Orphanage of Ven’dara

Iwhere the three moons can be seen at once, stands the Orphanage of the Tri Moons.

It is not marked on most maps. You find it by the laundry lines - white sheets snapping in the mountain wind like prayer flags, and by the sound of children reading aloud in the evenings.

Lady Katherine is the Matron.

She is not old, though the children call her Mother Katherine and the hill folk call her My Lady. She came from lowland nobility ten years ago, after the river wars, with a deed to a ruined monastery and twelve orphans from the border towns. Now there are sixty-one.

She wears grey wool, not silk. She keeps the ledger herself, in a tight, slanting hand. Every child learns letters, numbers, and how to mend a seam. The rule on the wall, painted by Katherine herself, reads:

We are not forgotten. We are kept.

Tonight the Tri Moons are aligned - Asta white, Cira amber, and little Renn red as a coal. The children have set out bowls of milk on the sills, as is custom, for luck.

That is when the bell at the lower gate rings.

The rider is alone, which is strange. The Ubar of Ven'dara never travels alone.

He comes up the steep path on a black kaiila, dust-covered, his helmet tied to his saddle. He is a big man, bearded, in his war leathers. Ostrossi of Ven'dara - lord of the lowland city that controls the pass

Lady Katherine meets him in the courtyard, without curtsying. She has a kitchen knife in her apron pocket. The older boys stand behind her.

"I was told you had been raided," Marus says. His voice is rough from the road.

"We were," Katherine says. "Three days ago. Men with your city's colors on their shields."

Marus dismounts. He reaches into his saddlebag and drops a heavy purse onto the well-stone. It clinks. Then a second one. Then a scroll sealed with blue wax.

"They were not my men. They were deserters from the northern company. We hanged two. The third told us where they had been."

He looks past her, at the children in the doorway, wide-eyed.

"I levy a tax on the villages below for grain. I did not know that the grain from here - your tithe - was taken from the mouths of children to pay it."

Lady Katherine does not pick up the purses.

"And the tax is lifted from this hill. From now on, the Orphanage of the Tri Moons is under the direct protection of the Chair of Ven'dara. Any man who steals from you steals from me."

He kneels then, surprisingly graceful for his size, so he is eye level with the smallest girl, Mira, who is holding Katherine's skirts.

"Is it true you leave milk for the moons, little one?"

Mira nods, solemn.

"Does it work?"

"Only if you believe, Ubar," she whispers.

Ostossi smiles. "Then I shall believe."

Lady Katherine finally relents. She tells Joren to take the purses to the pantry. She breaks the seal on the scroll herself. It is a charter, written in a strong hand: land, water rights, and a pardon for all past tithes unpaid.

"You rode alone to bring this?" she asks.

"If I had brought my guard, your children would have been afraid," he says. "And I wanted to see if the stories were true."

"What stories?"

"That a lady of the lowlands built a fortress not for war, but for children, and that under three moons it cannot be taken."

Above them, the Tri Moons stand in a perfect line, bathing the courtyard in pale, amber, and red light.

Lady Katherine looks at the Ubar of Ven'dara, dusty and tired, and for the first time in three days, she allows herself to breathe.

"Will you stay for supper, Ubar? We have stew. And there is always enough."

"I will," he says.

And in the Orphanage of the Tri Moons, the doors are barred for the night, the bowls of milk gleam on the sills, and sixty-one children eat with a king at their table.