Tending to her mother, the Lady Tan'esh, proved to occupy more of her time than Shal'e'ish had expected.
Upon hearing of the death of her husband, Shal'e'ish's mother was inconsolable. At first, the girl suspected this had more to do with the fear that she'd lose her place of authority--it was known, atleast privately, that the Lady Tan'esh was unable to bear any more children, the result of a miscarrage after Shal'e'ish was born. While it was not only acceptible, but quite common for women to hold high rank-infact, wives traditionally outranked their husbands-they were forbidden, again by tradition, from directly leading soldiers. She would therefore need a husband or a son to maintain her rule over the Fortress, 'Graniteshear', and Shal'e'ish was an only child.
This inconvenience was soon solved, however, when Shal'e'ish's grandfather-a respected and famous general who had only recently retired-was sent for. Her grandfather-father to her father-had remarried after the death of his wife, so the elder couple would serve as figureheads, while the Lady Tan'esh maintained her place of power.
Shal'e'ish very much looked forward to their arrival. Her grandfather was one of the few men she really looked up to, and Shal'e'ish was very close to the woman he'd married. The venerable woman had been trained as a soldier in her youth, in a very dangerous Fortress, and later had gone into politics, serving as a diplomat to the goblins.
She was tough and smart, she always had much better stories to tell than any of Shal'e'ish's nurses, and seemed to know more gossip than the three of them, combined. She'd earned her own place in the world--something Shal'e'ish greatly envied, but knew her mother would never allow her even a taste of.
The Lady Tan'esh was also smart. Plenty tough in her own way, too, but ever since the miscarrage, she was driven to be a mother-in-spirit to everyone around her. She was a good woman, as kind and generous even as some of the heroes in the stories...and she kept her subjects firmly under her kind and generous, vigilant thumb.
It was a golden time for her subjects, true: New roads were being built, and their safety ensured by well-armed and well-trained guards. Crime was punished firmly, but fairly, and the Hammerer rarely called upon. Taxes were heavier than in times past, but this was more than compensated for by increased trade. The taxes were spent well, too, going primarily towards strengthening the Fortress defenses, the roads, and public works, such as a complex system of aquaducts that would soon bring clean water from the mountain springs, to the very center of the Fortress.
Being Mother to the Fortress didn't leave her a lot of time to be a mother to her daughter, though. She did find time, here and there, but even when the opportunities came, the Lady Tan'esh was always distracted with one of her projects. It was often more frustrating for Shal'e'ish to be in her presence, than out of it. The woman seemed to realize this, and often sent her gifts that were clearly meant to make up for her absence, but it was never the same.
The worst thing about it was that Shal'e'ish very much enjoyed being in her mother's company. It was the only time she got to tour all parts of the Fortress. They visited the walls her mother was extending, the deep mines where spinels and silver were still wrested from the living rock, and even toured the gaol, where Shal'e'ish got a long glimpse at some of the bandits that plagued the wild scrublands that lay between 'Graniteshear' and three of the settlements they traded with.
It was a highly secure area built deep into the Fortress, and the head gaoler was the wife of the Hammerer, and a close, and long-time friend of Shal'e'ish's mother. Recognising that the lives of the women of the Fortress were lacking somewhat in novelty, the Lady decided to open up the gaols to regular public viewing, even encouraging a certain mild, polite fraternization between prisoners and the womenfolk. This served a certain educational purpose for the women, and went a long way towards keeping the prisoners calm and civil. In return, the women supervised and helped maintain the cleanliness and propriety of the prisoner areas, provided extra food and water, lack of alchohol being the main punishment, and often aided and encouraged the prisoners themselves to find new apprenticeships, education, healthcare, and basic hygiene, that they were so often lacking.
Direct physical interaction was forbidden, and the prisoners were kept behind thick iron bars, but "prisoner-watching", talking and socializing, giving various lessons, and taking meals together was common.
Most of the bandits were shabby-looking men and youths--mainly leaden-bearded, obviously very poor, and probably driven to their wicked trades by simple hunger and lack of skills--but one of them was a goblin. Shal'e'ish had never seen a goblin before. Not very tall, with no fat at all on it's body, it was hard-muscled, and extraordinarily wirey, with large knotted joints that made it's veiny limbs gangly-looking. It's thin skin was a deep inky blue, heavily black-spotted and looking slightly scabby and sunburnt, wherever the sun had touched it, but striped a chalky sky-blue on the undersides of it's arms. Small scars of a faint teal shade cris-crossed it's forearms, hands, and face, but these all appeared to be from recent wounds, and healing well.
It wore a leather cuirass, old looking, also badly scarred, but with several of the straps and bronze buckles newly-severed. By the guards who had captured it, she supposed.
Below the cuirass it wore a series of three thin belts, the uppermost of which also included a strap that ran over it's left shoulder.
Attached to the strap like a bandolier were seven small sheaths that she guessed had held throwing knives, that ran up from the center of it's deeply muscled chest to right below the shoulder.
That shoulder was protected by several heavy leather scales, which were further reinforced with bronze studs and what looked like three heavy bronze belt buckles, each of a very different style. On the two lower belts, she counted over a dozen more belt buckles, also in a wide variety of materials and styles, including a very large wooden one that looked as if it had been grown, rather than made.
On the two lower belts were also three empty scabbards of various sizes, a wineskin made from foxhide, and some sort of weird mounting made from a cut down hip bone, attached to the lowermost belt. When it turned to the side to speak to one of it's fellow prisoners, she saw yet a fourth empty scabbard, larger than the rest, crossed under a complicated-looking hangar, where a mace or an axe might have hung.
It's forehead was broad, heavily-ridged above it's eyes, and decorated with a single thin, neatly-trimmed eyebrow that ran across the forehead and down around the bottoms of it's extremely large, flexible ears, which came to a sharp point, and which never seemed to stop twitching. Fine white fur started on the forehead, directly above the eyebrows, but quickly turned into blueish black hair which looked partially braided, and bound in several places with verdigreed copper wire.
The face and ears were of a somewhat paler shade than the rest of it's skin, and looked untouched by the sun.
She'd heard that goblins often wore strange masks, and perhaps this was the result?
The face itself was well-formed and not entirely uncomely, although sharply angled and cruel-looking. The large purple lips of it's narrow mouth pouted out around two narrow fanglike tusks, and then turned up almost in a constant grin, within which she could see two rows of very sharp teeth and a thin mauve tongue. It seemed the creature liked to talk, as it held a constant conversation with the other prisoners. It spoke her dialect fairly well, although the high voice warbled strangely, at times nearly birdlike. Shal'e'ish spoke to the creature on occasion, and it answered back politely enough, but there was ever a slight mockingness about it, as well as the prideful, still-arrogant way it held itself in a prison of it's enemies, and something else, in it's eyes, that always kept her on edge.
The eyes fascinated, and sometimes even frightened her.
Very deeply set into it's skull, the goblin's eyes were huge amethyst orbs possessed of an obvious intelligence, cunning, and a deep, cold age.
The goblin hadn't stayed very long in the prison, although long enough to pick up a rudimentary knowledge of writing, and basic mining theory. It was quickly processed and assigned to the Fortress's salt mines. Shal'e'ish later learned that it had risen to a minor overseer position, but had later murdered it's direct supervisor and two guards, before being killed by it's lover, a rare woman prisoner, in a nearly-successful escape attempt.
She hadn't been particularly surprised at any of these events.
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Topic: The Birth of an Artifact (Read 19939 times)