“For the opening of court, as it happens,” Ashford said. “But there’s much to be done before then. With your permission, my lord, I will take my leave of your holding in the morning.”
“What? More Antean nobles to dangle Lechan’s generosity before?” Dawson said.
The ambassador’s smile thinned, but it did not vanish.
“As you say, Lord Kalliam,” Ashford said.
The holding at Osterling Fells had been Dawson’s home when he was only a boy, and his memories of it were of snow and cold. The dim patterns he’d divined as a child put autumn’s feasts of pumpkin sweets and brandy-soaked cherries in Camnipol, snow and ice in Osterling Fells. Almost into adulthood, he had thought of the seasons as residing in different cities. Summer lived in the dark-cobbled streets and high walls of Camnipol. The ice and snow of winter belonged to the narrow valley with its thin river. Granted, the conceit had become more poetic in nature. He wasn’t an innocent to think no snow fell on the bridges that spanned the Division or that the summer heat wouldn’t bring hunting dogs to torpor in his father’s kennels. But the idea had the deep resonance—the rightness—of a thing known in youth and never entirely disbelieved.
The holding had stood in its place at the base of a sloping hill, unchanged for centuries. Before Antea rose as a kingdom, the walls of Osterling Fells had been there. Dragon’s jade, eternal and unyielding, wove through the stone and defied wind and weather. The hard granite had eroded in places, and in some even been replaced, but the jade would never fail.
The room he used for his private study was the same that his father had used, and his grandfather, and so on back and back and back. Before this same window, his father had explained that the walls of the holding were like the fabric of the kingdom, that the noble houses were the jade. Without their constancy, even the most glorious structure would eventually fall into ruin.
When his father died, Dawson had taken the holding as his own, raised his own boys within it, and told the same tale over their winter cribs. This land, these walls, are ours, and only the king can take them from us. Anyone else who tries, dies in the attempt. But if the king requires it, then it is his for the asking. That is what loyalty means.
His boys had taken the lesson. Barriath, his eldest, served now under Lord Skestinin in the fleet. Vicarian, second of his sons, and unlikely to inherit, had entered the priesthood. His only daughter, Elisia, had married Lord Annerin’s eldest. Only Jorey still remained with the household, and that only until he was called again to service. He had ridden out once, under Lord Ternigan, fought well, and came back a hero and the friend of a hero, even if it was an unreliable one like Geder Palliako.
Dawson found Jorey in a perch at the top of the South Tower. Dawson had spent time there himself as a boy, sticking his head out the thin window and looking down until the height made him dizzy. From here, the lands of Osterling Fells spread out like a map. Two of the villages were clearly visible, and the lake. The trees were all the pale green of new leaf, the shadows all thick with the last of the snow. The cold, soft breeze ruffled Jorey’s hair like the feathers of a crow. Two letters—one still sealed with wax the resonant blue of House Skestinin—were forgotten in the young man’s hands.
“Letter from your brother? What news from the north?” Dawson asked, and Jorey started, pushing the letters behind him like a kitchen boy caught with sticky lips and a jar of honey. Jorey’s cheeks flushed as red as if he’d been slapped.
“He’s fine, Father. He says they didn’t lose any ships to the freeze, so they’re expecting to be on the water again. They might already be.”
“That’s as it should be,” Dawson said. “I met with that idiot from Asterilhold.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve agreed to speak with Simeon about meeting with him. He was also asking whether you would speak with Palliako. He seems to think that soft words from Geder would keep the wheels of vengeance from rolling too far.”
Jorey nodded. When his eyes were cast down, he looked like his mother. Clara had the same shape of jaw, the same quiet. The boy was lucky to have that from her.
“Did you say that I would?”
“I said I’d speak to you about it,” Dawson said. “You aren’t bound to anything.”
“Thank you. I’ll think on it.”
Dawson leaned against the wall. A sparrow darted in through the window, whirled twice through the narrow space, and vanished again in a panic of wind and dust.
“Are you against the thought of war or of speaking to the new Baron Ebbingbaugh?” Dawson asked.
“I don’t want to go off to war unless we have to,” Jorey said. The first time he’d faced going on campaign, he’d been equal parts anxiety and joy. The experience of it had pressed both out of him. “But if we have to, we will. It’s only that Geder… I don’t know.”
For a moment, Dawson saw the ghosts of Vanai reflected in his son’s face. The city that Geder Palliako had burned. It was easy to forget that Palliako had that potential for slaughter in him. But perhaps it was hard for Jorey.
“I understand,” Dawson said. “Do what you think best. I trust your judgment.”
For some reason Dawson couldn’t fathom, the blush in Jorey’s cheeks returned and deepened. His boy coughed and wouldn’t meet his eye.
“Barriath sent me a letter,” Jorey said. “I mean another letter. Inside his. It’s from Lord Skestinin. It’s a formal introduction to Sabiha. His daughter.”
The pause that followed seemed to have some weight. Jorey’s dread was as palpable as it was strange.
“I see,” Dawson said. “Introduction to his daughter, you say? Hmm. Well, if you don’t care to make the connection, we could say the letter went astray…”
“I had asked, sir. I asked for the letter.”
“Ah,” Dawson said. “Well. Then good you have it, yes?”
Jorey looked up. His eyes betrayed his surprise.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose it is. Sir.”
They stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Dawson nodded, turned, and walked back down the narrow spiral stair, his head almost against the stone of the steps above him, with the uncomfortable sense of having given his blessing to something.
Clara, of course, understood at once.
He’d no sooner mentioned Lord Skestinin’s daughter than Clara’s eyebrows tried to rise up to meet her hairline.
“Oh good God,” she said. “Sabiha Skestinin? Who would have guessed that?”
“You know something about the girl?” Dawson asked.
Clara put down her needlework and drew the clay pipe from between her lips, tapping its stem gently against her knee. The window of their private room was open, and the smell of the lilacs mixed with the smoke of her tobacco.
“She’s a clever girl. Very pretty. Sweet-tempered, so far as I can tell, but you know how it is with these girls. They know more ways to lie than a banker. And, more to the point, she’s fertile.”
Dawson’s confusion resolved and he sat on the edge of his bed. Clara sighed.
“She had her boy two years ago by no one in particular,” Clara said. “He’s being raised by one of the family retainers in Estinport. Everyone’s been very good about pretending it doesn’t… he doesn’t exist, but of course it’s common knowledge. I imagine Lord Skestinin’s quite pleased to write letters of introduction for anyone with a drop of noble blood, and lucky for the chance.”
“No,” Dawson said. “Absolutely not. I won’t have my boy wearing secondhand clothes.”
“She isn’t a coat, dear.”
“You know what I mean,” Dawson said, rising to his feet. He should have known. He should have guessed by the shame in Jorey’s body that the girl was a slut. And now Dawson had said that getting the letter was a good thing. “I’ll find him now and put a stop to this.”