FELICITY (FLISS)

Evening came on quickly this late in the season, clouds were rapidly moving in the gusting wind across the sky like they were chasing the setting sun. A hopeless task but one neither the wind nor clouds gave thought to only the watchers who stood upon the earth.

Below in the city of New Altin on the edge of the Ickerton immensity where the majority of grain was grown for the Empire of the true god, were two young women. Although they had never met they were alike as could be, both were beautiful, blue eyed, blonde haired, lithe and tall. To cap it all both had quick minds, quick hands and equally quick mouths, for which they often received chastisement for, although one far worse than the other.

These things they had in common everything else about them was as different as it could possibly be, evidenced as they sat down to eat their evening meals and the following rising. In the centre of New Altin was the imposing Castle which Princess Felicity called home. It was the first Castle constructed after the defeat of the demons, built within the site of the inner stockade.

Sages say it was built with magic given by the true god, built upon the ruins of an early time and the starred black granite. Princess Felicity, the only daughter of Prince Gregor and Princess Alibeth, sat at the top table next to one of her three older brothers, prince Ignatius, who she called piggy behind his back.

As she played with her food Fliss thought, I’m so glad I have little to do with my brothers. The youngest two of my brothers were all for eating, wenching and sleeping in a succession of beds, not rising until the sun reached midpoint before they stirred and scurried back to their own rooms. It’s disgusting, absolutely disgusting, ran her thoughts as she tried one of the head chef’s deserts.

As Fliss played with her desert she wondered where her eldest brother was. He led her father’s troops and was often absent from the life at the court, yet when at home he was by far the worst of the three. Nobody had a good word for him, even prince Gregor seemed afraid of his heir.

The only good thing, thought Fliss, about having elder brothers was their reputation. It was so bad it kept most suitors at arm's length, all apart from the last one who after catching me in a corner without my normal chaperone or Tanya kissed me full on the mouth. It only lasted two heart beats before Tanya appeared but he mysteriously disappeared by the next rising.

Being a princess was fine, so Fliss thought, when it didn't include being ogled and pawed over by a range of men both old and young especially the eager young men, keen to get into her or her out of her clothing. Kissing she supposed could be nice if not for the hands that roamed and the tongues which filled my mouth without permission, or nicer still if I had the chance to like the men before they tried to kiss me.

Fliss knew that as of yet she had not met one man who she felt something for, not even the last one who was nearer her own age, called Buratin. Looking across her desert at her brothers she wondered why they were shorter than her with a predilection for roundness. Just like father, with mother’s dark brown hair; they were often unpleasant when she was a younger girl, calling her names, picking on her and sometimes hitting her, but that cruelty helped toughen her or so she believed.

This oh so boring meal, thought Fliss as she played with her food, it was all for show, all eleven courses. As usual it was held in the main hall of the Castle, as she scanned the hall it looked like everybody who worked at the Castle was here in some form or other. The meal was to celebrate the arrival of the Caron of Heston and one of his many sons, the man had, if rumour were to be believed, three wives, several paramours and a few mistresses.

The Caron’s son was almost a splitting image of her brothers, short and rotund, the only noticeable difference was his rather unkempt shoulder length red hair. Father had even allowed the royal golden and silver cutlery to be used; gold for the top table silver for everybody else. Again showing to the people attending from the city just how important he thought the Caron of Heston was.

She recalled the last time the gold came out it was three annis ago when the leader of the true god faith came for an extended stay, around this time of anni. She shuddered as she remembered his eyes, they were empty of any compassion, sunk as they were into a small head surrounded by an excess of wrinkled skin.

It was as though he had lost a lot of weight from his body then been hung by his feet from the ceiling as it had all settled on his head. She really didn’t like the way that it seemed as if he was always looking at her; she envisioned him licking his lips as if she were a delicacy to be eaten. Fliss hoped that her surprise party in a sennight’s time would be more fun at least her brothers would not attend as they would be out hunting with father; a tradition passed down from father’s great, great, something father.

It was after all not every rising the only princess in New Altin reached the milestone of twenty-one annis; especially when it was on the rising before the New Anni celebration at the start of Restoration.

Stifling a yawn Fliss continued playing with her food pushing the slowly dissolving desert around her bowl longing for the end of the feast so she could slip into her comfortable feather matrass bed. She rubbed absently with her right hand at the markings on her lower arm. Her birth mark as her nurse had called them had been growing up her arm toward her shoulder and getting darker over the past couple of annis, but she hadn’t told anyone about it.

