For her, the short days and long nights were the time of year when she could rest. Recuperate. For weeks before and after Longest Night, Clara slept long and deep. She spent her days sitting before a fire, her fingers busy with their embroidering and her mind at rest. The stillness of winter was her refuge, and the thought of a year without it inspired the same dread as contemplating a night without sleep. She was an older woman now, the grey in her hair no longer sparse enough to bother plucking out. Her daughter was married and with a child of her own. But even when she’d been young, Clara had known that winter was her season away from the world.
And spring was her return to it.
“There have always been religious cults,” she said. “Lady Ternigan was brought up in the Avish mysteries, and it never seemed to do her any particular harm.”
“I’m just concerned that there won’t be any silver left for the real priests,” Lady Casta Kiriellin, Duchess of Lachloren, said. “Your son’s in training for the priesthood, isn’t he, Clara?”
“Vicarian,” Clara agreed. “But he’s always said there are as many ways to worship as there are worshippers. I’m sure if something new comes along, he’s quite prepared to learn those rites as well.”
Lady Joen Mallian, the youngest of the group, leaned forward. Her skin was pale as daisies and showed every drop of blood in her cheeks. There was a vicious rumor that she had a Cinnae grandmother.
“I’ve heard,” she whispered, “that the Avish mysteries make you drink your own piss.”
“The way Lady Ternigan’s tea tastes, I shouldn’t doubt it,” Casta Kiriellin said, and they all laughed. Even Clara. It was uncalled for and cruel, but Issa Ternigan did serve the strangest teas.
The party was seven strong, each of them dressed in new clothes with bright dyes. Clara always thought of these days as a sort of religious rite. The twittering and gossip and bright colors worn as if by mimicking the glory of flowers they might call forth the buds. The gardens belonged to Sara Kop, Dowager Duchess of Anes, who sat at the head of the table in a dress of glowing white lace as pure as the old woman’s hair. She’d been deaf as a stone for years and never spoke, but she smiled often and seemed to take pleasure in the company.
“Clara, dear,” Lady Kiriellin said, “I’ve heard the most unlikely rumor. Someone’s said your youngest is pitching woo at Sabiha Skestinin. That can’t be right, can it?”
Clara took a long sip from her teacup before she answered.
“Jorey has taken a formal introduction,” she said. “I’m meeting the girl this afternoon, though of course that’s all form and etiquette. I’ve known her peripherally since she was just walking. I can’t fathom why we put ourselves through all the fuss of ritual to pretend to meet someone we already know quite well, especially as Dawson’s the one she’ll really need to win over. But tradition is tradition, isn’t it?”
She smiled and lifted her head, then waited. If anyone was going to bring up the girl’s past, this would be the moment. But there were only polite smiles and covert glances. Jorey’s unfortunate connection to the girl hadn’t passed unnoticed, but neither was it a thing of open derision or false concern. It was good to know, and she tucked the information away in the back of her mind, should she need it later. Joen Mallian suddenly squealed and clapped her hands together.
“Did I tell you I’ve seen Curtin Issandrian? Last night, I was at a reception that Lady Klin held. Nothing formal, you understand, just a dinner party for a few people, and he is my cousin, so I was utterly obligated to go. And who should be there, sitting by the roses as if nothing was odd, but Curtin Issandrian? And you’ll hardly believe it. He’s cut his hair short!”
“No!” one of the other women said. “But that was all he had that made him at all attractive.”
“I can’t believe he’s still being seen with Alan Klin,” said another. “You’d think those two would put a bit more air between them after being lumped in with Feldin Maas.”
Clara sat back a degree in her chair, listening, laughing, sharing bits of barely sweetened cake and biting lemon tea. For an hour, they spoke of everything and nothing, the words pouring out of them all in a flood. Even Clara with her love of winter also saw the joy of talking in company after so many weeks alone. This was how the court wove itself into a single tapestry—small gossip and news, speculations and enquiries, fashions and traditions. Her husband and sons would have made no more sense of it than of birdsong, but for Clara it was all as legible as a book.
