WINDOWS: A BROKEN FAIRY TALE (10 page)

           
Sarah
knew she was beaten.
 
Had, in fact, known
it from the moment Raven started pestering her to go out for the
afternoon.
 
Resignedly, like a hiker
facing another tall hill, she grimaced.
 
“Okay but I want to at least take a shower first.”

           
The
winner cheered, “Alright, you do that and we’ll leave in a little bit.”
 
Then Raven seemed to lose her train of
thought and looked intently at Sarah, long enough for her to get a bit
uncomfortable.

           
“Why
are you staring at me?”
 
Sarah finally
asked.

           
“I’ve
been thinking.
 
I say ‘little bit’ to you
a lot, don’t I?”

           
“I
guess so.
 
Why?”

           
“That’s
your new nickname.”

           
“What
is?”
 
Sarah was getting extremely
confused by this conversation.

           
“Lil’bit.”

           
“Why
do I need a nickname?”

           
“Because
I want to give you one.”

           
‘My
head really hurts’, Sarah thought as she rubbed her temples.
 
“Do I get a choice in this?”

           
Raven
grinned brightly.
 
“Sure you do.
 
It’s either Lil’bit or Gaknar the Unclean.”

           
Muttering
to herself about demented, flaming haired witches Sarah shut the door and got
ready for their day out.
 

           
The
two girls spent the morning exploring the various spots in Valentria.
 
Sarah learned that, unlike Vestavia which was
set up in a rigid, grid like manner, Valentria was easy to get lost in.
 
At one point Raven strolled down what seemed
like a dead-end alley but after turning a hidden corner Sarah found herself
staring at a huge public park.
 
Two
sports fields complete with bleachers for the spectators and a snack stand lay
on the left side.
 
On their right Sarah
watched a few children and their parents enjoy a well maintained playground
surrounded by a short chain link fence.
 
One little boy’s voice, carried on the warm wind, begged his daddy to
push him higher.
 
Snaking through the
park was a concrete path.
 
Sarah’s eyes
followed it and saw that it ran over a small bridge spanning a pond where ducks
and geese floated serenely.

           
“Pretty
nice, ain’t it?”
 
Raven asked.

           
Sarah
took Raven’s hand.
 
“They don’t have
anything like this back in Vestavia, that’s for sure.”
  
She almost said back home but that place was
no longer where she lived.
 
Sarah decided
right then that she loved Valentria and was finally where she was meant to be.

           
They
left by a different path than the one leading to the park and after about five
minutes they were again surrounded by buildings and shops.
 
The park had been like an oasis for Sarah, growing
up in a city where buildings towered over trees to scrape the heavens.
 
The only grass she could remember were yards
in the nicer parts of Vestavia, parts she rarely had any business to visit.

           
“How
do I find my way around?”
 
Sarah was
becoming completely disoriented as Raven steered them through the teeming mass
of mid-day shoppers.
 
She finally got
used to random people pointing and whispering as they passed.
 
Raven, who seemed oblivious to anything that
wasn’t interesting to her, never paid any attention.

           
“It’s
easy,” Raven pointed up at a large clock tower that stood above all the other
buildings, “each face on that clock is the direction you’re facing.
 
See that N on the face?”

           
Sarah
nodded.
 
She hadn’t really looked at the
clock since she was trying to learn the streets.

           
“That
means we’re facing north.
 
After that,
it’s just a matter of learning where things are.”

           
Just
then a little blonde girl in pigtails ran up to them and stared at Raven.
 
“Are you Lady Branween?”

           
Before
Raven could answer the child’s mother rushed to grab the girl’s hand.
 
“My apologies Lady Branwyen,” the mousey
woman bowed her head and stared at the ground, “we meant no disrespect.”

           
Raven
clucked.
 
“Don’t do that, you’re blocking
traffic.”
 
The woman stood as Raven knelt
down on one knee, causing even more of a jam.
 
Sarah didn’t bother saying anything.
 

           
“That
I am little one.”
 
Lady Chandlish offered
her hand to the little girl who shook it with all the solemnity a child could
muster.
 
“But I don’t know you’re name
yet.”

           
“My
name is Alma Berksdale.
 
This is my
mommy, Beverly.”
 
Beverly looked terrified by her daughter’s
cheekiness but didn’t dare interrupt a member of the royal family.
 
“We just moved here from Savannah.”

           
Raven
smiled at the girl, “Well Alma Berksdale from Savannah now living in Valentria, there is
one very important rule we have here.
 
Do
you know what it is?”

“Lady Branwyen,” Beverly started to say
something but a slight gesture from Raven’s hand silenced her.

           
“In
Valentria it’s a rule that my friends have to call me Raven.
 
Do you think we can be friends?”

           
The
little girl’s face lit up like she had gotten the best present in the
world.
 
Her mother, though, was aghast.
 
“Lady Branwyen we could never.”

           
Raven’s
head cocked to one side quizzically.
 
Sarah almost laughed at the comical expression.
 
“We can’t be friends?”

           
“Of
course we can.
 
We’re just not used to… I
mean…”
 
Beverly sputtered before blurting out, “Thank
you Raven.”

           
“You
really made that little girl’s day.”
 
