A Mother’s Night Gift
A Ragoru Holiday Romance
S.J. Sanders
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Author’s Night
Other Works by S.J. Sanders
About the Author
©2020 by Samantha Sanders
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission granted in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences only.
Editor: LY Publishing
Cover Art: Sam Griffin
Created with Vellum
A Mother’s Night Gift originally appeared as a 15k short story in the holiday anthology Stars, Snow and Mistletoe in Dec 2019
Chapter 1
A woman, petite in stature and adorned in somber garments, walked through the market clutching a gray shawl around her. Head bowed beneath the shawl to focus on the cobbled road beneath her feet, Betani brushed a hand down her charcoal skirt, straightening the hem as she bustled down the road despite the thick layer of ice and slush everywhere. She was careful of every place she stepped. It was her first winter with a decent wool skirt, and she didn’t want to soil it with the dirty slush covering the road. Granted, gray wasn’t a particularly cheerful color, but it suited her fine and would be durable, and that mattered more than the brightly colored frippery now allowed by the Citadel Council.
Aside from the material being cheaper and thus allowing her to use more than she might have otherwise had access to, Betani knew that wearing that color, combined with her size, worked entirely in her favor. She was easily overlooked and dismissed, and that meant she was practically invisible to those who oversaw the neighborhoods. Avoiding their attention was in her best interest.
Even now, she scurried at a rapid pace, keeping to the shadows as she huddled over the package that she clutched to her breast with excitement. She betrayed little of her feelings, however, not wishing to attract attention as she picked her way down the street, navigating the crowd with the ease of a beggar and pickpocket when the occasion called for it. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but desperate times often called for desperate measures.
Betani was just thankful that it was no longer necessary. Not that things were perfect by any means.
Although much had improved in the Citadel, the dissolution of the Thieves Guild had both positive and negative consequences that had immediate effects. Unsurprisingly, although the Thieves Guild had been part of the fight against the tyrannical Order of the Huntsmen, it hadn’t been entirely comprised of the most honorable individuals, or those with noble intentions. While many of the ranking members of the Thieves Guild turned their talents to public works and improving the Citadel, some from the common masses, upon the dissolving of the guild, continued to subvert new laws and target anyone they viewed as vulnerable for their attack. The worst among them were the brutal enforcers and hired muscle who, upon separation from the Guild, took on the title of warders and fought amongst each other in divvying up their territory between the neighborhoods.
Still, it was one drawback amid the many good things that had come from the removal of the Order of the Huntsmen from power months earlier. Despite the warders overtaking the neighborhoods, creating a certain element of risk while traveling through the streets, she was witnessing the Citadel bloom before her eyes. It was becoming a place filled with all manner of innovations after the rigid restraints were lifted that had governed their lives for so long.
For Betani and many others, it was a small price to pay for the social reforms that had come, not the least of which were the housing and basic welfare assistance provided to the homeless. It had miraculously delivered her and her children from the suffering that they lived through every day since her husband died.
Her step faltered at the upwelling of the painful memories. She couldn’t face it without some bitterness, and then the guilt would follow. That she had been proposed to by an elite personal guard had been considered a blessing by her friends and family. All the women in the farmlands had been smitten with him when he arrived as part of the personal guard for the tax collector visiting from the Citadel. Although he was only there for six weeks, and many girls vied for his attentions, he had settled his sights on Betani and he had proposed after a whirlwind courtship. Her stroke of luck wasn’t something that a daughter of a fieldworker could complain about, and they had been married at the height of summer, when everything had been in bloom on the farm.
Not that Betani had any delusions about her marriage. Her life with him hadn’t been some great love match. She had been encouraged to accept his offer despite the fact that she hadn’t been in love with him, and later she had been advised to ignore his affairs, which were the norm for men in the Citadel and encouraged by the Council to keep the population flourishing.
To have a husband when so many women ended up alone had been a blessing, even though Betani had tried not think of how many children her husband had fathered in the Citadel. Overall, it hadn’t been a bad marriage. It had often been comfortable, and they developed a strong friendship, despite his wandering. He wasn’t cruel like many of the guards and huntsmen were, nor was he thoughtless when it came to his amorous pursuits outside of their home, keeping all evidence of his activities away from her and their children. There were times when she could pretend that there had been no other women, but she refused to lie to herself. And, in any case, the children that he gave her filled her heart with joy. She had been content with her life.
A smirk pulled her at her lips as she skirted a puddle of slush. She had put so much faith in the strength of her marriage that she never expected to end up alone. She had been wholly unprepared when everything changed and was left completely alone and at the mercy of the Citadel.
She hadn’t been able to make enough as a seamstress to keep up with their expenses, especially not after her youngest had fallen ill and she’d sacrificed the rent on their humble dwelling for medicine. Her daughter had recovered, but the landlord had been a stern woman with little patience for those who came between her and her money. After the loss of their home, they passed each day begging for scraps, barely surviving on the streets, an easy target for the cruelties of the huntsmen and the lawless. She knew even then that her situation had not been unique. It had been hard to ignore the impoverished women all around them. They had been just another family among numerous women, many with children, without a home. That was their life, day after day, until the housing and basic welfare assistance reforms.