Her mother called the small mark her birth mark when she was four annis old and was told that everybody had one. Although she had noticed the mark begin to change as a young child, her nurse told her never to talk about it to anyone and always keep the mark covered. Nobody wanted to see a perfect little princess with a skin blemish, now did they?

Her nurse’s words came back to her quite clearly so she stopped rubbing her arm. Flicking the desert on the floor she took her spoon to clean it on her sleeve to a nice shine.

ZIAFRA (ZIA)

Within the original outer wall, now called the inner wall, New Altin was designed around four separate districts; each having a quarter of the space within the old city walls. The ground between the old and new walls housed the growing population, extending outward filling the spaces more haphazardly there was no clear distinct segmentation like inside the walls.

To an unpractised eye the outer space was chaos, businesses side by side with housing for the poor and rich alike, although no homes were built near the inner wall for security’s sake. Small communities had grown around each of the new gates and were initially named by number, so visitors could easily find their way around.

The Northage gate lined up with the original Northage barbican in the now inner wall. The road between both gates was paved with stones like all roads between the walls, all were a hand width in their dimensions. The new gate was called sector zero and so forth moving clockwise until the last gated community was called sector thirty-two. The distinction in the new area was less pronounced with the districts merging across the trail and canal systems.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The population of New Altin counted every five annis and according to the masters in the academy was over four hundred and thirty thousand souls, four annis previously. In the canal district within the old walls in a rented dwelling near the wall and near the currently open canal gate sat Ziafra, in one of the smallest homes a family could rent in this district. She hated her name, her time at all the different charity schools she attended caused her to detest her name.

Some of the teachers were the worse than the children at heaping abuse on her. Who did her parents think they were, naming her after the Magji Za'fira? By the time she reached her tenth naming celebration she would only answer to the name Zia and when they moved back to New Altin that was what people called her. Where did that all come from? Zia thought as she sat down and counted what little money they had.

Living as they did in the canal district the rent was as Zia knew a modest fee of one and a half silvers a sennight or thirty-five gold coins for a full anni. That was a rich saving of three whole gold coins if one could afford such money in one go. It had one common purpose room along with one very small bedroom. The garderobe was corralled up against the city wall, it was not theirs alone, rather it was shared by three other homes, situated at the end of their housing cul-de-sac.

Thankfully the garderobe connected to the soil system and with the canal nearby water was not an issue for them to flush solids away. Yet some of their neighbours were lazy, often it was left to the one who couldn’t face the growing smell to flush their combined solids away. With her mother being so ill Zia now slept on the floor near the small open fire. A fire which provided the both the heat for cottage and heat for cooking all in an oven built into the cottage central wall.

The space was currently occupied yet would soon become her bed space once she had collapsed the folding table where she now sat. She pushed the meagre pile of coins aside and began eating a bowl of very thin broth. She had fed her mother first and changed her night clothes before she ate her food. It would not be long before she pinched out the two small candle lights and turned herself in before the curfew bells sounded.

She had one last check to make on her mother before she could roll out her sleeping mat on the hard stone floor. She worried as her mother was getting weaker by the rising. What she needed was meat, she thought. Nice juicy meat wrapped in flaky pastry. With those ideas in her mind Zia laid down and quickly drifted to sleep.

FLISS

Early the next rising just as the sun was breaking the horizon Fliss rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and quickly used the nightjar before she slipped off her nightgown to get washed. She looked at herself in the small mirror she owned and noticed her birth mark had taken on several different shapes separating into distinct patterns just beneath the surface of her skin.

Touching them tentatively with her fingers she realised that they were smooth to the touch, just like always, she thought. A chime later washed and dried she got herself dressed, ‘finally’ she thought, her father, her eldest brother, at home for a change and the Caron of Heston with his son would be occupied for the next two risings as they visited two or three of the outlying towns which supplied New Altin with a variety of goods.

She heard from overhearing one of the grooms who was going too when she was making her way back from the aviary where Aquila was housed. The groom said he was looking forward to the hunting but not the side trip that they were contemplating, a look at the ruined buildings of the previous age, half a rising away. Fliss would have shuddered at the thought of those ruins, hearing many frightening tales from the servants of what occasionally crept out of them bringing death and despair in their wake; but for some reason she knew there was nothing there to make her so fearful.

