“I doubt Tover Banlish poses a risk any longer. Did you hear the news? It arrived yesterday morning. He has been disinherited in favor of his younger sister.”
Wen was pleased. “Excellent! Though I suppose this might make him an even greater risk than before. Now he will be nothing unless he marries a title.”
“A man like that is nothing
with
a title, either,” Jasper said.
Wen considered. “I don’t know anything about how the marlords arrange their affairs,” she said. “But does Karryn’s mother think about planning a marriage for her?”
“Oh, Serephette started brooding over potential alliances while Karryn was still in the cradle. But Rayson’s ambition threw all that out the window. There are some Houses now that wouldn’t mate with Fortunalt for all the gold in Gillengaria. And—in case you hadn’t noticed—Karryn’s a headstrong girl. She says that Amalie married for love and she will as well. It doesn’t matter how often we remind her that Cammon is Ariane Rappengrass’s son—a bastard, maybe, but noble enough to placate the Twelve Houses! She won’t hear of a political liaison unless she cares for the man in question.”
“I have to say my sympathies are with Karryn,” Wen said. “But surely there are some noble young men who are handsome and young? I don’t know which marlords have sons and which ones don’t—”
Jasper did, of course. She wasn’t surprised. “There are the two Gisseltess boys, but even if Karryn desperately loved one of
them
, no one would allow them to marry,” he said. “Another alliance between Fortunalt and Gisseltess? Out of the question! The same is true for Storian and Tilt, although Gregory Tilton, at least, did the crown some favors during the war. Ariane has no unmarried sons and her grandsons are too young to consider. Malcolm Danalustrous has no boys. Kiernan Brassenthwaite has several, but I’ll be damned if I let him sew up all four corners of Gillengaria. He has one brother in Gisseltess already and another in Danalustrous, and his sister sitting in Ghosenhall advising the queen. So Karryn must look outside of Brassenthwaite for a groom. But she is only sixteen, after all. There is plenty of time to find her a husband.”
“Will you stay?” Wen asked. “After Karryn is married?”
He looked undecided. “I agreed to watch over her until she turned twenty-one—seven years, and it sounded like a lifetime two years ago! But I have become attached to Karryn and invested in the House. I will find it hard to leave unless I am convinced she no longer needs me. I suppose it all depends.”
“And if you did leave? What would you do? Go back to your own house?”
He nodded. “For a time, at least. I have thought about going to live near my daughter so that we could work on a book together, but who knows what her life might hold in five years?” He shrugged and then surprised her by turning the conversation. “What about you? When you leave us, where will you go?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never followed much of a plan. I might head east, though. I’ve seen very little of Gisseltess or Coravann, and I’ve never crossed the Lireth Mountains. Maybe I’ll try that next.”
“Oh, the men of the Lirrens wouldn’t have any idea what to make of you! They prefer their women sweet and submissive.”
Wen thought of Justin’s wife, Ellynor. To look at her, you would think she exactly fit that description, for she was quiet and mild. But she had practically fought the gods to save Justin’s life, and she had used her strange dark magic to aid the royal soldiers in the war. Wen hated her, of course, because Justin loved her, but she had to admit to a certain grudging admiration as well.
“I think I would manage just fine in the Lirrens,” she said. “I seem to do all right wherever I go.”
FOR
the next three mornings, Karryn made a point of traipsing down to the training yard to watch her soldiers work out. Wen was pleased, of course, though the serramarra’s visits tended to distract the guards more than she liked, and Davey was concentrating so much on Karryn instead of his opponent that he sprained his wrist fighting off a blow he really should have been able to deflect. Wen didn’t tell Karryn this, she just splinted Davey’s arm, lectured him sternly, and set him to doing small tasks around the barracks that could be accomplished by a one-handed man.
The fourth morning, Karryn didn’t come down, but she’d already warned Wen that she was expecting company. Wen and two of the younger guards were on duty in the house when the Coverroe carriage arrived and Lindy went running upstairs with some kind of news for Karryn.
Five minutes later both girls were back downstairs, Karryn tying on a light cloak. It was finally spring, but the weather could be capricious—warm one day and full of chill the next. Today was sunny but cool, at least so far.
“Willa, Lindy has invited me to ride with her to a house just outside the city,” Karryn said. “How quickly can you call together a guard?”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” Wen said.
“We’re only going to Mereton,” Lindy said. “Our old housekeeper lives there, and she’s sick, and my mother promised to send her a basket of food. And then she said it would be very nice of
me
to take the basket to her.”
“I don’t know where Mereton is,” Wen said, preserving her calm.
“Oh! It’s on the north road, just an hour outside of town. That’s where our old house is,” Lindy answered.
What did that mean, precisely? The house the Coverroes had owned before they spent all their money on the town mansion with the preposterous gold doors? “Even if Karryn’s only gone a couple of hours, she needs an escort,” Wen said.
She didn’t miss the look Lindy gave Karryn—a roll of her eyes and a shake of her blond hair. But she didn’t miss Karryn’s expression, either. A little smug, a little pleased. Karryn was starting to like having an entourage.
Less than twenty minutes later, they were sweeping out the main gate, two guards on horseback before the carriage, two behind, and Eggles sitting on the seat with the driver. Wen had chosen to ride in the rear because she felt it gave her a greater command of the field. She could scan the roads ahead to see if trouble approached; she could bend her attention behind her to listen for calamity racing up from behind.
