Two Months Later
There was something about the salty but bitter taste in the air when the ship met the harbor. Bells rang and voices shouted as cargo was hauled off board, with workers of all ages—children, adults, and the elderly—rushing on and off the port.
The Carolingian Empire capital was busy and overlooking them all was the large clock, painted in white and yellow. Its glass face with three different focuses of time: the year put in Roman numerals, the month written in Latin, and the day written in Carolingian symbols. The time of day was written with the shapes of the sun and moon that shifted when the sun fell on its face.
No one remembered who built the clocktower but they knew the only people who could take care of such a building were the Lockwoods. Never titled as nobility as for being a long-standing servant class family but never quite laborers as their skills laid beyond the average laborer. They were simply the clockwork family whose skills were lent out for simplifying ones house with whimsical contraptions.
Most people had forgotten about the Lockwoods but not Wuhayb. His own family, at one point in history, were also servant class. The only thing that broke them into nobility were their boot-licking and the brothel that gave them infamy with the royal family of the past.
His hands wrapped around the waists of Johannes and Dorian, who were led to their cargo to wait as the dockman shouted out their names with their manifest. He shoved the note in his pocket and sighed with relief that he was finally home again. With all their things finally tucked beside them, a familiar carriage hobbled up the road.
He could tell Johannes was exhausted because he made no comment on the resident fashion of bright embroidery, fluid sleeves, and headcoverings woven with yellow or blue silk. There was something different about the fashion that he missed before. Perhaps in the fall of the plague, there was little cheer to be had and now that things were for all intents and purposes better they could express it.
As day turned to night, the people still left in the city stared at the carriage in surprise and whispers. Children giggled and pointed from a distance. He knew these kinds of carriages weren't too common but the military had their ways and so did people of nobility.
"Corderos!" the horseman said as he stood in his seat. "Here for the Corderos!"
He waved them over, pushing through the thinning but still busy crowd, when the horseman finally caught sight of his hands above the flood. A wagon rolled up and their cargo and cases were stuffed away while they were pushed into the carriage holding a familiar occupant.
"You'll be staying at the Romeo Mansion," Sergio Romeo said as he squinted through a rather large glass pebble, reading his papers. "There's much to be done as we prepare the brothel for entertainment and use. No worries. Pastor Cordero has his own worries to deal with. And your debt payments, due to an old favor from an old friend, are delayed. But, this means partial payments will go to me and your debt will still need to be paid. Do you have an issue with that?"
The older brown-blonde omega wore a layered gown with cream colored and blue fabric interlaid with sharp geometric lining along its edges. With wavy plaited hair to his back, he looked nothing but a typical omega of their empire.
"No, not at all."
"Good, and Pastor Cordero's pressing matters means he has more serious things to deal with than a debt, anyhow. He won't even know about the contract between us."
"It can't be too far off from his regular dealings," Wuhayb said as he drew a blanket across the other two omegas. "Spreading his ill will and evil intentions."
Sergio snorted. "It's more like he dabbled with the wrong people at the wrong time and started his own little civil unrest in his first village of converts."
"Village?" Wuhayb paused before overlooking the road and the grassland between the city and their hometown. "I thought he was working at the church."
"The church hasn't embraced some of his behavior but allowed him the great task of conversion in a village of people from the no man's land," Sergio sighed. "But none of that's your problem."
Wuhayb said grimly, "What is my problem then?"
The older man's eyes perused the omegas at his side and added, "We have some proper clothing for your omegas. The Empire isn't what it used to be and although punishment for flagrant undress or censorship is limited to spaces of royalty and upper nobility, it doesn't mean they shouldn't adhere to it. Understood?"
Those familiar sounds of horses clopping on cobblestone brought back memories and as the carriage arrived at the tall redstone sort of building where its entrance was tucked away inside the archway, where the housing split from the servant quarters, Sergio spoke to the horseman before the carriage door opened. There was already a horse in the shed.
"Ah, I haven't seen that horse in awhile," Sergio said pointedly before opening the carriage door to a flustered young servant about the age of fourteen years with brown-hair and square eyes. "Shea, what's the matter?"
"Mistress French is here," he said in a lowered voice. "Is young Master French here?"
Wuhayb knew Amina would find out about his arrival into the city but not this quickly. He turned to his still sleeping omegas and then to Sergio who merely waved his hand and said, "I'll get them situated. There's a few cloaks they can wear, before I send them in for dressing."
He nodded at the omega and swept out the carriage into the mansion. Larger than the typical Carolingian house with three floors and an extension built into the house for more guests or late business congregation. Wuhayb wasn't sure what a typical day in Sergio's life was but he could tell by the foods being pushed out the kitchen and servants spinning around that he was hosting an event now as of this moment.
In the kitchen, where he thought to avoid Amina, was the woman sitting there with some steaming tea and a few biscuits. Her thick brown hair was twisted up like a circlet with a green ribbon but the waves of hair fell over shoulders. And he noted that her pale complexion was clear. She didn't appear to be a scorned woman or frustrated in the least.