Obviously father was showing his wealth and bravery off to the Caron, with a transparent attempt to portray New Altin as rich both in goods, wealth and military prowess. They would also take in a hunt or two as her father loved nothing more than bringing home some meat for the table, especially returning after a trip to the ruins. Slipping away from both her rooms and attendant female guard was easy as she’d let Tanya have the rising free just as she’d promised earlier that sennight.

Smiling to herself she was pleased that she’d allowed Tanya to call her Fliss when they were alone as it reminded her of her old nurse calling her that. Fliss also lied as she told Tanya that she wouldn’t talk with anybody or leave the royal wing; although technically true but she would be leaving her rooms hiding away from everybody. Trusting her word Tanya told Fliss to be careful with the Caron of Heston billeted as he was on the floor beneath hers. Fliss knew Tanya would have slipped away with the rising of the sun and the changing of the guard just before dawn bells so she could meet with her boyfriend who was in the city guard but it was his normal rest period.

Taking a slice of bread covering it with a red jam preserve she took a quick look out of a window. Fliss looked out over the city marvelling at the play of dawn light on the roof far below, she watched as a guard made their way around their part of the Castle wall.

THE CASTLE

The Castle stood proudly in the centre of New Altin, a brooding hulk of all grey Magji-Creete streaked with fingers of starred black granite; the stone which the Castle was supposedly built upon by design of the Prophet. Built between four huge towers which rose majestically towering nine floors above the main building, the core at its centre was a solid rectangular cuboid over ten floors tall. Windows eventually broke its plain façade beginning ten strides from the ground letting light shine out during the night.

Those nearest the ground were barred arrow slits while nearer the roof balconies jutted out on the royal floor. A hundred people couldn’t encircle the towers even if they touched fingertip to fingertip so large were they. The Castle had one entrance on the Southage side making it difficult for those who attacked as they would be exposed to fire from archers and priestages alike.

The city had grown since its creation and now had two city walls while the Castle had its own, both the Castle wall and the original wall were made from Magji-Creete. The outer wall had four barbicans, each over thirty paces deep and fifty paces high at the cardinal compass headings. Whereas the Castle wall had only one barbican at the Northage point, being ten paces wider than the width of the wall and thirty paces high.

The original wall was in excess of five thousand strides, varying between ten to fifteen strides in its width and twenty strides high, made from Magji-Creete two risings before the final battle in the demon war. The Castle wall was somewhat over one and a half thousand strides long and was between six to eight paces wide and fifteen to twenty paces high. Magji-Creete was a material similar in looks to a material that was used in the first age of men; or so the oracles say. It was created in chimes by Magji, but would stand an eternity. The Magji-Creete was both seamless and smooth on the exposed faces, mottled with a high gloss finish, like the best marble the rich used to cover the floor in their residences.

While the footways were rough with clean drainage channels cut into the surfaces that easily dealt with the surface water giving guards a good grip in any weather, especially the rain downpours that were common.

STAR-SPECKLED STONE

In places around New Altin there were patches of night sky deepest black star-speckled stone that had somehow replaced the Magji-Creete in the inner wall, while the Castle wall was a good even split. The towers on the Castle along with the bottom twenty strides of the main building were all the black star-speckled stone. The new outer wall built over one hundred annis ago was made from the local Redstone it was only ten strides high and only wide enough at the top that on the path that ran its length four men could walk side-by-side.

Fliss had never walked its length but knew there were over thirty simple gates built into its length, the top of the new wall was plain not even having the small towers like the inner wall had. Fliss thought that the crenelations and machicolations on the inner wall looked like stubby fingers, they rose to the height of three men on top of the wall bulging out about two to three strides and were placed every ten strides. The small towers built into the inner wall were every two hundred paces and sixty paces high giving a commanding view over the newest part of New Altin.

The barbicans that allowed entrance into the city were named after the direction they faced, Fliss thought that Barbican Westage was the most ornate as she’d spent many a rising drawing the figures cast by the Magji during its construction, while the other three were just plain ugly blobs of Magji-Creete designed to bar access should the need arise.

The barbican that allowed access into the Castle was slightly smaller than the others in the inner wall and would have been just as ugly as the three plain ones yet this barbican was made from the black star-speckled stone which gave it a creepy feel, Fliss thought it was watching her every time she went through it.