“No, not this year,” Jorey said. “We talked about it, Sabiha and I. I think it would probably help my standing at court more to winter with her and her father.”
“Ah,” Clara said nodding. “So how far along is she, and when were you going to tell me?”
Jorey had the good sense to blush.
“Almost two months, and I was just working up to it,” he said. “If you’d given me until we actually reached the garden, we were going to tell you together.”
“That’s sensible,” Clara said. “I’ll pretend not to know a thing.”
“Mother, I love you, but you are the worst woman in the world at keeping a secret.”
“I suppose I am,” Clara said as they reached the doorway. “I’ll do my best.”
The winter garden made her miss her own solarium. The glass roof and walls had been designed to let in light and hold what little warmth the sun could offer. In the depths of winter, it was as unlivable as any room, but it gave a week or two in the winter and another in the early spring when she could have the illusion of sitting comfortably in the outdoors. It struck her for the first time how decadent it was to have an entire room made for such a small span of time. And still, she missed it.
Sabiha sat under a bench beneath a willow. The wall crowded the tree, but the effect was still lovely. For all her tarnished reputation, Sabiha Skestinin really had been a fortunate match for Jorey. When she stood, there was no mistaking her condition. Second children always did show earlier. Clara looked at the girl’s belly, then at her eyes, and then they were both grinning and weeping. Clara folded the girl into her arms and they stood there for a long moment while Jorey shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“Well done, my dear,” Clara said. “Oh, well done.”
“Thank you,” Sabiha said.
Clara drew her back down to the bench, but kept her hand. Jorey used a wide block of granite as a stool. He looked proud and content. The darkness wasn’t gone from his eyes, but it was lessened. Clara couldn’t help recalling Dawson strutting through the house when she’d first been sure that she was pregnant with Barriath. The memory held no sting.
“So Jorey tells me you’re going north for the winter,” Clara said. “I assume this is why.”
“Father will insist anyway,” Sabiha said. “This way he won’t have to come down and pry us away from the hunt.”
“Would he really do that? How wonderful of him.”
“So I’m afraid we’re going to come back next spring with considerably less court gossip,” Jorey said.
“I’m sure there will be more than enough of that. It never does seem to be in short supply.”
“I know,” Jorey said. “But I know you enjoy it. But we were wondering if you’d want to come with us? Estinport is, as I understand, a single block of ice and salt from now until sometime after the opening of the season, but I’m sure Lady Skestinin would find rooms for all of us. And you could …”
She could. She could be nearer to the sources of power. She could hear what there was to hear concerning the navy and its plans for the coming year. All of it the kind of thing that might be usefully put in an anonymous letter to Carse. And all she would have to leave was everything.
“That’s terribly kind of you, dear,” she said. “But it isn’t time.”
Geder
The mysterious letters found Geder halfway to the estate of Lord Annerin, four sheets, three of them written in different hands. The night after they’d come, Lord Regent Palliako had given the hunt to Prince Aster, taken his closest advisors—Flor, Emming, Daskellin, Mecilli, and Minister Basrahip—in the fastest carriages in the caravan, and sped for the south without word or explanation. It would be the scandal of the season. He’d shown no one what the letters said, he’d explained himself to no one, though for different reasons. He didn’t care. He didn’t care what they said about him.
Except that wasn’t true. It wasn’t the hard beds that kept him awake at night. It wasn’t the loss of comforts or the soft music he’d been able to command in the Kingspire. What kept Geder in motion was embarrassment that he had ever trusted these high and mighty lords, and rage. Well, soon enough, the truth would be revealed. Soon enough.
They left before dawn and rode until after nightfall. At each wayhouse and taproom, they traded their blown teams for fresh and began again as soon as the horses were in harness. Lord Emming complained, but Geder had pointed out that the sword-and-bows they’d brought were all his own personal guard, and if Lord Emming preferred not to travel, they could raise a cairn over him with relative ease. There hadn’t been any more complaints after that.