“Yeah.” Daemonar looked happier. “Yeah, she should know how to find some things on her own.” Then he looked uneasy. “Maybe I shouldn’t do that. She doesn’t have . . .”
Lucivar called in his wallet and removed some gold marks. “Daemon will figure out what to do for her, but this is a welcome gift from us so that she has some spending money. Any clothes she buys tomorrow? Tell the merchants to send the bills to the Hall. I will pay them if Daemon doesn’t.”
Daemonar fanned the marks. “A hundred gold marks?”
Lucivar vanished the wallet and studied his son. “Are you thinking too much or too little?”
“I don’t think Grizande has ever seen this much money.”
“Then ask Holt to exchange some of those marks for smaller denominations, along with some silver marks.” Lucivar probed the rooms in the square and confirmed they were still alone. “For Daemon, money meant freedom. Limited freedom, but even with all the restrictions put on him as a pleasure slave, he had a skill for making money, investing money, and making more. His clothes were outrageously expensive—and still are—but they were the sheath for his sharpest weapons. He would bribe Queens to look the other way when he disappeared for an evening and stayed at one of those flats he kept in order to have a little solitude, some needed peace. Money was a weapon, and he knew how to use it.
“I had nothing. A half-breed bastard in one of the Eyrien hunting camps, wearing discarded clothes and using cast-off weapons. Still fought everyone into the ground, but if I coveted anything when I was young, it was weapons that would fit my hand, that would hold an edge for a killing field. After I was sent away from Askavi because they couldn’t control me, even with a Ring of Obedience, I met this silky, court-trained, arrogant bastard named Daemon Sadi. I thought he was a prancing cock until I watched him crush a bitch with nothing but a seduction spell and words.
“We were with our respective owners, who were guests of that court. One morning he crossed my path, took my arm, and we walked out the doors. ‘No one will ask questions,’ he said. ‘No one will dare.’ I didn’t know then and I still don’t know what he did to make sure no one asked, but he was right about that. We went into the town, to the smithy. The blacksmith’s brother made weapons. Daemon said he wanted to buy the best blades available. What would I recommend?” Lucivar snorted softly. “Recommend? I thought he was taunting me, and I wanted to beat him bloody, but I reviewed the weapons available and chose the best. He paid for them—and then gave them to me.
“They were the first good weapons I’d ever owned. I still have one of the knives. I don’t use it anymore. It’s not the same quality as the weapons I have now, but I still have it.” Lucivar smiled. “His Queen left the next morning, and he was gone with her. But I found a leather wallet tucked in with my clothes. Ten thousand gold marks and an unsigned note that said, ‘Money is also a weapon. Use it well.’ I bought my first good Eyrien war blade with some of that money.”
Lucivar ran a hand over Daemonar’s hair. “Money as weapon. Money as freedom. Money as some measure of safety. I think Daemon’s mistake with Saetien was wanting her to have the reassurance that she had the means to reach safety and not understanding that she didn’t need it. She was already safe. Maybe too safe. Grizande needs to believe she is safe here, but she also needs to have the means to take care of herself and Jaalan.”
“Maybe I should take her to the weapons maker in Halaway and help her buy a good knife,” Daemonar said quietly.
“Yeah,” Lucivar replied. “Maybe you should.”
TWENTY-THREE
Daemon loved the old house in Scelt because it had been Jaenelle Angelline’s home in a way no other residence had been. When she reached her majority, Saetan had leased this house for her to give her a place of her own. The cabin in Ebon Rih had been another kind of retreat, but this had been Jaenelle’s personal residence in the village of Maghre on the Isle of Scelt. Morghann and Khardeen had been her close friends and neighbors, as well as the rulers of the island and village, respectively. Jaenelle had created the school for Scelties here, and for a few days each season she could pretend she was just another witch living in a charming village surrounded by beautiful countryside that seemed made for a long gallop on a strong horse.
Even when she no longer wore the Black and was no longer the Queen of Ebon Askavi, she was still a Queen. Still the Queen, as far as the Shadow Realm was concerned. Daemon had tried to give her that extraordinary ordinary life she’d always wanted, as much for himself as for her, and while the people around them, out of affection, pretended he and Jaenelle were just aristos coming to spend a few days in their country house, they weren’t just anything—and everyone knew it.
He continued to renew the long-term lease on the house to give Morghann and Khary’s descendants income from the property instead of purchasing the place outright. In return, Lord Kieran and his parents kept an eye on the place and helped solve any problems the small staff who managed the house might have when he was absent.
He’d sent a message to his housekeeper to let her know he’d be arriving for business but wouldn’t be staying overnight. The staff would be disappointed; they didn’t get much of a chance to fuss over him. Not the way the servants at the Hall or any of the other Dhemlan estates got to fuss. That was why, when he arrived at the house, he agreed that he was a fair way to being hungry and would appreciate a bit of a meal before taking care of the business that brought him to Maghre that day. He’d learned the hard way that if he admitted to being hungry, he couldn’t possibly eat enough of what was put before him to satisfy cook and housekeeper—and considering the way someone who wore the Black burned through food, that was saying something.
Having invited his housekeeper to join him and catch him up on the happenings in the village (“Well now, Prince, I’ll just have a cup of tea to keep you company. And maybe one of those scones.”), Daemon ate, praised the food, and made appropriate sounds in response to the village’s doings.
Was Prince Liath doing well, then? That was grand, finding him work to keep him busy. Everyone was fond of Prince Liath.
Yes, everyone was fond of the Green-Jeweled Sceltie Warlord Prince now that he lived on the other side of the Realm and herded someone else.
Daemon fiddled with the handle of his coffee cup, an uncharacteristic sign of nerves that wouldn’t go unnoticed, although the observation wouldn’t travel beyond the house.
“My daughter will be coming to Scelt for a while,” he said carefully. “I’m not sure if it will be a few days or a few weeks.”
“On her own?” the housekeeper asked.
“Yes.”
“Staying here? On her own?”
He heard the disapproval. “No. She’ll be staying with Lord Kieran and his family.”
“Ah. Well, Lady Eileen runs her family with a firm hand. No doubt that will be true for any guests as well.”
He was counting on that.
He rose, intending to head out for his first meeting. But his housekeeper fussed with the dishes and didn’t look at him—and he felt a tickle of warning that the meal had been more than it seemed.
“There’s been talk that you’re training youngsters at the Hall,” she said.
“We’ve always trained youngsters at the Hall,” he countered.
“But you’ve got aristos there now, Queens and such, in the same way your father looked after the Dark Court when the Ladies were young. Or so the stories go.”