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“His name is Honsehauk, Son of Brushane.”
Bravye looked up from her soup. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s not that bad of a name,” Isoli replied.
“I meant I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Isoli may have given the slightest touch of a smile, but it was hard to be certain. It always was. “He’s the head of the household that refused to properly care for Snosote.”
“I see.” Bravye stirred her soup with her spoon, not feeling particularly hungry. The weather had broken, and with it some of her mood, but it was still an effort to find food appealing.
“There’s more.” Isoli looked pointedly at the soup and refused to answer Bravye’s inquiring looks until another spoonful had been consumed. Task completed, she relented. “Honsehauk works at the foundry.”
Bravye felt a spark of interest surge. “Does he really?” She smiled. “Do send for him, won’t you?” At Isoli’s nod Bravye felt her appetite return and began consuming soup with gusto.
Afternoon sunlight was streaming through the window of her office when she entered it a few hours later. Combined with the lump of coal burning in the stove, it made the place almost unbearably hot. She idly found herself wishing she could just shuck a few layers of clothing, but she knew there was no way Isoli would let her get away with such an impropriety.
“Sometimes I wonder who is mistress and who the servant,” she muttered. She stepped over to adjust the flue on the stove, then settled into her chair to begin reading the latest report on the manufacture of rail iron for the new dragon road being constructed.
She had just finished the report, setting it aside with pleasure at the speed with which the contract was being completed, when a knock at the door announced Isoli’s presence. As always the door opened before Bravye could say a word. The maid slipped in the door, then smoothed down her ankle length skirts. “Honsehauk is here at your request.”
Bravye smiled. “Show our illustrious guest in, please.”
Isoli nodded, then stepped over to the stove. She adjusted the knob on the flue and then settled one of the guest chairs close to it, near the corner of the desk before whisking all of the other chairs in the room over to rest against the wall.
Bravye could feel the sweat begin to drip down the cleft beneath her bodice, increasing the headache she’d started the day with. “Did you just turn the heat up?” she asked incredulously.
“We wouldn’t want such an honored guest to feel uncomfortable,” Isoli replied. “I’ll go fetch him.”
Shortly thereafter Isoli ushered in a middle aged man. His dark face was like leather, doubtless weathered by the heat of the smelters he tended. Dirty brown hair was shot through with grey. His simple working clothes were covered in soot. He settled in the chair by the stove without invitation, then scooted it a bit closer to the stove.
Behind him Isoli frowned, a break from her usual stoicism.
Bravye fought back a frown of her own. Of course a foundry worker would have a different tolerance for heat. Instead she settled back in her chair, ignoring the creeping tickle of her own reaction to the heat. “Forgive me for calling you away from your work.”
Honsehauk grunted, then leaned forward. “How could I refuse the summons of the Great Lady who owns and runs my foundry?”
There was a peculiar element to the man’s voice that sent a small jolt through Bravye’s spine. Her eyes narrowed and she contemplated the man in front of her.
“Your son was killed recently, was he not?”
“Yes.” The bitterness in that simple answer was unmistakable. “The idiot went off to fight in this foolish war, serving the cannons I helped to make.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
Honsehauk grunted again, saying nothing more.
“Well,” Bravye pretended to think for a moment. “Seeing as your son was fighting in my late husband’s unit I was hoping to help out a little. I know that nothing can ever replace your son, but…” She leaned forward. “Tell me, did he have children? A wife?”
Bravye could not mistake the anger that shot through Honsehauk’s face. “They’re being properly taken care of.”
Her eyes shifted over to Isoli. A brief nod and narrowing of the eyes told her that Isoli was seeing the same things she was. Returning her gaze to Honsehauk, she pressed on.
“Were there any sons old enough to work? I could find places for them in the foundry so that they can help contribute to caring for their mother?”
Honsehauk stood from his chair. “They are being properly taken care of,” he repeated, emphasizing each word. “Just as you should be. I don’t need your charity,” the man finished.
Bravye dropped all pretense of civility. “Apparently Snosote does.”
“Snosote is no…” Honsehauk paused, fighting to control his voice. “That woman is none of your business.”
“She’s been my business, living under my roof for three days.”
Honsehauk leaned over her desk, knotted fists holding him up as he glared at Bravye. “I refused him permission to marry her. Yet he insisted on having her anyway. Then she got a son by him. They’re nothing of mine.”
Bravye templed her fingers before her, her face hard as she refused to flinch away from Honsehauk’s anger. “Isoli. Do you know anything of this?”
“It’s true enough,” the maid replied from where she still remained beside the door. “They were refused. Snosote told me Baver chose to marry her under the right of Bridesclaim.”
Bravye felt her eyesbrows rise.
“That outdated practice hasn’t been exercised since the clan wars,” Honsehauk spat. “She claimed he took her unlawfully, and her clan made us pay the bridesclaim geld.”
“Isoli?”
“It was the only thing they could think of to get around this one.” Isoli rudely pointed toward Honsehauk. “It took them a year of trying to get her with child so she could ‘prove’ he’d taken her.”
“Her words!” Honsehauk bellowed. “All lies!”
Isoli kept her eyes locked on Bravye. “I spoke with several of Baver’s sisters-in-law. None of them particularly liked Snosote, but they all confirmed the story.” Isoli cracked a dark smile. “I think they thought I was looking to sully Snosote’s name by accusing her of… ill professions.”
“True accusations,” Honsehauk growled. “She’s nothing but a common whore.”
“She went to Baver a virgin willing,” Isoli replied calmly.
Before Hausehauk could sputter any further insults, Bravye stood and turned her back to him so she could peer out on the thawing garden beyond the window. “So this is what happened. Your son fell in love with a girl from another clan. When you refused him”
“As is my right as the head of the family!” Honsehauk had leapt from his seat to interrupt with a shout.
Bravye turned her head to glare at him over her shoulder. She waited until the man simmered down. Spiteful he might be, but Bravye knew that even one such as him recognized the societal impropriety of interrupting the woman of a house not his.
“When you refused him, as is the right given to you under the traditions of our people, he had to resort to another right of our people to marry his true love. A right traditionally exercised to protect women wronged during war between the clans, and which Bavar knew could sully his own honor and reputation.”
Hausehauk fumed, saying nothing.
“Bridesright marriages have always been recognized by the clans, have they not?”
Hausehauk glared at her. “Yes.”
“So she was his wife then.”
Hausehauk remained silent.
Bravye turned back from the window and pinned him with her eyes.
“Yes, damn you.”
“Mind your tongue,” Isoli snapped. “You’re in the presence of a Great Lady.”
“Great Lady?” This time Hausehauk turned his anger towards Isoli. “I’m in the presence of a bitch that doesn’t know her place and the unmarried tart that cleans her soiled linens.”
Bravye felt her face screw into a mask of righteous anger. She felt the uncharacteristic urge to throw herself across the desk at the nasty wretch before it, but forced herself to keep her body and her voice calm.
“Honsehauk, Son of Brushane, Son of Dverfaulk, Son of Fjellrev, Head of your household and father of Bavar, as a Great Lady I absolve you of your duties to care for Snosote, Daughter of Born, Widow of Bavar.”
“Women have no authority to”
“Then you acknowledge your duties by her?” Bravye interrupted.
Honsehauk glowered at her, clearly at a loss to see a way out of the trap. Finally he turned and began stomping towards the door. “She’s your problem.”
“Fine,” Bravye replied to his retreating back. “Oh, and Honsehauk…”
The man paused in the doorway, refusing to look back at her.
“Never show up at my foundry again.”
