconds of their departure, the Heris walked up to him, his expression questioning.
“What in Aisen has taken hold of you?” Ildris asked when Desriq continued to chuckle.
Desriq shook his head. “My love, our sons need tutoring in a delicate subject. You’ll have to teach them for I fear I won’t get far without laughing and probably offend their tender sensibilities all over again.”
Ildris’s eyebrows rose slightly. “What subject is this?”
“About the difference between our foresires and the gelra of old. In particular the females of that esteemed race.” Desriq indicated the statue. “They thought they’d broken off yon girl-child’s shaft!”