Harassment

During the lunch break between classes, Morenna ate quietly at the small table in her tower parlor, using a fork with one hand and holding open a book with the other. It was quiet—uncomfortably so, with the clock silenced. Annabel was dusting the bookshelves and Gerard polishing the windows.

Both were humming. In harmony. They had started on a whim, and Morenna had said nothing.

It helped alleviate the silence; most of the crows were away foraging at this time of day.

“Don’t answer it,” Morenna said suddenly, apropos of nothing. “No one is home.”

Gerard and Annabel both stopped cleaning and humming, turning toward the Princess with matching looks of confusion.

“What’s that, your Highness?” the footman asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

The doorbell rang.

Morenna had a bite of fish, and turned a page with her thumb, not reacting.

Annabel and Gerard both looked at the door, at her, and then at each other.

After a short pause, the bell rang again.

Slowly, and now in silence, they resumed cleaning.

After four rings, the visitor gave up.

* * *

Morenna had dared to hope that would be the end of it, but the next three days acquainted her with the depth of Linnea’s stubbornness.

First she waited outside the classroom at each of their afternoon sessions. At least she didn’t interrupt their classes, but that was in character. Concubine Linnea was known throughout the court for her scholarly pursuits and disdain of political maneuvering; she would be the last person to disrupt students’ education, especially her son’s. Morenna was probably the only person who knew she was outside.

So the others were confused when, instead of leaving the lecture hall as usual, she stepped into the shadows behind one of the curtains and vanished.

The next two days were their weekly break from tutoring. What should have been a restful time to enjoy her books and plants and birds turned out to be the two most annoying days Morenna had endured since she had grown tall enough to reach doorknobs.

The doorbell began ringing just after breakfast. Again, Morenna instructed Gerard and Annabel to ignore it. This time it rang five times before Linnea gave up.

Out in the hall, she could sense Linnea standing there with a stern expression, and Uthien looking resigned and embarrassed at her side. At least they got the hint when she again refused to answer the door.

Temporarily.

An hour later, they were back. And they gave it six rings of the bell before leaving. Annabel was now watching Morenna with a pointed expression which fully conveyed what she was too respectful to say out loud.

Even without her clock, Morenna could tell by the chimes of the city’s clocktowers that it was one hour later when the pattern continued. She had been hoping Linnea would pick up the subtext and just leave her alone, but as the hours and then days dragged on, it began to seem that Morenna had inadvertently challenged her father’s concubine to a contest of stubbornness.

Linnea had the good taste not to breach etiquette by bothering her after the dinner hour or before breakfast, but then it began again.

And with each visit, Linnea and her long-suffering son stood in front of Morenna’s door a minute longer, adding one ring of the bell to every attempt. By the end of the second day, that kept them out there so long they had a lot less than an hour between visits; Morenna had to wonder how they had enough time to eat and use the privy.

It also showed the advantage Linnea had in their contest: the two might be equally stubborn, but Morenna was not able or willing to be Linnea’s match in obnoxiousness.

After everyone’s ruined weekend, they were once again back in classes. Once again with Linnea waiting like a gargoyle outside. Other things had changed, however.

Poor Uthien looked tired, embarrassed, and frustrated; he scowled through the lesson, barely asking any questions as he usually did, hardly seeming even to pay attention. Espa and Ophia both looked worried, and Aldan was studying both Morenna and Uthien more closely than their history book. Rakkan, of course, never let his insufferable grin drop, nor missed a chance to needle either of them.

Morenna knew her siblings weren’t reacting only to Uthien’s obvious discomfiture. After a weekend of this nonsense, with Linnea and her son hiking back and forth from her tower a dozen times a day, the castle had to be swirling with rumors.

She didn’t care about that, but Uthien’s distress finally moved her to concede the game.

Not here, though; this was no confrontation to have with an audience. As soon as they were dismissed, she vanished behind the curtain again—this time barely in time to avoid Linnea actually barging into the classroom.

* * *

When Khellvain had ordered the construction of a new Imperial castle atop the ruins which stood on a plateau overlooking Kourvald, he had ordered a bridge built to the Lower Castle, and nothing else. The Emperor had said at the time that he would consider what to build there when something became necessary, but then, apparently nothing had.

It stood on a second plateau, right next to the main one but disconnected by a narrow gap across which the bridge now stood. Upon it were the ruins of some old structure the Machine Men had half-demolished and then ignored. In Khellvain’s era, the ruins had been somewhat cleaned up, so that the ground was even and relatively free of hazards, but it was still just a stretch of land elevated to a level with Kourvald’s surrounding rooftops, containing nothing but old foundations and half-broken walls, now choked with bushes and a few trees.

The Lower Castle offered distance and quiet, but not privacy; everything was visible from the main castle above it, and much from the surrounding city. There was no access except through the bridge from the main castle. It saw sparse but regular use, mostly for parties and duels.

That evening, Morenna went to the Lower Castle without using her teleportation. She walked through the halls of the castle carrying a book and a folding chair, pointedly allowing herself to be seen.

She strode all the way through the ruins to the cleared area at their farthest point from the castle proper, where she set up her chair and sat down to read. This was…different. The steady wind, the sounds of the city on all sides…on the whole she preferred the privacy and quiet of her tower, but this had its advantages.

Anyway, actually reading wasn’t the point.

Most of her crows descended to flutter about on the ruins, cawing inquisitively at her about this strange new behavior. Morenna greeted them, since she was out of earshot of anyone, but didn’t get up to play.

It didn’t take long.

At the edge of her perception, she sensed Linnea and a reluctant Uthien approaching. Neither of them had her facility at navigating unfamiliar terrain; they made worse time than she had.

Sitting with her back to them, book in hand, Morenna nonetheless spoke as soon as the pair emerged from around a ruined wall into the open plateau.

“I’ll give you due credit, Linnea: you are as relentless as the fucking clap.”