Story: The Millwoman Who Sang Gold

The Millwoman Who Sang Gold is a story of the romance between a Pandesi caravanner and a Thyran woman.

Synopsis
The Millwoman who Sang Gold is set in and around Thyran city of Nesesa, a walled settlement nestled on the sea-side cliffs of the plateau. At the opening of the story, a Pandesi caravan is working their way up the cliffs from a port at the bottom. A young boy named Tamen is among the caravanners.

A curious young man, Tamen has never set foot on the continent before, having spent the first 16 years of his life on the flotilla. Following the deaths of his family in a shipwreck during an early winter storm, he decides to leave the flotilla and travel with one of the caravans for a time. The caravan plans to settle for a few years in Nesesa, and their first night ashore, they circle on the barren fields of a kind farmer and his daughter, a girl of Tamen’s age who is charged with maintaining the farm’s windmill.

Captivated with this first foreign peer he has ever met, and a girl no less, Tamen attempts to befriend her and learn all he can about her. Her name is Ari, and she has a special gift for listening to the wind which allows her to work and maintain the windmill. She has a beautiful singing voice though she always looks very dirty and grubby so no one gives her much thought. Her father, however, thinks very highly of her and is very proud of her abilities, some times in excess. Ari explains to Tamen the Thyran gift of persuasive speech, and he, in turn, tells her a little about Pandesi magic, though he refuses to teach her any spells or words, much to her frustration, as it is taboo among the Pandesi to discuss the ins-and-outs of their magic with outsiders.

Once the Pandesi head into the city, Tamen still tries to return to see Ari as often as he can. The two become good friends, and, as the years pass, he slowly discovers that he has feelings for her. He begins leaving small gifts of finely spun gold which he creates from the straw the Pandesi acquire for their pack animals. Realizing the compatibilities of her speech skills and his name-magic, he also teaches her his true name, Kaelonar, which, if she whispers it correctly, she can use to send him a telepathic message.

When Ari’s father discovers the presents, he believes them to be Ari’s doing, as he is very proud of all his daughter does, and begins boasting around town that his daughter can sing straw into gold. Eventually the local lord and his son hear of this feat and come to the village to inquire after this girl with her gift. Seeing the proof of the spun gold, they take Ari back to the city, where they clean her up and begin to treat her like a princess.

After a few weeks, the lord decides that, if her skills are genuine, he will marry her to his son once she can sing enough gold for her dowry, as her father had only set aside a small dowry that is of little value to a lord. They decide it is, therefore, time to put her skills to the test and take her to a room full of a third of the straw necessary to create her dowry. They then lock her in. Panicking because she is sure to die if she can’t produce the necessary gold, she whispers Tamen’s name and summons him to her.

Magicking himself into the room, he learns of the test and promises to help if Ari will sing to him all night. She agrees, and he completes the test for her before disappearing before dawn. The lord and his son are amazed at her success and grant her a reprieve from further tests as the night of singing left her visibly drained and her voice temporarily gone. They give her six months off, in which they have her trained in the ways of court. Six months later, they put the test to her again, and, calling on Tamen, she is able to get another third of her dowry spun and earn herself another six month reprieve in which she is further groomed for her marriage.

However, a week before the lord’s final trial, Tamen’s caravan finally decides to leave Nesesa and return to the flotilla after four years ashore, and Tamen is required by the caravan leader to leave with them due to violence being done against them by locals for having stayed in Nesesa so long. Realizing that his love will likely be killed if she cannot complete this final trial, he teaches her the secret of his straw-to-gold spell, which she can use, though it is magic, because it relies heavily on her race’s ability to verbally bend things to their will; in this case, she speaks the straw into the shape she desires. At their meeting where he teaches her this secret, Tamen confesses his love to her. Ari responds that she feels the same way, and the two spend one final night together before he has to leave.

Ari passes her test and marries the lord’s son the very next day. Now known as the Lady Ariella, and lacking Tamen’s presence and the reminders it regularly presented of her past, the words and Thyran gift of her husband slowly turn her to forget about the love she once had for Tamen and to fall deeply in love with her husband instead. Shortly after her marriage, Ari discovered she was pregnant and assumed that the child was her husband’s.

Eight months after the wedding, Tamen returns to Nesesa with another caravan. When he learns that the Lady Ariella is pregnant, it doesn’t take him more than a brief divination spell to discern that the child is, in fact, his rather than the young lord’s. He makes an appearance in court as a Pandesi ambassador, protesting the treatment of Pandesi caravans that come to Nesesa, as the caravans on his first trip had been attacked several times during their stay. Expecting fair treatment from the Lady, as an old friend to both himself and to the Pandesi, Tamen is stunned when she treats him harshly, calling him and the other Pandesi dirty, homeless foreigners. Shocked and hurt, Tamen leaves court.

He makes a second appearance a few days later after having tried futilely several times to achieve a private audience with the Lady, like they used to share. Furious with his treatment, he returns this time to confront the Lady and court about the lies they’ve told. He calls Ariella out for lying to the court about her gift and lying to her husband about the true parentage of his child. Receiving the same treatment and disregard, Tamen is, this time, thrown from the court.

Pushing back in for a third appearance the next day, Tamen demands the child from Ariella once it is born, as it is a Pandesi and must be raised by those who understand the magic it will inherit. For further disrespecting the Lady, Tamen is locked up in the dungeons and sentenced to be beheaded for his slander.

Ariella comes to visit him that night in the dungeons, and he again demands the child. When she refuses, he asks her to say his name. If she can look into his eyes and say his true name without a hint of emotion or remorse, he will know that there is nothing between them anymore and will relinquish all claim to the child and will accept the sentence of execution readily. Ariella, now so completely brainwashed by her husband and the other nobles, says his name to his face just as he asks. Tamen catches the telepathic message of Ariella musing in her mind that she wishes he would just disappear, and, once the spell has been said, Tamen does just that and simply vanishes, leaving behind the empty cell.