Ski the Hellers by Elisabeth Waters

Author:Elisabeth Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Darkover, laran, Free Amazons, ESP
Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust
Published: 2020-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

A Capella

After living with MZB as she struggled her way through writing Heirs of Hammerfell (between multiple strokes), I really got to know the characters. When it came time to write that year’s story, they were still with me, so I took a few of them and wrote a spin-off. Obviously, I was doing this with her permission; I wouldn’t have dreamed of using them without it.

~o0o~

Domna Floria, newly returned to court to spend a time among Queen Antonella’s ladies-in-waiting, walked slowly down the hall to the music room. Although the child she carried was not due for several months yet, she no longer felt inclined to skip down the polished marble corridor as she had as a child. Her father, Edric Elhalyn, had been Keeper of Thendara Tower as long as she could remember, so she had grown up in Thendara and spent a good deal of time at court.

Floria had worked at Thendara Tower as well, in the Keeper Renata’s circle, until her marriage to Conn of Hammerfell and her subsequent pregnancy made her unable to do the work of a leronis. She planned to return when her children were old enough not to need her, for leroni were always needed for Tower work, but now she was enjoying the chance to spend time quietly with her husband—or rather she had been doing so until King Aidan had summoned her to court.

Queen Antonella was recovering from a stroke she had suffered the previous year, and the King doubtless thought that the presence of Floria, who had always been a favorite of the Queen’s, would cheer her. Conn, busy on the estates the King had recently granted him, had parted with his wife reluctantly, but he too was fond of King Aidan and Queen Antonella and wished them well.

And it isn’t as if I had no friends here, Floria told herself, trying to cheer up. She seemed to feel blue all too frequently these days. The midwife said this feeling was normal and would go away after the baby’s birth. My mother-in-law and my father are both still working in the Tower here, my brothers are in town frequently, and Gavin Delleray is right here at court.

At the thought of Gavin, she smiled. Gavin was unique. As the son of Queen Antonella’s only sister, he doubtless would have been a favorite at court even had he been unremarkable, but nobody ever failed to notice Gavin. He was a talented composer, with a beautiful bass voice, and he had a flair for fashionable dress. But it was his custom of coloring his hair purple which people generally observed first. He and Conn’s twin brother Alastair had been good friends since childhood, and they were all related, so he had formed one of Floria’s circle of childhood playmates.

The best thing about being at court now, Floria thought, is that I’ll be able to hear the cantata he’s written to celebrate Queen Antonella’s recovery. Floria loved music and thought quite highly of

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