"Don't look at me like that," Amina sighed as she dusted her hands of biscuit crumbs with a table handkerchief. "This is the first day I've been able to leave the house since childbirth, and I just wanted a break from the noise. Probably not the best place but could be worse. Keep the door open, why don't you. The last thing we need is servants thinking we're on a tryst."
Servants ran in and out of the kitchens, twisting around them and the table awkwardly settled in the middle of the room, but they didn't pay them any mind as he slid into sitting beside Amina. He then felt the exhaustion ink out from his bones like a leaky faucet as he settled into the chair. The woman continued to take a bite of the biscuits before dabbing her hands on the handkerchief.
"You don't seem--?"
"Upset that my husband found a mistress in a foreign country and refuses to return home to see his firstborn," Amina snapped and then tucked the biscuits under the napkin before lifting her tea for a few sips. "I don't need to act the betrayed spouse. His father can do all the work for me. Malika is furious. It's better off my father in law handles it than me anyhow. That being said, how was your trip?"
Wuhayb furrowed his brows and leaned over quietly as he said, "You're not curious?"
"Akhutenan says he's not an ambitious man, but," Amina added, "if that were so he wouldn't have agreed to this marriage with me in the first place. He's his grandfather's golden egg, the apple of his eye, and if he disappointed him in the way he feels his son has, well, I can't imagine Akhutenan's reaction to those words, much less his grandfather."
"You think he'll return on his own then."
"I know he will," Amina said. "My worry is more about the residence and the French home. Have you heard what my other father-in-law is thinking? He wants to broker a deal with buying some land from your cousin and have a smithy business built. He wants to be the blacksmith."
"A smithy for what?"
"It doesn't matter," Amina retorted. "What matters is that he's getting into the weapons business at all. If you knew anything about Akhutenan and his alpha father, you would know that he wasn't born without ambition but as soon as the crown heard that there may be a second generation of warriors--he had to cut them off at the knees. Akhutenan was needed in this era but was sent off into another empire to protect our borders, why? The King fears the power of our family. The Bermans and French together might as well put a target on our backs for the arrows to shoot at."
Wuhayb opened his mouth but snapped it shut.
Her gestures and mild demeanor spoke to him that she wasn't all aware of what had happened in Sonhrai.
Like her father's death.
"Have you heard--," Wuhayb listened to the shuffling of the kitchen still as most if not all the servants were outside the kitchen serving food, cleaning up, and assisting. He paused, "Have you heard about what's going on with our military in the desert?"
Amina adjusted her sleeves with her hands, straightening the silk dress and orienting the loose underlayer of the garment. Carolingian fashion consisted of tight sleeves, loose garments, and tunics with two or three silk layers, depending on the wearer's wealth. Their ancestors wore draping silks of crisscrossing fashion but the new era donned an organized look. There was a separation of the bodice to the rest of the dress and lacked the imagination of older fashion.
She gazed through the window at Sergio Romeo's guests brunching and sipping tea, with servants waiting at their whim. There was an austere figure to her in the lighting. Sharp. Angular. Even though Amina herself was the very appearance of a soft omega.
"My brother sent me an urgent missive about my father's death," she started. "I don't care to know who killed him or why. All I need to know is that my brother has solved the issue of an heir, and he's even gotten his little omega to bring back. I want to be angry, as my father would have, but my brother will have to carry the Berman family on his back on his own. It's not something I can force. Not as things are now. All I can do is support him and hope that this Julianna won't be a burden."
"I've met her," Wuhayb added, hopefully with confidence. "She was Sarai's confidante at one point. And Sarai used to have the best taste in people."
Amina laughed. "Sarai did! She used to be able to read people in seconds for advice, although it didn't seem to help her in the end."
There was a muddled silence then as if the weight of Sarai's death was a bigger barrier between them than that of her father's.
"I plan to reopen the--the lounge," Wuhayb said, while shifting his feet underneath the table, wringing his hands, even as Amina's sharp gaze fell on him. "I brought--two omegas to help me with that."
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Amina sighed and then walked away from the window. "It seems the person I've been waiting for has arrived. I'll have to finish this conversation with you at another time."
Wuhayb blinked. "Who?"
"Cecelia Gomez," Amina said pointedly and pinched her bridge. Her eyes veered toward a woman in purple and blue with a yellow coif hat covering most of her brunette-blonde hair--a few strands fell out through the fringe. "Her brother was recruited to join the troops in that desert, but his parents could not convince him. Only his sister is capable of words with enough sugar to make him go. I hope that when I request your help in the next few days that you'll be able to instead."
Her eyes were sharp and caged as if Wuhayb didn't have a choice. As if he owed her, and, in many ways, it does feel as though his lying deserved an apology. One. At least.
"I will," he promised.
Amina nodded and swept out the room to greet Cecelia out in the Romeo mansion's garden courtyard.
A servant greeted him from the side and said, "Master Cordero, Master Sergio has settled your omegas and your things. I will direct you to your living space, if you're available."
Wuhayb brushed a heavy hand against his face and sighed.
There was much work to be done.