Princess Briseis,

The children and I have settled nicely into the Hittite Empire. I bought a home in their capital city in the merchant district. I haven't yet been able to restart my work but I'm confident it will come in time. Thanks to your generous send off I can afford to be idle for many years.

Have no fear of that. Lavda would never forgive me if I set aside the future of our children so easily. I miss Lavda more each day, but her loss strangely has gotten easier to live with. I wake to find the grief, while still there, doesn't hinder me from accomplishing my tasks. It feels wrong but at the same time I'm grateful not to be drowning. These paradoxical feelings cause me much confusion but I try not to think on it.

My offer to have you come live with us still stands. I know you're a married woman now, and have many duties and obligations I'm sure, but with the war still on Troad soil I worry for you.

I know you are I have never been great friends, but when I think on the plan you intend to execute I can't help growing fearful.

Please consider my offer again for Lavda's sake if nothing else. She wouldn't want you to go through with it.

Andiron

Briseis sighed and rubbed her temples. This was the first communication she'd had from her late friend's husband. She was glad he was doing well but didn't appreciate his opinion on her plan, though she acknowledged it came from a place of true concern on his part.

Briseis sat alone in her quarters going over the list of correspondence she needed to write. Most of it was offers of marriage on behalf of the royal children. Briseis wasn't sure how attractive her offers would be to foreign kingdoms but she hoped at least some of them would accept.

The three women of her council Briseis had charged with the task brought the list of potential candidates not long ago. Umna brooded in the corner during the councils. Even though Briseis allowed her time with Asteroin it hadn't improved her attitude or his. The former she didn't care about, but Asteroin she desired to be at least cordial with.

Briseis knew the boy would likely never love or see her as his true mother. Briseis could deal with that. She hoped his mood would soften as he got older if for no other reason than to make her life easier.

Briseis grabbed the letter that sat on the desk, furthest away from the rest of her papers. It was yet another letter from Briseus. In the weeks since she received his first letter she gotten at least one more every seven days from the man she'd once thought of as her father. Occasionally she got two letters in the span of seven days. Briseis never opened them. She put them in a box and as it grew heavier so did Briseis' heart.

She put it out of her mind and opened her next bit of correspondence. It was also from her home kingdom but from someone Briseis looked on much more kindly, Leander. The man she'd left in charge of her finances had been busy. His spider silk weaving business was booming in production, though he still hadn't yet made his extraordinarily durable fabric widely available.

Briseis remembered the council meeting he'd first demonstrated the powerful protection it offered. Leander stood before Briseus with nothing but a small square of silk cloth to protect him and insisted Briseus attempt to stab him. She and the rest of the council wondered if the man had taken leave of his senses. Leander proved all their doubts wrong when the cloth stopped the blade from making contact with his chest. The cloth hadn't even ripped, though it was effective with close up weaponry, the silk wasn't as effective with projectile weapons because of the force behind them.

The man had given her one slip of the cloth to wear and several additional pieces that she had yet to sew together. Since coming to Lyrnessus she'd had no need of that kind of protection. The looks she'd been getting from some of the wives made her wonder if perhaps she should begin to wear it. The remaining slips of fabric she could have sewn to fit Kegarta, or at least the vital parts of her body. The remaining cloth wasn't enough to make a slip, especially if Kegarta continued to grow it wouldn't do her much good to have something made to measure now with the rarity of the silk.

Leander reported the ongoing progress of the wall around Pedasus. It seemed since her going away the work had become faster. Not because the workers were getting sloppy but they seemed moved with extraordinary purpose, and without tiring. It was superhuman what they'd accomplished, the wall was nearly finished and orders were pouring into the builders' guild from the nobles for renovations of their homes or completely new estates.

Since Briseis' chickens provided the lions' share of the eggs needed for the new stone formula, her coffer in Pedasus was amassing quite a sum. She was glad to hear it but troubled about where this power behind the builders' work had come from. True, Athena had promised Pedasus would remain untouched in the war, but Briseis took that to mean she would keep Greeks away from the city entirely. If that was the case then the superhuman feat the workers of Pedasus had done wouldn't be necessary. The workers hadn't been capable of this amount of work until she left Pedasus and it hadn't started immediately upon her departure. What could it mean?

Briseis took up her quill and began to write very careful instructions to Leander. Though the men and women who'd been brought to Lyrnessuss against their will helped Hedas with their powers, most were clearly not happy about being here. Tirpoli, the woman who'd been separated from her daughter, and a few others had tried to leave the city. Nobody stopped them, Briseis and Hedas didn't feel right about keeping them, but they only stepped one foot outside the city and then instantly reappeared in the grove.

Hedas had once told her that there was a curse on her homeland. Anyone born there or who chose to marry into a family there, was not permitted to leave the city unless granted permission from Demeter. It seemed that curse was on them for Lyrnessuss as well, which would be a problem in the event they were invaded by the Greeks. They wouldn't be able to flee with the others.

