Helene Belion
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Lady Helene Belion lives in Darachshire and plays with reasonable frequency in the Baronies of Lyondemere and Angels, and the Shire of Isles. She cooks reasonably well, engages in pyrography for fun and profit, sews as little as possible but more than she'd really like, and occasionally experiments with cordial making with various degrees of success.
Persona
As a horsetrader, Helene travels a great deal, though her business interests are based in Cadiz, Spain. This is also where the main business offices of her Household, as well as her personal residence, are located. She takes a great deal of pride in her household, a merchant Compagnia that goes by the name of Calix Inundans.
Backstory
Helene was raised mostly by her father on a small estate in the English countryside, near the coast. Her mother passed away when she was six, having caught influenza. Many others on the estate died at the same time, of the same disease, including the housekeeper and Helene’s governess. Since the staff was terribly shorthanded after the plague had run it’s course, and no one appropriate was available to care for a small child, Helene’s father took to minding her himself. He claimed she reminded him of his dead wife, and that it comforted him. By the time a more appropriate caregiver could be found, Helene’s presence on his business dealings was a pleasant habit that he was loathe to change. Being known to be little eccentric already, he simply did not. Instead he hired tutors, who educated his young daughter when it was convenient. In yet another of his eccentricities, he had his daughter educated much like a young boy; she received lessons in mathematics and accounting, reading, several languages, self defense, and horsemanship. She received some smattering of calligraphy, needlework, and etiquette from an elderly spinster aunt who lived in a small cottage on her father’s estate. The kitchen staff, remarkably amused to have a bored child in the kitchen several afternoons a week, taught her to cook and bake. Helene continued to accompany her father on business, gradually becoming acquainted with its workings and the people her father dealt with.
The Belion estate was not a particularly productive one. The best soil was used for several small orchards and one vineyard, which all grew a small amount of very good fruit. The remaining rocky soil produced enough grain to make bread for the manor and for the horses’ feed, as well as just enough hay to meet the needs of the livestock. Most of the family’s wealth came from Lord Belion’s healthy business in buying, selling, breeding, training, and trading horses. It was through the horse trade that Helene made her acquaintance with the gypsies. Though most of the local landowners considered the gypsies lazy and dirty at best, and thieving vermin at worst, their horses were too good for Lord Belion to ignore. Between these horses, the horses obtained through occasional trips to distant, exotic locations, and a careful and selective breeding program, Lord Belion made himself a name for providing particularly fine horseflesh.
When Helene was a nearly old enough to think about marriage, he father fell ill. Though he recovered, it was not to his full strength, so Helene took over some of his business dealings. As her father’s business associates were accustomed to her presence and assumed she was working under her father’s instructions, this served no particular problem. As her father fell ill again and again, recovering less fully each time, Helene took on more and more of the business responsibilities until, after a few years, she was running the business entirely by herself in her father’s name.
Eventually Helene realized that her father’s health had deteriorated so severely that he was unlikely to recover again. Concerned that she would not be permitted to inherit her father’s estate, and that everything would go to a distant branch of the family leaving her destitute, she began quietly making arrangements. When her father passed away several months later, she promptly signed the paperwork to sell the estate, packed her personal effects, her mother’s jewelry, and her father’s books into a small covered wagon. She departed with the wagon and a string of several dozen horses in the company of the gypsy caravan her father most often did business with. She took an amazing amount of wealth with her, having liquidated all of her father’s assets in the preceding months. The monies from the sale of the estate were forwarded to the address of a friend encountered in business, namely one Lady Mora Ottavia Spadera. Helene will not admit it- she will smile and change the subject if you ask- but considering that her father raised her as though he expected her to take over his business, he may very well have instructed her to do as she did.
Helene finally ended up in Cadiz, Spain, where she used some small amount of the money from the sale of her father’s estate and assets to buy a small property where she bases her horse business. Gypsy caravans can sometimes be seen camping in the woods on the edge of the property, but they never cause any trouble. Helene’s steward is suspiciously dark of skin, but he keeps her horses in good condition, and she protects him to the best of her considerable abilities. She has a large cottage or a small manor house on the property, and several small cottages for her staff. She is a member of the Compagnia Calix Inundans, which buys quite a number of horses for its business ventures. The trade routes and caravans of the Compagnia provide her with safe company in which to travel, so as to obtain new horses for her breeding program from the same distant, exotic locations her father used to frequent. When Helene is in Cadiz (rather than on a business trip looking for horses that fit her exacting standards), and not engaged in local business dealings, she can often be found at the Inn of the Crimson Spade or the business residence of the Compagnia Calix Inundans.
