“I reached out to her, and she took my hand in hers, leading me away to her secret bower in the Forest. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I knew the tales of those bewitched, and I had always wondered why they allowed themselves to be taken by the faerie folk. Now I knew. Ilona was utterly impossible to resist. I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I might be with her. You were conceived that very night, Lara. It amused her that I had never known a woman in the fullest sense before. At first she was tender and gentle with me. Then she began to teach me what pleased a lover. Later she said I was the best pupil she had ever had. It was because of my innocence that she let her guard down that night and conceived you.”
“I don’t understand, Da,” Lara said to him.
“Faerie women conceive children only when they want them, Lara. If they do not want them, they do not have them, unlike human women who conceive more often than not when their lovers mount them and spill their seed. Remember that, for I do not know if you have that ability of your mother’s. I pray that you do. I stayed with Ilona during the months in which she carried you. I thought not of the morrow, but only of how much I loved her—and I did, from the moment I laid my eyes on her. I love her still in spite of it all. But I love Susanna, too, and I am wise enough to know I shall never have a love like the one I had for Ilona again. So I content myself with my good wife, and am glad the matchmaker found her for me.
“When I was with your mother, everything I did, every thought I had, was for her and her alone. She consumed me entirely and I did not care what happened to me as long as I was with her. And then you were born. She birthed you quickly and easily, and once she had seen you she lost interest in you. I was stunned, for from the moment you entered the world I loved you. But for Ilona the mystery and the excitement was over. And she began to lose interest in me.”
“Where did you live during this time, Da?” Lara asked her father.
“In her bower in the woodland,” he said. “I can’t really describe it to you, for it seemed to have no walls or roof, but we were warm in the winter and the rain never touched us. Our bed was made of moss and covered in a downy quilt. You slept in a cradle that I made you, which hung from a tree branch.”
“If my mother ignored me, how did I survive? Who fed me? What did I eat?” Lara wondered.
“Your mother bewitched a young girl she found lost in the wood one day, and by magic put her milk in the girl’s breasts. She fed you several times a day, and then would fall into an enchanted slumber. But as the next Midsummer’s Eve approached I saw your mother less and less. She began to wander. I no longer held her interest. In desperation I told her I intended to take you and return to my family. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you understand, don’t you? You are truly the most unique human I have ever had as a lover, John. Thank you! Yes! Yes! Go, and take Lara with you, for she will not be accepted in my faerie world. You have my blessing, which will one day bring you good fortune, and Lara will have my blessing as well. I have loved you both.’ And then I found myself growing weary, and when I awoke I was on the edge of the woodlands, and you were carefully and neatly swaddled, and lying next to me. You were but three months of age.” He paused, and wiped a tear from his eye.
“So my mother abandoned us both, Da,” Lara said. “If she loved me, but then she didn’t love me. Not really. Not the way Susanna loves Mikhail.”
“I am sorry to hurt you,” her father said, “but you would know all. Shall I go on?”
Lara nodded. “Aye please, Da.”
“It was early morning,” he continued. “The grass and flowers were wet with dew, yet we were not, nor was the ground beneath us. There had been a midsummer bonfire nearby in almost the exact same place as the previous year. I recognized several of my friends asleep about its warm embers. I picked you up, and walked past them back to our farm. The first person I saw was your grandmother. She was drawing water from the well, and seeing me she dropped her bucket to come running. When she saw you she knew immediately who your mother was, and she wept.”
“Why, Da?”
“Because you were a faerie’s daughter. You would not be accepted by my family. She brought us into the farmhouse and sat me down to learn the whole story of my disappearance. And when I had related all to her, she told me my father had died in the winter, and my oldest brother was now the head of the family. Dorjan has never been an easy man. He is the first of my parents’ children. I was the last. We had seven sisters between us. He was already grown when I was born. I was scarcely a welcome addition in his world. The first words I ever recall him saying to me were ‘the farm is mine.’
“That morning when he discovered I had returned he was not pleased at all, and when he learned I had brought my half faerie child with me he grew angry and accused me of drawing disaster onto his house. I would have to go, he said, and take my faerie brat with me. It was then your grandmother spoke up. Indeed, she said, I would have to go to the City and join the Guild of Mercenaries to earn my living, but first she would have me rest myself a few days, for my sojourn in the woodland would have weakened me. And her granddaughter would remain with her after I departed for the City.
“‘Your brother can scarce apply for the Guild carrying a child in one arm. Lara stays with me, and I will care for her,’ your grandmother said. ‘When John is settled, then his daughter shall join him.’ ‘And who shall care for the babe in the City?’ my brother, Dorjan, demanded to know. ‘I will,’ your grandmother replied. My brother was astounded, but she went on, ‘You have a wife who has resented my presence since the day your father died. Now she will be sole mistress of this house.’ It was then my brother, who often spoke before he thought a matter through said, ‘If you leave my house, Mother, you will not be welcome back. If you leave you choose the faerie over your real grandchildren. I cannot abide such a thing.’
“I can still remember the cold smile that touched your grandmother’s lips at his words. But she said nothing, and he, foolish man, did not know what he had done. I did, though. I knew that the day she left her comfortable farmhouse to live in a mercenary’s hovel in the City, she would never return. She was mistress of that great farmhouse. Dorjan’s wife was a meek creature who harbored all manner of resentments, but was lazy. She might be annoyed having her mother-in-law as mistress of the house, but my mother kept that house in perfect order. I can but imagine what happened when your grandmother left them to come to the City.” He chuckled. “Dorjan’s wife was no housekeeper.”
“So you came to the City and joined the Mercenary Guild,” Lara said. “How did you become so proficient with the sword?”
“A young fellow joining the guild is sent to training school, which is one reason I couldn’t send for you as quickly as I would have wanted,” John explained. “The old swordmaster running the school saw I had a knack for the sword for I had begun to learn its use from a retired mercenary at home. The swordmaster drilled me mercilessly in its proper use. He had been famous in his day. When I finally beat him in a mock combat he said he could teach me no more, that I was better than he had ever been. It was quite a compliment.
“On his recommendation I was hired to fight in several small wars between local bandits and the Province rulers. My reputation grew. I have escorted caravans of Taubyl Traders from the City into all the other provinces, for once I gained my reputation as a ruthless warrior few would take me on. I know how to impose Hetarian order, Lara. As a society we cannot allow discord to disrupt our lives.”
“Why did my uncle not come when grandmother died?” Lara asked.
“My brother is a stubborn man, daughter,” John Swiftsword said. “He never forgave her for leaving him, for leaving his house. For a time she kept in touch with old friends in the Midlands, but eventually there was no point in it. He always blamed me for stealing her from him. He said I brought back faerie magic with me, and used it against him. It was never true, of course.”
“Did you ever see Ilona again?” Lara asked her father.
“Once,”