Though it was unlikely the Greeks could take them as prisoners with the curse upon them so their safety, at least the women's, was likely secure. The men would most likely be killed by the invaders. Even if the men weren't killed, they would be doomed alongside the women to live in an abandoned city, far from their loved ones and homes.

Briseis and Hedas held sacrifices to Demeter nightly for the last week in hopes of summoning the goddess again. They were going to ask the curse be lifted so those who wished to leave could, and that when the time came, those who wanted to stay and help weren't doomed to live out their days in an abandoned ruin. Demeter never appeared. Whether their pleas weren't reaching the goddess or she was ignoring them wasn't clear.

Briseis was doing her best to lessen the cares of those who were unhappy about this sudden change.  Briseis was writing Leander to send a portion of her gold monthly to Caleous. This would cover the expenses the families of those who'd been snatched away could no longer meet without them. While it had gone some way to soothing the anger of the kidnapped people the peace of mind would only last so long.

In the case of Tripoli, Briseis hoped to ask Demeter to bring the woman's daughter to the city as well. The woman was near hysteria and after learning her story it made sense. Tripoli's husband married her against the wishes of his family. Their families were rival competitors in one of the industries Caleous was most hurting for given the citizens couldn't leave, cattle and other grazing animals like sheep and goats.

Caleous was prosperous, that couldn't be denied. Hedas had told her many things about her homeland and the struggles it faced with the curse upon them. While there was always plenty of crops with so many of the citizens being descended from Demeter, and likewise plenty of fish being settled deep in lake country, living off grain, other crops, and fish alone wasn't always a satisfying diet.

      Cattle and the other grazing animals had become delicacies to the people there. Especially since they had only very limited land to keep the animals and graze them. The numbers and health of the animals was always of great concern. If they broke free of the enclosures, the shepherds and herders may not be able to go after the animals if they left the confines of the city. If disease ran rampant through the stock it was hard to separate those who were healthy from the infected.

     The meat most sought after was cattle, but the animals were the hardest to keep in significant number because of their large size. For that reason they were very expensive. A lord might spend two entire month's wages of a laborer to buy even one bull to garnish a feast. Sheep and goats were more abundant and therefore less expensive, but still the price was double or even triple what one would pay anywhere else in the Troad for such a creature.

      Tripoli's family raised the finest quality cattle in the city and charged for it accordingly. Her husband also came from a livestock enriched house but raised primarily sheep and goats, though they did have some cattle they weren't the best quality. From an outside perspective it would seem the best course of action would have been for the houses to unite, but they long had a feud over the use of grazing land. It stretched back to the founding of the city when one family accused the other of moving boundary markers to enlarge their property and diminish the other. They fought, which resulted in the deaths of both primary heirs to each family. Who was responsible for moving the stones changed depending on which family was telling the story.

      Tripoli and her husband met when they were children. Cardiff, Tripoli's husband, came across the girl trying to convince a bull to come back over the line which marked the boundaries of the city. She couldn't step over it for she would immediately reappear inside the boundaries of the city, but the animal was not so unfortunate. Cardiff helped her coax the bull back over the line and they'd maintained a secret friendship since that day.

       As the children grew their friendship morphed into something deeper. They eventually recognized the connection as love and had wed despite the protests of Cardiff's family. They resented the betrayal and refused to speak to him for years. Then one day there was an earthquake which broke the enclosure of the bullpen. The frightened animals stampeded and Cardiff hadn't been able to get out of the way in time.

With her husband's death and Tripoli's family having all died of old age, there was nobody who could take care of the girl besides Cardiff's family. Briseis completely understood where the woman was coming from. But there was only so much she could do if Demeter refused to answer their summons. If her child tried to leave the city whether on her own accord or with some assistance Briseis sent there, the girl would just reappear in the city somewhere.

The best Briseis could do would be to send someone she trusted to watch over the girl with enough coin to purchase a residence and see to her needs. The only person who really fell into that category was Kegarta and Briseis would not send her away. There was Arachne but Briseis wanted Arachne with her as well.  Hearing the woman cry again and again over how her daughter was likely being treated was unbearable.

     In the end, Briseis sent one of her newly hired nursemaids and a small escort of guards with letters of introduction and ten bags brimming with gold to Caleous. Four of her owls also went to keep an eye on things. It would be three months before they reached the city even on horseback, but seeing the effort Briseis had gone too somewhat soothed Tripoli along with the knowledge she soon would have news of her daughter.

🦉

Briseis was surprised how quickly she got back the first response from a suitor of the royal children. The child in question was called Hestia, after the goddess of the hearth, and she was the daughter of Constan, Mynes' twentieth wife. The girl was only four, but that was old enough to be engaged when if the marriage would be put on hold for over a decade.

Luckily, Constan was one of the wives in support of the decision to send offers to forgein kingdoms. But the separation of mother and girl was hard to watch. The girl didn't understand why she had to go and her mother couldn't. The tears and pleading brown eyes of the child were almost enough to make Briseis change her mind, almost. In the end, the girl with two owls to watch over her and send messages from mother to child, which would be read and written by the nursemaid for now, was the only comfort Briseis could give.