“He heard about what you said to Rousel years ago when he said he was starved.”
“Famished is just as bad.” But I couldn’t stop smiling as we rose and followed, far more sedately.
Once in the dining room, we waited for Father, who finally entered and placed his hands on the back of his armed chair. He looked to me, standing to the right. “Since it is in celebration of your birthday, belated as it may be, you should offer the blessing.”
I nodded. “For the grace and warmth from above, for the bounty of the earth below. . . .”
“In peace and harmony,” came the reply.
“You still offer the artists’ blessing?” asked Culthyn. “You’re not an artist anymore.”
“Actually, I’m still painting. Besides, there isn’t an imagers’ blessing.” I poured Father’s wine, then Mother’s, then my own, before sitting and then handing the carafe to Khethila.
“You can’t paint, can you?” Culthyn looked surprised.
“I can paint. I just can’t get paid for it. I’m actually doing a portrait of one of the senior imagers. That’s when I have time.”
Kiesela carried in a platter with three fowl upon it. Each was halved, and the scent of orange and spices filled the air.
“Naranje duck,” Mother announced. “Rhenn’s favorite, with cumin-cream rice.”
I smiled.
“Worth a small fortune now, cumin is,” Father announced.
“Why?” asked Culthyn.
“It comes from Caenen, mostly,” Father explained as he served half a duck to Mother and then to himself. “They still smuggle it in, but it costs more, and all the spice merchants raise the price even when they have large stocks.”
“Couldn’t you get it from Remaya’s father?”
Mother glared at Culthyn. “One does not take advantage of relatives, nor ask for special favors that will cost them. It’s unfair to impose. Besides, it’s ill-mannered.”
Culthyn squirmed in his chair.
I took a bite of the duck. It was excellent, the orange and the bitters and the apple reduction all turning the meat succulent. The crispy skin was good, too.
“This would be perfect,” Mother offered, “if Rousel and Remaya were here, and . . .” She deliberately left her sentence unfinished.
“But I don’t,” I said, managing a smile, “and I won’t for a while, it’s likely.” I wasn’t about to mention Seliora, not yet, although I suspected it wouldn’t be long.
“He’s still young, yet, Maelyna.”
“Not for that long.” She glanced toward Khethila, but said nothing.
Khethila flushed.
“So . . . what did the Council do this week?” asked Father.
I couldn’t help laughing.
“It’s that amusing?”
“No, sir. It’s just that my duties keep me from knowing, in most cases, what the Council is doing. What I find amusing is that I spend most of the day within twenty yards of the Council chamber, and I don’t know much more than when I spent the entire day at the Collegium.” I’d also laughed at Father’s valiant, but transparent, effort to get the subject away from whom Khethila and I might marry and when. But I did appreciate the attempt.
“Just what is it that you do, dear?” asked Mother quickly. “I don’t believe you’ve ever said or written anything about it.”
“We escort petitioners to see councilors. We help make sure people don’t intrude upon the councilors. Sometimes we carry messages from the councilors to other councilors or to their aides, and we do other things that I can’t mention.”
“Are those scary and dangerous?” asked Culthyn.
I laughed. “Usually they’re boring. Once or twice they could have been dangerous.”
“Do you see factors petitioning the councilors?” asked Father. “Anyone I might know?”
“It’s possible. I don’t know everyone you know. Councilor Etyenn is a cloth factor. I didn’t encounter him, but some of the regular messengers were jesting about the fact that he spends as little time as possible in L’Excelsis.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Father replied. “He has the largest cloth warehouses in Solidar. It’s a wonder that he has any time to devote to the Council.”
“Do you know him?”
“We’ve met a few times, and we’ve provided some special wools to him on a few occasions. He was never early with payment, but never late, either.”
“What is he like personally?”
“He seemed pleasant enough, if a bit preoccupied. Who else have you seen?”
“More than a few spice and essence factors and traders, and a factor named Alhazyr . . .”
“Oh, him. He’s the one who wants to change the Council and put more traders on it-and even two public councilors. Next, he’ll be advocating women councilors.” Father snorted.
“That might not be a bad idea,” suggested Khethila. “They couldn’t manage things any worse.”
“Solidar hasn’t done badly under the Council,” Father replied. “Would you want to live in Jariola or Caenen? Women are serfs in one and slaves in the other.”
“Father . . .” Khethila paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately. “I agree with you that Solidar is a far better place to live than almost anywhere else. It was a better place to live than Caenen was even when we were ruled by a rex, but it’s better now with a Council, and a more widely representative Council would be even better than that.”
“More widely representative? I suppose you’d want that Madame D’Shendael making laws, then?” Father’s tone was more than merely ironic.
“Why not? She’s intelligent and a High Holder. She has been known to think, unlike most of them. But then, I suppose that’s a flaw for a woman. Not thinking, but letting it be known that we can think, like that poor Madame D’Saillyt. Her High Holder husband beat her and confined her for contradicting him in public, and did who knows what else to her, but when she shot the beast, she was condemned and executed.”
“Likely story,” Father snorted. “You don’t think she couldn’t have gone to the patrol?”
“No,” she couldn’t,” I interjected. “Not if it happened on his lands. The High Holders retain the right of absolute low justice on their own lands. He could beat her and confine her on the grounds that she assaulted him. She could only have avoided that if she had managed to flee his lands, and that might have been difficult if he kept confining her. Even so, she’d probably have lost everything, because he could cite her for desertion.”
“No honorable man would do that,” Father huffed.
“Chenkyr, dear,” Mother said sweetly, “few men are as honorable as you are.”
I managed to keep from breaking out in laughter at the way Mother had cornered Father.
In that moment, she stood. “Who would like the fresh peach cobbler and who would like the almond cake?”
“I’d like the cobbler, but with a small slice of the cake.” I offered the words with a grin.
“I will follow Rhenn’s example, with a slight modification, dear,” said Father. “I would prefer a small slice of each.”
“Me, too,” said Culthyn, “except could mine be bigger?”
Khethila shook her head. “Just a small slice of the cake.”
After that, I listened, saying as little as possible as Mother rhapsodized about their visit with Remaya and Rousel and how beautiful young Rheityr was and already how bright he seemed.
A little after eighth glass, I excused myself.
Mother had arranged for Charlsyn to take me back to the Bridge of Hopes. I did take the precaution of raising full shields on the walk from the coach to the quadrangle. As I walked, I couldn’t help but think about Madame D’Saillyt. Had she been the one I’d executed? Or had the woman who had died at my imaging been another woman condemned for something similar? The second possibility, I realized, was worse than the first.