She took her leave early enough that she could walk back to her own mansion. Camnipol in spring could be a shockingly beautiful place. In her memory, the city was all of black and gold, and so the real stone and ivy always surprised her. Yes, the streets were cobbled dark and soot marked many walls. Yes, there were great burnished archways throughout the city, tributes to the victories of great generals, some of them generations dead. But there was also a common with a double line of burgundy-leaved trees, a Cinnae boy, pale and thin and ghostly, dancing on the street corner for coins while his mother sawed away on an ancient violin. Clara paused for a moment in an open square at the edge of the Division to watch a theater company declaim on their small, sad wagon-mounted stage. The actors playing tragic young lovers were decent enough, but the grandeur of the view behind them kept distracting her.
The grandeur of the view, or else some part of her didn’t want to dwell on young love and tragedy. Not today, at least.
At her house, Andrash rol Estalan, their Tralgu door slave, stood at the end of his silver chain. His ears were at high alert. His father had been one of her own father’s huntsmen, and she had a fond spot for him.
“Your son is with Lord Skestinin’s son and daughter, my lady,” he said. “They are in the west garden.”
“Thank you, Andrash. And is my husband at home?”
“No, my lady. I believe he has gone to the Great Bear with Lord Daskellin.”
“Likely that’s for the best,” she said. She took a deep breath. “All right.”
The Tralgu bowed his head. He always could express sympathy gracefully.
The west gardens were mostly rose and lilac, and neither of them yet in bloom. Jorey stood by a low stonework table where a young man and woman sat. The two guests both had hair the color of wheat and round features that looked better on the girl than her brother. In the gentle chill of early spring, all of them wore cloaks, but Jorey’s was wool and waxed cotton where the Skestinin siblings wore black, generously cut leather.
“Mother,” Jorey said, lifting his chin as she drew near. “Thank you for coming.”
“Don’t be silly, dear. Next you’ll be grateful that I walk myself to the breakfast table,” Clara said. “And this must be Sabiha. I haven’t seen you in an age. You look lovely. And this cannot be Bynal. Bynal Skestinin is a little boy with a toy sword who took all the roses off Amada Masin’s bushes.”
“Lady Kalliam,” Lord Skestinin’s youngest son said as he stood. “My father would want me to thank you for accepting us in your home.”
The girl nodded, but didn’t look up. Her gaze was cast at the ground, a mask of stoicism and humiliation. In truth, the gratitude offered to Clara was little more than the common form, but that didn’t matter. They all knew what none of them would say. Lord Skestinin and his family looked upon this as pity. House Kalliam was graciously lowering itself by bringing Sabiha through its door. In the opinion of most of the court of Antea, it was. Clara might not like it, but denying it was like trying to ignore away the wind.
Clara chose her words carefully.
“My eldest son has served under Lord Skestinin for years,” she said. “His children are always welcome in this house.”
The boy bowed. He had a dueling scar on the back of his hand. For a moment, Clara was surprised, and then she wasn’t. He was old enough for the dueling yards, and had been for years. He was here now as chaperone of his sister’s honor. Likely he’d crossed steel over it at some point as well.
“Mother,” Jorey said, “I’ve had formal introduction to Sabiha. I’m going to ask Father’s permission tomorrow.”
Clara felt her eyebrows bolt toward her hairline and her gaze flickered over the girl. Even sitting and with the covering of the wide-cut cloak, she wouldn’t be able to hide a belly. Especially not for a second child, and with the amount of time it would have taken to send for a formal letter, receive it, and return from Osterling Fells to Camnipol, pregnancy simply didn’t seem plausible. Sabiha swallowed, her expression utterly empty. Everyone present knew the calculations Clara had just made. Everyone expected them.
“That seems sudden,” Clara said. “Engagements can run a season or two these days.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” the girl said.
The pain in Jorey’s expression was vivid and fresh and angry. This wasn’t the girl’s idea, then. It was her son’s. He wanted to give her the season. He wanted her to go to the dances and feasts and fireshows as Sabiha Kalliam, and not Lord Skestinin’s disgraced daughter. Marrying into House Kalliam—and especially doing it now with
