Lara by Bertrice Small

Tournament Gate which would, when all had reentered the City, be closed again for another three years. Lara told Gaius Prospero that she could easily share Susanna’s litter with her baby brother. “I do not need to be paraded into the Garden District before all. Some of the knights might one day come to my Pleasure House, and it could prove embarrassing for them, and for my father.”
    He nodded understanding. “You will want to spend your last few hours with your family alone. I quite understand, my beauty.”
    Susanna was quiet as the litter made its way through the gates, and toward the Garden District. Mikhail had fallen asleep in Lara’s lap, the slight rocking motion of the litter lulling him into slumber. “This is all a dream, but I hope I never wake up,” Susanna finally said. “I cannot believe that I am not returning to our hovel, but to a beautiful house with a real garden. My sisters will be so envious of me. How they mocked me when I prepared to wed your father, scorning him because he was a humble mercenary. Now they shall see! He has risen high, and I with him.”
    Lara laughed. “Why, stepmother,” she said, “I have never seen this side of you!”
    Susanna grinned back at the girl. “They were very mean, Lara. They never saw what a good man your father was. The matchmaker gave me the choice of three men, but I wanted only your father. They said a mercenary would amount to naught.”
    “Do you love my father?” Lara wondered aloud.
    “I do!” her stepmother said enthusiastically.
    “I’m glad,” the girl replied. “It makes it easier for me to go away.”
    Susanna sighed. “‘Thank you’ seems like two small words in light of what you have done for your father. For Mikhail and for me. I do not know if you will be permitted to come home once you have been purchased.” She stopped, and then her eyes filled with tears. “It is not fair,” she sobbed.
    “Susanna, you are older than I, and should know that life is often unfair,” Lara gently chided her stepmother. “You were wise to suggest I be sold. We will all have a much better life because of it, especially Mikhail. He will never remember the Quarter, or the hovel in which he was born. My father’s soft heart will be the undoing of him but that you are there for him. I am glad for it!”
    “I know I am five years older than you,” Susanna said. “But sometimes you seem so much older. Even than your father.”
    Lara laughed. “I expect that is my faerie blood,” she said. “I am told they are different from…from…well, you know what I mean, Susanna. Being both faerie and human I have no idea really where I belong. I always thought I belonged in the human world, but now with all this fuss being made over what is called my faerie beauty, I do not know at all where I belong.”
    The litter came to a halt and was set down. Immediately the curtains were opened up, and Nels helped Susanna from the vehicle.
    “Welcome home, mistress,” he said. “Ove! Take the little master from the girl.”
    “The girl,” Susanna said sharply, “is Sir John’s daughter and will be treated with courtesy, Nels. Help my stepdaughter from the litter.”
    Grudgingly, the slave man obeyed his new mistress. The girl was known to be half faerie, and would be shortly entering a Pleasure House. Faeries were not to be tolerated. He was glad the girl would be gone on the morrow. He was startled when Lara thanked him for his service, and wondered if she had put a spell on him.
    Inside her new house Susanna began giving orders. Her husband would want a bath when he arrived home. They were to begin their preparations immediately. Mikhail was to be bathed at once, brought to her for feeding and then put to bed. Dinner, a simple meal she had discussed with Yera the day before, was to be served in the first hour of the twilight. Wine would be served as well, for they would be celebrating.
    The new knight arrived just before sunset. He was slightly drunk,