As Tal stood to face his father, Larajin bowed her head and began nervously setting the chess pieces back on the board. They kept falling over, and soon black and white were jumbled together.
Tal read his father's stern look instantly. 'Father, I can explain. Larajin was… We-'
'Tal, I want a word with you,' the elder master said. He used his quiet voice, the one he'd always employed when Larajin and Tal were just children, romping through the halls together and running headlong into dignitaries and guests.
Out of the corner of her eye, Larajin saw Tal's shoulders slump. Once again, the second son had proved a disappointment to his father. This time, he wasn't at fault, but he couldn't explain why-not if he wanted to keep Larajin's foray into the sewers a secret.
Larajin knew exactly how Tal felt. Mustering up her courage, she straightened and met the elder master's eye, but the look in it silenced her.
'Leave us, Larajin,' he said, 'It's time that my son and I had a little chat about self-control.'
Tal's expression was a mixture of frustration and fear. With one last look at him, Larajin hurried from the room.
'Tal and I didn't do anything wrong!' Larajin said sullenly. 'The master is lying if he says we did.'
As her father raised his hand, Larajin suddenly realized she'd gone too far. Defending herself was one thing, but calling the word of the elder master into question was quite another. She winced, but stood her ground, waiting for the sting of a slap against her cheek.
Her father stood with his open hand trembling, visibly fighting to restrain his anger. Thalit Wellrun was a gentle man who had never taken so much as a whip to the horses under his care during all of his four decades of service to the Uskevren household. Even though he and his wife quarreled frequently, Larajin had never seen her father strike her mother. Now, as he looked at Larajin, his eyes were blazing.
Thalit stared at his hand as if it had betrayed him, then ran a callused palm across his close-shaven scalp. He paced in frustration between the lines of linen, limping slightly on the leg that had been damaged years ago. The old injury only troubled him when the weather was changing for the worse. Outside the closed window, the evening air was still and cold, but Larajin could sense a storm of emotion coming.
They stood in the drying room among the crackling braziers and clotheslines pinned with tablecloths, where Larajin had been folding the clean linen. Thalit had come straight from the stables and was still dressed in his leather apron. His white cotton shirt with its gold and blue ribbons was smudged with dust and smelled of horses and hay. Unlike the household servants, his work ended early in the eventime, after the horses were fed. However, he often worked late into the night. Larajin did the same-except that her extra duties were a punishment from Mister Cale, performed under silent protest, and not by choice.
'You have to understand the consequences,' her father said in a strained voice. Not once did his eyes meet Larajin's. 'Affections between master and servant always turn out for the ill. Young master Talbot would be honor- bound to provide for the upkeep of any child resulting from such a union, but an illegitimate child would be an embarrassment to the Uskevren household. You could be unable to continue in your duties while you were bearing and nursing the infant and-'
'Is that what matters most to you?' Larajin interjected. 'The master's embarrassment? And my duty? What about the truth?'
Her father turned to her with a pained expression. 'Duty is sometimes more important than truth,' he said gruffly. 'Duty keeps households together-and families. If it wasn't for my duty to your mother, you-' He bit off the rest, as if he had said too much.
'You care more about your horses than you do about mother,' Larajin muttered. 'Or me.'
She hadn't meant for her father to hear the remark. She'd half turned to unpin a sheet from the line, but now her father wrenched it aside.
'I care for you,' he said, in a voice trembling with emotion. 'Even though you often disappoint me. Even though you are not my daughter.'
Larajin blinked in surprise. She opened her mouth to ask her father if she had heard correctly-if he had truly uttered those words. All that came out was a whisper: 'What?'
'Ask your mother,' her father said. He let the sheet drop like a curtain between them.
Larajin stood, stunned, as her father limped out of the room. By the time she thought to run after him, he was gone.
She walked slowly down the hall, her thoughts whirling. Suddenly, her father's long-simmering anger toward her mother made sense. If Larajin was another man's child, it was only logical that Thalit's jealousy had turned to bitterness over the years. Larajin could see that her father still loved her mother, but until now she'd never understood why he held back his affections-or why he sometimes stared at Larajin as if wondering who she was.
Larajin already knew that she didn't look a bit like her father, nor did she share any of his mannerisms. While her father went about his duties as quietly as a horse bred to the bit, Larajin chafed at the very touch of her servant's uniform. They were as different as shadow and light.
Larajin found herself in the doorway to one of the smaller kitchens. Her mother was the only servant in it. Shonri Wellrun leaned over a heavy wooden table, kneading dough. Behind her a fire blazed brightly in the oven, and the warm air smelled of yeast and cream. Her hands white with flour, Shonri rolled the dough into long, thin lines, then deftly braided it. She squeezed juice from a tart-smelling fruit onto the dough, then dusted it with a sprinkle of brown spice.
Larajin stared at her mother, trying to see her through her father's eyes. Shonri had just turned sixty. Her red hair had faded to the color of pale ash, and her hands were creased with wrinkles. Even though she had been a servant all of her life, Larajin's mother had a hint of pride in her bearing and a gentle beauty that years of toil hadn't quite erased. She was one of the elder master's favored servants and was often summoned to the big table to be praised for her delicate pastries, made with rare spices from the four corners of Faerun.
Had Shonri been summoned by one of the master's guests for attention of a different sort? Was Larajin the illegitimate child of a union like the one her father thought he was preventing?
As if sensing Larajin's intent gaze, Shonri looked up. She smiled at her daughter and gestured at a mortar that held greenish nuts. 'Larajin, if you've finished with the linen, would you crush those for me?'
'Mother, I need to know…' The question died on Larajin's lips. But her expression conveyed it silently.
Her mother covered the braided dough it with a damp cloth. 'Something's troubling you,' she said, gesturing Larajin closer. 'Come tell me what it is.'
Larajin found herself unable to move from the doorway. She gripped the door frame tightly and spoke in a rush. 'Father says I'm not his daughter. I believe him. I want to know who my real father is.'
A flash of anger crossed Shonri's face. An instant later it was replaced with an expression of resolve. She patted a stool beside her. 'Sit down. It's time you knew the truth.'
Like a sleeper walking in a dream, Larajin slowly crossed the room. She sat beside her mother and waited while her mother carefully cleaned her hands on a rag. Then Shonri herself sat down.
'You are a daughter to your father,' she said in a careful voice, 'as much as you are a daughter to me. Always remember that.'
Larajin nodded. She already knew that her mother and father loved her. She considered the relationship between herself and her mother a close one, even though it was to her Aunt Habrith that Larajin turned when she wanted to confide her secrets.
Shonri stared at the oven, not really seeing it.
'Twenty-three years ago, I lost a child,' she said slowly.
Larajin was confused. This wasn't what she'd expected to hear. 'I don't understand.'
'You will,' Shonri said. She continued. 'I was accompanying Master Thamalon the Elder on a trip north to the Dales, a trading expedition. He'd asked me to come with him to evaluate the quality of the wild forest nuts and fruits he intended to purchase. It was a very important journey, a keystone in the household's economic well-being, and the meeting had been set up a full year in advance. It was a singular honor for me. So I agreed to accompany the master, even though I was pregnant and near to giving birth.'
