how we do things where I come from—but it’s quite true that he and I don’t occupy the same rank. As you know, I am separated from my husband,” she went on, “but until my domestic situation is sorted out, I am still married to a Faitoren prince, and therefore, I hold the rank of princess.
“By rights Aruendiel—and everyone else of a lower rank—should address me as ‘Your Royal Highness,’ but I do not insist upon it. Like him, I can tolerate some lapses of decorum.”
Lady Pusieuv pursed her thin lips and appeared thoughtful.
“More wine, my dear niece?”
Aruendiel had appeared with the bottle in his hand. He filled her goblet without waiting for her reply. “And would you like some?” he said to Nora. He spoke to her with a degree more politeness than he normally did, and there was a curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth. She noted that he had refrained from addressing her by either name or title.
“Yes, please,” she said.
The wine was surprisingly good. There was little in the castle wine cellar except for a scattering of very old, vinegary bottles and a barrel of raw red wine, like liquid sandpaper, that Mrs. Toristel had bought from a trader in Barsy last year and still hoped would age into something drinkable. Nora wondered whether Aruendiel had resorted to mellowing the red with a quick spell. He seemed not to be drinking any more wine. Lady Pusieuv, though, enjoyed it. After finishing a goblet, she had a second piece of the pie.
She seemed to have decided on a more conciliatory tack toward Nora. “So you simply invented this dish? And it turned out as well as this?” Lady Pusieuv shook her head as if in disbelief. “I do enjoy fussing in the kitchen, when I have a chance—my mother insisted all we girls learn to cook—but I would be terrified to try something really new, unless my cook was standing right there to help me.”
“Well, I had a basic recipe in mind, and the ingredients—the honey, the walnuts,” Nora said. “I knew what they could do, how they could fit together. That’s what good cooking is.”
“Not only cooking,” Aruendiel said suddenly. His eyes caught hers, pale as smoke. “It is always essential to know one’s ingredients, how they fit together.”
What was he getting at? Nora felt a prickle of anticipation. “I suppose so,” she said slowly. “For making something. Or remaking something—something that was broken.”
He gave her a brief smile, unusually cordial. “It starts with a certain basic understanding of the materials. A kind of sympathy.”
“Did you see the wonderful marquetry work that is all the rage in Semr just now?” Lady Pusieuv asked. “Like a painting, but all made of different-colored pieces of wood fitting together. The cabinetmaker must know all the various sorts of wood, and how their colors change as they age, and how to carve them just so. It is truly an art. I’ve ordered a table with a double portrait of myself and Negio, in profile.”
“It sounds most impressive,” Aruendiel said.
The sky was gray, stuffed as full of snow as a quilt is of down, but not a single flake had fallen. Nor would any fall for some time to come. Aruendiel had no intention of allowing his niece’s departure to be delayed.
He rode alongside the coach as far as the Barsy road, to see Pusieuv safely on her way. Privately, he wagered with himself that she would bring up Lusul one more time. With a touch of sardonic enjoyment, he found himself proven right as they approached the turnoff for Barsy. “Uncle,” she said, leaning out the carriage window, “have you come to your senses yet, about making your claim for Lusul? There is no one with a better right to it.”
“No, my dear,” he said, speaking as lightly as he could, “I wish to have nothing to do with the place again.” Pusieuv looked baleful for an instant, but then she smiled and began to talk enthusiastically about the avenue of oaks that her husband had been planting at Forel in her absence, how she was looking forward to seeing it when she returned home.
That was one of the things that Aruendiel appreciated about his grand-niece, how quickly she could recover from a setback with grace and apparent good humor, when she chose to. It was not something that he had ever developed a knack for. Nor had his sister, come to think of it—Pusieuv must have gotten it from some other branch of the family.
Long ago he had given up looking for any trace of his sister in Pusieuv’s face. The eyes, perhaps, and a tendency to plumpness in middle age. But then many people in Pelagnia—the Uland, for that matter—had brown eyes. He did not like to think about how many generations lay between his sister and her descendant. It was commendable of Pusieuv to keep up the connection. Sometimes tiresome, when she made unexpected visits like this one, but commendable. He had enjoyed having a woman around the castle for a few days, and he was even more pleased that she was leaving.
At the Barsy road, she gave him her hand to kiss. “Well, Uncle, I’ll see you at the assembly next year in Semr. Unless—if we happen to marry off one of the girls before then, you’ll come to the wedding feast, of course?”
The “of course” was a nice touch. Aruendiel had not attended the wedding feasts of the three children who were already married. “I will send my blessing,” he said.
Aruendiel occupied himself on the ride home thinking about various spells to keep unwanted visitors away. With natural magic, you could easily lay spells that would instantly neutralize anyone who came to attack or enchant you. It was more difficult to design a spell that made more subtle distinctions—that would repel a charming, well-intentioned, but officious grand-niece, for instance. Micher Samle had been interested in that sort of magical problem, getting spells to think for themselves, grant wishes, and so forth—was probably still working on it, wherever he was. In the girl Nora’s world, presumably.
Thinking of Nora, Aruendiel scowled. Mrs. Toristel had complained to him twice already about Nora’s efforts to mend the bowl. Reluctantly, Aruendiel had to agree: It was a waste of the girl’s time. She might have some sort of receptivity to magic—the incident with the lion in Semr, for instance—but that was hardly enough to make smashed crockery new again. He regretted having given her the task. Why had he bothered? Across the table the other night, he’d recognized something familiar in her tired, angry face. She was exiled, dispossessed, and weary of it. The girl was inquisitive, she had a good brain—intriguing if she could be taught to do something with it—but now she would only be more sullen after failing with the bowl.
He let the snow begin falling as he neared the castle. Pusieuv must be well past Barsy by now. Fine powder sifted down, dappling the ground with uneven patches of white. The first snow of winter, but the earth was still warm enough to keep it from sticking. That would change soon enough.
Back at the castle, he was heading to the tower to look up an old spell for confusing unwelcome visitors—it steered them away from your dwelling, unless they turned and walked in the opposite direction—when Mrs. Toristel accosted him in the great hall. His attention was needed for the estate accounts.
“Can this not wait until later, Mrs. Toristel?”
“That’s what you said last week, sir. And tribute is due at the end of the month.”
Aruendiel groaned and settled himself at the table. Mrs. Toristel began to recite the tally of the year’s harvest and what it had brought at market.
“. . . Six dozen
“That’s all that we got for wheat this year?”
“The harvest was a good one. Prices were low.”
He shook his head. “I can never understand why an excellent harvest should leave me poorer than ever. Next year, though, I will turn the villagers into grasshoppers and I will personally curse with rust every wheat field within three days’ ride, and perhaps I will get a better price for my wheat.”
Mrs. Toristel cleared her throat. “Also, the river was low, so that knocked ten beads off the price. Extra transport costs.”
“Why didn’t you let me know? I would have filled the river to the top of its banks.”
“You were in Semr at the time, sir.”
