2.4

When she first learned of him, Jewel would have been shocked if she was told that György Thurzó of Arva might come to be a welcome friend.

Even when she first met the Count, Jewel would have doubted. He was not a terribly impressive man in bearing.

But her friend György was, and very welcomed one at that.

It was so peculiar how much could change after a war.

Father and the Rochford family had a great many books, one of the largest personal libraries in the valleys of the Ridgetail mountains she had learned.

But Jewel had come to realize that just because one had a great many books did not necessarily mean one read or remembered all of them.

Jewel’s father was well-read, but as with Alexander, he did not retain what he learned as voluminously as Count Thurzó.

What had started as letters that were stiff, officious and put to deep suspicion by Father and Mother grew over the years to a welcome series of questions and discussions on the nature of the world and the many attempts men had made to codify it.

And now, after years of letters between them since their last meeting György Thurzó of Arva and his entire family were on their way to visit.

Well, to be precise they were arriving as vanguard for the high king’s visit to Kaeketeh. Which would also be passing through Rochford ten days after them.

The halls of the fortress had been cleared and the Countess Bathory had sent staff and supplies to see that Rochford (and other places of rest on his itinerary) were made ready for the King.

Jewel shifted her coils and squirmed in her swaddling simultaneously. Something which got her smaller part shushed and fussed over by the wet nurse.

Her sister Gwenn was equally fussy; it was strange the pair they made.

Jewel had feelings twice over regarding her sister.

She was older, larger and wiser without doubt. A respected elder sister who looked out for her safety.

But simultaneously she was also a peer, a fellow struggler of the great challenges of the world.

Of the frailties of one’s body. The yet insurmountable struggle of staying upright under quaking muscles.

The shared frustrations of trying to move along the floor in the easy crawl (which Jewel being four legged as her larger self was well-versed in).

The agitation with how often the adults fussed and picked them up and took them from things they wished to do.

When she was absent from her larger self, Jewel’s memory said she was the same. But in review it was not really so.

Her smaller head was full of foggy uncertainties, her vision was awful, her hearing oversharp and yet indistinct. She was easily startled at every noise and sudden movement. She could not make such a short and cramped throat do much more than mewl, cry and chirp.

Over fourteen years of practice with a throat more often longer than a man is tall was worthless with the tiny neck her smaller self had.

And without the presence of her larger self, Jewel felt addled and confused in more ways besides.

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Words that were familiar had little or incorrect meanings.

Voice and tone dominated everything.

Her vision for all its inadequacy felt plenty clear when alone and she observed with great concentration as she always had.

But somehow details were lost despite her attention.

Most disturbing of all, Jewel as her smaller self alone could not hear or feel the world.

The stones were mute, the trees silent.

All of it was smothering and frightening and it made her yearn and strive to reconnect with her larger self and the comforting certainty and rightness it brought even when just hours prior she had known that she should stay with her minders and do as she was told.

From that impulse came action.

And naturally being the peer that she was, Gwenn would follow Jewel’s smaller self in these ill thought out ventures.

Or rather would follow ‘Gem’.

The name felt silly to both of her, intensely strange and childish.

Like naming her toes.

But everyone had insisted that Jewel’s daughter was separate and that she should have her own name.

So she had compromised and gotten much exasperation over it.

Jewel had ultimately given up on the topic after the intense pressure from the adults. Unable to explain her assurance that it was not the case any better then she could explain to father the nature of sorcery and her own Wyrmflame.

Perhaps when she finally could get the tiny throat to speak proper words she could disabuse them of the misunderstanding.

But the struggle there was another she was sharing with Gwenn.

Still. György Thurzó of Arva was visiting!

Arriving in just a few more days, according to his last letter.

She chortled along with Gwenn in a good mood while working through another ledger book with her larger self’s eyes.

Considering things carefully, there had been an accident in erecting one of the halls of her manor house. A timber had been badly rotten in the core while looking good and strong outside. No one had caught the failure, not even when Jewel looked over the initial framing.

She must have been distracted by something? Worrying over her smaller self back in Rochford?

Whatever the cause, it was unacceptable.

Two of her men had died when the wood failed to hold under the weight of stone over them.

The partial vault of what would have been one of her hallways collapsed.

The good stones had cracked out of shape.

The construction was likely to be delayed for a full year to quarry, cut, shape and begin again on the framing and laying of the ceiling there.

Jewel focused on the ledgers, considering the cost, the labors, trying to divine as György often mentioned the way one can look to the past to see the future.

She didn't see precisely how that worked yet. But there was a lot of sorcery and workings Jewel did not understand.

Much magic she did not know the way of.

But Jewel would learn.