4.9

Jewel was glad for the small mercy that it was mostly her parents that had to deal with Countess Bathory for the wedding preparations.

A landed lady she might be but her father was still Jewel’s direct liege and head of her house.

That left her little responsibility but to confer with the cook staff and make sure that there was going to be no saffron anywhere in the food for her wedding celebrations, reminding them that the High King himself had lost favor for the seasoning when necessary.

This absence of duties also gave Jewel time to seek out Jaksa The Red’s assistance with the situation of Bethica and her mute children.

Although as was usual for the man he seemed incredibly bored by the situation.

“Yes, Yes. It is almost certainly a matter of the thinning of the blood that carried the necessary gifts from the old minoan stock. Old Cantor inherited a great many of those old blood lines into its herds.”

Jewel blinked a bit at that, it seemed far too simple. And furthermore did not match what she had been told.

“But surely then the pairings they did with the brothers to sisters and mothers to sons should have restored the purity?”

And for the first time in her knowing of him Jaksa the red was genuinely disgusted.

Not angry that she was questioning him, not indignant over his esteem being challenged.

Utterly disgusted.

He smelled of it too, the curdling of a rotten abattoir rising off of him strong enough Jewel was pretty sure it would have made anyone but a leather tanner gag.

“Hardly, the constraining of the blood lines has likely been making the whole problem so much worse. Star sent may give much wisdom but even base dogs know better than to cross the lines as closely as that.Truly it is a wonder that some vital sense is lost in beast and man when they are gifted by the heavens by enough words and thought.”

His displeasure changed as he spoke into the more distant and less visceral dislike Jewel had seen before.

After a deep breath to further settle his mood he shook his head to Jewel.

“No, the simplest and easiest solution to your Bethica’s problem with dull witted children is to have a speaking bull join her that is well and truly removed from her family lines.”

Well that answered the question but where was Jewel going to find a bull that spoke well and had no close relation to Bethica? It’s not like they were exactly common... were they?

Before she could even voice the question Jaksa was already speaking.

“I’ll be recommending the countess to have a fine spoken and good pedigree bull from the pastures of epirus brought to you. Given time for dove flight and the delay of winter you should expect his arrival in Valasect by mid Birdbane. Now is there anything else?”

Jewel felt a bit off balance, first the Countess had surrendered to her attempt to undermine her authority and now the family curse of her newest friend was apparently solved in scarce hours.

“I admit Jaksa that I had thought you’d at least have had to visit Bethica to be sure of the cure. I only just learned of her this year but you are so certain of the remedy to the malady of her entire family line?”

Jaksa scoffed. Gaining the familiar affront he bore whenever questioned in his assertions.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I am no weird and if I have my way I shall never suffer the curse of becoming one. But Bloodlines are a part of my truth. I’d know this as surely as Tsulogothulan knows the matter of frog mating or whatever.”

Jewel blinked at that, considering Jaksa carefully.

“None of the wizards I’ve spoken to think ill of the Weirds. And all of them look forward to the deeper understanding of their truths.”

Jaksa laughed at that, actually laughed!

It was so out of character she almost missed his words.

“Of course they would, All the ones you’ve spoken to already have gone too far to care.”

His expression stilled again to the more placid but now more intense look. Considering her in a way she had never noticed from the man before.

“Have you ever asked what it is that they have given up for their closeness to the truth?”

Jewel was still baffled to have found such sudden new depths to what until now she had considered the least wizardly of all the wizards she had met.

Her silence drew more words from him with a frown.

“Fizzbunches has been a cat for so long no record can say if he ever wasn't one and the idiot can’t think in a straight line to save his life. Urul would happily open up his own head and let you read his very mind as long as you did not stain the pages. Tsulogothulan cannot comprehend why anyone would mind the stink of rotten eggs or the taste of mud and has not had a proper body for at least a century.”

He turned away from Jewel and looked at his own hands, the blood beneath his skin pulsed and flowed prominently, audibly to Jewel’s ears.

It was not a heart that was beating it through him

The Blood of Jaksa the red moved his heart.

Not the other way around.

“Every Weird has given up so many parts of what it means to be a mortal man for their truth. By the time they are so deep they no longer see any reason to stop.”

Jewel stared at Jaksa. She had thought that all those things he said were just the way to be a wizard.

That it was just how each of her friends and acquaintance sorcerers were.

But had it in fact been something within them that had changed in time?

Was it some pact for power like in the tales?

“I apologize for any offense Lord Sorcerer Jaksa the Red. I didn't know you thought of it like that.”

He shrugged at that and smiled, genuinely smiled for the second time she had ever seen him although he then frowned immediately with a suspicious glint.

“You are a suspiciously easy to talk to creature, Lady Jewel of Valasect. It is a strange thing to be so understood.”

It was then Jewel’s turn to shrug, she did so with wings and forelegs both in a little tumbling roll of motion through all four shoulders.

“I could not say, you seem quite legible to me. Not like Euewyn. It took me so long to realize what the sound of mist settling on frozen birch bark was supposed to mean.”

Jaksa snorted in laughter at that and shook his head, a third smile twisting his face.

“Well, is there anything else you wish of me, Lady Jewel? The countess has pledged a whole day of my service to you as an early wedding gift.”

Which drew a deep sigh of annoyance from Jewel that she was pretty sure was inspiring a fourth smirk offered as camaraderie in suffering from the wizard.

“No Jaksa, I won’t keep you from your duties, go do whatever it is you would rather spend time on for the day. You’ve solved more in these few words than I thought could be done in an entire day.”

He bowed to her, and then in what she now tried not to judge him for, the Red Wizard turned and exited through the door like any mortal man.

And walked down the hallway of Kaeketeh Keep until well past the range of even Jewel’s hearing.