Sarah said as they sat at a small table outside a café Raven swore had
the best sandwiches in the country.
 
A
cool breeze carrying the promise of rain frolicked through the winding streets,
a welcome relief from the humidity.
 
Dark
clouds loomed on the distant horizon but for now the sun shone brightly on
Valentria.

Raven agreed, “I’m
glad Alma and
her mom moved here.
 
The Irsays run Savannah and they’re a bad
crop all the way around.
 
They don’t
serve their people; they expect the people to serve them.
 
You saw how Beverly reacted to me.
 
She was terrified.”

Sarah admitted it
seemed she was.
 

Raven
continued.
 
“There’s a rumor that the
current Duke of Savannah, George, had his father murdered because he couldn’t
wait to rule.
 
Of course, by all accounts
his dad wasn’t exactly a shining example of humanity either so it’s pretty much
a wash.”

“Are the Irsays
really that bad?”
 
Sarah asked after they
had given the waiter their order.
 
She’d
never really been interested in politics in Vestavia so had no idea what things
were like in other parts of the country.

           
Raven
stirred her tea idly.
 
“They take in the
people’s taxes and spend it on themselves.
 
The duchy is falling apart around them but as long as they get to wear
nice jewelry and throw fancy parties they couldn’t care less about
commoners.”
 
She made quotation marks in
the air around the last word.

           
“But
I thought all members of the aristocracy lived off taxes.”
 
Like you, Sarah didn’t add but Raven
understood.

           
“Valentria
has the lowest taxes of any duchy in the country and we, my family, spend maybe
one percent of them a year and all of that goes to the castle’s upkeep and the
servants there.
 
The rest we put back
into Valentria.
 
There are of course the
taxes that go to Florence,
but those are the same in every duchy.”

           
This
revelation managed to surprise Sarah.
 
“You
mean all the money you have doesn’t come from taxes?”

           
Raven
shook her head, “Nope.
 
We own a rather
large business with various holdings.
 
Sis is a VP, Liz is our corporate lawyer and Mandy is studying business
administration which means she’ll follow Sis and eventually they’ll run the
whole thing together.”

           
“Why
aren’t you in the company?”
 
Sarah was
still flabbergasted.
 
She knew the
Chandlish family had a lot of money but this was something she didn’t expect.

           
“I
am.
 
More to the point, we could
be.”
 
Raven hinted as the waiter sat
their sandwiches down in front of them.
 
She had been waiting for the right moment to broach this subject with
Sarah.

The sandwich was
in fact the best Sarah had ever eaten, with toasted bread and a hint of nutmeg
in the grilled chicken.
 
She swallowed the
first bite and told Raven to explain.

“Elspeth asked me
the other night if our store could a subsidiary of Chandlish Rose Corporation.
 
In effect they would pay us to develop new
magic and new weapons.”

           
Sarah
was felt herself slowly getting angrier by the second.
 
Why wasn’t she asked about this?
 
Were all of her ideas going to be stolen by a
huge company?
 
She spat the questions out
at Raven, ignoring the looks of passerby’s.

           
“Calm
down Lil’bit.”
 
Raven held up her hand
but Sarah was having none of it.
 
From
the very moment they met she had been lied to and she wasn’t going to take it
anymore and said so, slamming her hand down on the table emphatically.
 
The glass top wobbled and threatened to come
crashing down.

           
“Nothing
is being stolen.
 
If you want to sell
your ideas to the company you’re more than welcome to.
 
If not, then you keep them.”

           
“What
are you talking about Branwyen?”
 
Sarah
nearly shouted, “If they’re paying us to make new weapons we have to give them
to ‘em.”

           
Raven
smiled and Sarah almost threw water in her face but stopped at the last
instant.

           
“You
don’t understand.”
 
Raven was careful not
to use Sarah’s new nickname.
 
“If you
come up with, say a new alloy, it is ours to use.
 
Chandlish Rose will pay you a very hefty
price in addition to a tiny fraction of each product sold that’s crafted using
your method.
 
If you don’t want them to
have it, we don’t have to sell it to them.
 
We just can’t sell it to another company without first giving CR the
right to match that price.”

           
Thanks
to the dollar signs floating around in her head, Sarah was beginning to calm
down a little.
 
“I don’t have to sell my
ideas to your family?”
 
She asked, still
a little suspicious.

           
“We
haven’t signed a contract yet so you don’t have to sell anything to
anybody.”
 
Raven took another bite of her
sandwich while Sarah stared at hers, working through this new information.

           
“If
I don’t sign the contract then what?”

           
“We’re
on our own, sink or swim.
 
The shop and
furniture are ours to keep thanks to my trust fund.”

Sarah sipped her
tea to have a moment and collect her thoughts then asked what the benefits of
signing were.
    

           
Raven
leaned forward and propped her elbows on the table.
 
“Everything will be cheaper for us.
 
Shipping, for one, since we’d pay the rates
CR does, and the company ships literally thousands of tons of goods a year so
we get the best rates.
 
Cost of materials
is another.
 
Advertising will be easier
since the Chandlish name is already well known.
 
Plus we’d have my family’s backing in any legal matters.”