Navigating the crowded streets of Forten City was tricky, as always, and she kept the guards in a tight formation around the carriage. But once they won through the northern border of the city, the road opened up and the travel became enjoyable. The sun climbed higher toward noon and brought a welcome warmth to the air; the countryside lay all around them, fields and forests competing to offer the most saturated shade of green. Wen looked about her with satisfaction. A prettier land than Tilt, that was for certain, and gentler by far than the territory around Ghosenhall. However short her length of service for Karryn, Wen reflected, it would have one benefit: It would erase for her that deep, instinctive hatred of the very word
Fortunalt
.
They arrived without incident in Mereton, which was a tiny village clumped along the side of the northern road. The Coverroes’ former housekeeper lived in a small cottage with a sagging fence and an untended garden. Lindy and Karryn were welcomed at the door by a small, frail woman whom Wen guessed to be the old servant herself.
It seemed ridiculous to follow Karryn into the little house, though at the same time it felt like a gross dereliction of duty not to do so. Wen compromised by having all the guards dismount and prowl the limited grounds, instantly within call if a cry was raised from inside. She herself made one circuit of the building to determine where she might most easily break in, if necessary, but a quick inspection led her to believe there would be no way to keep her
out.
The windows were loose, the back door flapped open, and the roof itself looked so thin Wen thought she could kick it in and jump down to the floor inside.
As it happened, none of these measures were necessary. After a visit of perhaps thirty minutes, the girls emerged from the front door, waving good-bye. Lindy paused to give the old woman a polite hug, and then both girls climbed into the coach.
They were only twenty yards down the road for the return trip when Lindy stuck her head out the side window and called to the coachman. “Turn around! Let’s go by Covey Park while we’re so close!”
The driver obligingly pulled to a halt and guided the horses in a circle, and they followed the road north for perhaps another mile, all the Fortunalt guards following. Wen would have missed the turnoff that he eventually took to the left, it was so overgrown with weeds and opportunistic shrubs. The horses picked their way carefully through the vegetation, which thickened to clusters of trees on either side of the drive.
When the woods finally opened up, they were in a small clearing that contained a stark, severe house, three stories high and constructed of powdery gray stone. Masses of old ivy covered the entire southern portion of the house, so thick that Wen couldn’t imagine any light made it through some of the lower windows. A flower garden ran the length of the front of the house, haphazardly blooming under what must be its own impulses and not the care of a devoted gardener. The entire front lawn was heavy with uncut grasses bending over with the weight of their seeds.
Wen couldn’t entirely blame Demaray Coverroe for wanting to move from Covey Park into Forten City, even though she showed such lamentable taste in decorating her town home.
As soon as the coach came to a halt before the front porch, the girls were scrambling through the door. Wen was out of the saddle so fast that her gelding stamped his feet and tossed his head in surprise. She was on the porch before them, Moss and Eggles only a few paces behind the girls.
Lindy was surprised enough to address Wen directly. “What, are you going to come in with us? There’s no one here, I assure you. Two servants and maybe a few ghosts.” She laughed.
“An abandoned house like this could attract any number of thieves and squatters,” Wen said. “You can go in alone if you like, but Karryn doesn’t set foot inside unless some of us are with her.”
“By the Pale Lady’s silver eye,” Lindy breathed, and gave Karryn a sideways look. “She’s worse than another
mother
.”
Karryn’s face showed both embarrassment and a touch of pleasure. “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said breezily. “It makes me feel important to be so looked after.”
“It would make me feel suffocated,” Lindy said.
Their arrival must have been noticed by someone because just at that moment, the front door swung open to reveal a woman who wasn’t much older than Wen herself. Small, too, a l ittles latternly,w earinga much-mended dress that would have benefited from being much-cleaned as well. Her hair was dark and piled rather haphazardly on her head, and her expression was suspicious. But she recognized Lindy, for her face cleared immediately, and she dropped a slight curtsey.
“My lady didn’t let me know she was coming to the house today,” she said, sounding a little aggrieved. “There’s nothing to serve you, if you were thinking of staying for a meal. Just some stewed rabbit and some dried apples.”
“No, no, we’re just here to look around,” Lindy said. “I wanted to show the serramarra the old house. She says she’s never seen it.”
“It’s a bit dusty,” the housekeeper said, standing back from the door so they could file in. Wen allowed Lindy and Karryn to go first, but she was right behind them, and Moss and Eggles were on her heels. The servant looked even more doubtful.
“All of you? Tramping through? I hope you don’t have mud on your shoes.”
“I’m sure we don’t. Not very much, anyway,” Lindy said. She spread her arms to indicate the lower level. “This is the house,” she said.
The first story was smallish, with a somewhat narrow stairway taking up the entire right wall. On the left, a paneled hallway opened to a series of rooms, and the girls peered through the doors one by one. Wen had been right; very little light penetrated the curtain of ivy on the southern side of the building. These rooms—a parlor, she guessed, a study, and a cramped library—were dark enough to seem spooky. None of them boasted much furniture, and the library offered no books at all, just a wall full of empty shelves and one lonely wingback chair.