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"That one has the mark of a leader," Sariell whispered to her daughter, eyes indicating a young man, who, Salael had to admit, was handsome enough, "and good-looking besides. He'd make a good Lord for you."
Salael sighed and stabbed her fork into her meat. "I wish you would stop checking out men for me, mother. I'm quite capable of chosing one myself."
"You have yet to prove that, my dear," the Lady Holder scoffed, her tone obviously holding back a chuckle that infuriated Salael. "Why, if I didn't know any better, I might think you... weren't interested in men."
Salael was ready to kill now. Her own Mother doubted her now, all because she wouldn't bed down with some man only interested in the rank she brought. "I most certainly am," Salael replied in the most even tone she could manage, a trick her father had taught her for dealing with people who made her want to strangle them. "Just not the ones who aren't really interested in me."
All Salael recieved for this declaration was a pity-filled look from her mother. Faranth, she wished she could slap her. "Oh dearest, of course they're interested in you. You're a clever, attractive young woman-
"Who promises the rank of Lord Holder to whoever she marries," Salael finished. "You know sharding well they're not after me. They're after rank, and I refuse to be the way they get it."
"I'm sure there are some who feel that way, but most of them," Sariell tried again, only to be cut off once again by her daughter.
"Wherry-teeth," she hissed. "You know it, I know it, Father knows it, so stop denying it! They all know Father must have a male heir, and since he refuses to have any but his child as the next Holder, the only hope they have is marrying me. And I won't allow that."
Sariell raised a curious eyebrow. "Won't allow it? Lal, you don't have a choice. You've got to marry, and what does it matter their motivations? It'll turn into love eventually. You'll get used to it."
"I'm only seventeen!" Salael protested in the loudest voice she dared to use at the crowded high table in the even more crowded dining hall. "I won't throw away the rest of my life to some rank-hungry man!"
"I was a turn older when I married your father," Sariell reminded her. "And I didn't have to choose an Heir to the leadership of my hold."
It was hopeless, Salael decided. Her mother would never get off her case until she selected a husband who her father approved of the be the next Lord Holder. "I see."
Sariell looked as though a pile of marks had landed in her lap. "Then you'll choose soon?"
Salael curved her mouth into a wry smile. "No." Without another word, Salael rose from her seat and left the dining hall. She could feel the eyes of every person in the dining hall follow her, knowing that there would be plenty for the holders to talk about regarding their Lady Heir.
Noone dared to chance Salael's quietly seething anger as she strode down the halls towards her quarters. How dare they. How dare they use her as nothing but a breeding mare to keep the family line strong? That was what it was about, really. Keeping the Blood as pure as possible. And all she needed to do was find an appropriate stallion.
Well, Salael decided, she woudln't have any man only interested in the title of Lord Holder. But what other kind of man was there? There certainly weren't any like that in her Hold.
When she arrived at her quarters Salael's trusted drudge, actually more of a good friend, was making her bed. Salael and Ujari were the same age, and Salael planned to do something about changing Ujari's status once she was Lady Holder. "Jar, you know you don't have to do that for me," Salael complained. "I'm just going to mess it up again and I can make it myself."
Ujari just smiled, shrugged, and fluffed the next pillow. "It's my duty, my lady. Besides, I'd not sit for a month if your quarters weren't spotless when the steward inspects them."
Salael groaned. "Stop calling me that! I'm not 'my lady' to anyone yet, and I never will be to you. How many turns have we been friends?"
Again, Ujari just shrugged. "If you insist, m- Salael," she replied, winking as she caught herself before using Salael's title. "It's just habit."
Salael, reluctant to spoil Ujari's work, sat down in her desk chair. "Jar, what am I going to do?" she asked bleakly. "I've got to choose a husband, but I don't want someone in love with the rank, not with me."
Ujari smiled gently. "You will have to choose sometime. Why not give them a chance, Salael? There's bound to be at least one of them who likes you for you just a little."
"But I don't want just a little! I want to be happy like every other couple on Pern!" Salael exclaimed, realizing how foolish she sounded but beliveing every word just the same.
"No one, not even who you spend the rest of your life with, can give or take your happiness," Ujari told her. "If you don't allow yourself to be happy, you won't be. If you accept your place and make the best of it, you will be."
Not for the first time in the turns she'd known Ujari, Salael marveled at how a drudge, supposed to be dull-witted and not suited to anything but hard labor, had more sense than her great Lord Holder of a father. "I suppose you're right."
"I know I'm right," Ujari said in the strongest, proudest voice Salael had ever heard a drudge use. "But will you accept it? As I have?"
Salael's anger flared again. What could a drudge, even Ujari, ever know anything about Salael's dilemma? If you accept your place and make the best of it... Ujari's words rang in her head. Of course. Drudges knew everything about it. They were forced into their place, forced to watch others, who, but for luck, could have been in their boots, grow powerful. "I wish I could," Salael admitted. "But I can't. It's not my place."
The look Ujari gave her reminded Salael of her mother. "Of course it's your place. You are the only child of the Lord and Lady Holder. You are Lady Heir. Whoever you marry becomes Lord Heir and eventually Lord Holder. That is your place."
"If I can decide my happiness, I can decide my place!" Salael declared. "I need to be alone, Ujari. Please leave."
Ujari left without protest, understanding, though no words had been spoken, that her friend needed time to allow her reality to settle in.
As Salael went over to her bed and lay back on the newly-fluffed pillows, accepting her place in life was the last thing on her mind. In fact, she was plotting how do to exactly the opposite...
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