Well, Chamfray was not beautiful, but he was useful. She depended upon him. He knew everyone, all their secrets, where they were vulnerable, where pressure could be applied. He remembered everything that had ever happened to anyone. He collected stories as porcupines are said to collect fruit: he rolled in it and it stuck to him! As yet, she had found no one who could take his place. Hulix hadn’t the brain. Alicia was too . . . shut in. Closed. Though she knew Alicia was clever, very clever, she couldn’t tell what Alicia was thinking, and how could someone be trusted when one didn’t know what they were thinking? Rancitor was still a boy. He was thirty-one now, but he might always be a boy. He wasn’t interested in anything but women and hunting and leading parades. He loved to lead parades in full armor on any one of his huge horses. He loved to lead dances, especially in costume. He loved to lead young women off to bed. As his mother, she had had to dispose of some of them when her son had finished with them, daughters of influential people! A terrible accident, people had said when a body was found. She had fallen off a cliff. She had drowned. She had been trampled by horses.
Rancitor’s tastes were odd. She wondered where he had picked up such habits. None of the men Mirami had known had had such leanings. She had forbidden him to take women from the court. She had explained the dangers. A milkmaid, fine. A farmer’s daughter, fine. A servant girl, fine. Nobodies, do what you will, a bit of gold will quiet the families. But people of influence? No. She needed such people as friends. Or would soon enough, when King Gahls died.
She went to Chamfray’s room. He was lying down on a low couch near a window that looked out upon the plaza and the fountains. Men were sweeping the leaves that had blown in overnight. The day was mild and pleasant.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked with real concern.
Chamfray considered the question, moving his limbs as though testing symptoms. “Not better. No, not really. I think it’s some kind of passing thing, you know, something I’ve eaten, probably. We had that shellfish last week, remember, from Ragnibar Fjord.”
“Mussels from the coast. They were packed in ice. Hulix sent them. He said he had enjoyed them.”
“Perhaps they came a bit too far. Or the ice was bad. I’ve heard that if ice freezes from contaminated water, the ice itself is bad.”
“Contaminated?”
“Something bad in it. Something that died or was rotten. Where did Hulix get ice?”
“There are high mountains near Kamfelsgard where the ice never melts. People go up and cut great chunks of it with a saw, wrap them in straw, and haul them down the mountain. They put it in a special house at Kamfels Court, a kind of deep cellar where it stays cool, then they use it all summer to keep things cold.”
“Ah. Well it was probably the ice. An ice bear probably peed on that particular bit.”
She regarded him with something very like fondness. He wasn’t a handsome man. Too large a nose, too heavy a jaw, and terribly ungainly. But he was as dependable as the sunrise, and she admired him. The thing she most admired was that he never showed emotion about anything. It was so much easier to deal with life if one didn’t have to consider emotions. Of course, Alicia was like that, too, except for her rages. Perhaps it was a useful way to be.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked. He always wanted to know what she was thinking, what she was planning.
“Alicia. I can never tell what she’s doing or going to do next. I know she’s full of anger at the world, always has been. She was born that way. Sometimes I think the Old Dark Man made a mistake with her; there’s too much of him in her.”
Chamfray made an amused sound. “Some of me, too.”
“Some of you, some of me, some of him. Alicia doesn’t know that, though, so be sure not to—”
“I never talk to Alicia about anything. She prefers it that way,” Chamfray said.
“So do I. She gets very strange ideas. She seems to be cooperating in the family business, just as one would expect, but then she goes off on these strange tangents about totally insignificant things. Now she’s all upset over the fact there are a few Tingawan people up at the abbey. As though it mattered!”
“The princess was Tingawan.”
“Yes, she was. And what difference does that make? We own Kamfels and Altamont, we almost own the abbey, and the Thousand Islands are a thousand miles away.”
“More than that.”
She threw up her hands. “Exactly. At this time of our lives, Tingawa has nothing to do with us or our plans or anything else. It will be years before we turn to Tingawa!”
Chamfray stretched his lips in what passed as a smile. “Yes, Mirami, at least that.”
“Well then, let the silly little Tingawan girl do her soul-carrying duties, let her servants take her home, and let us get on with our business!” She heard her voice rising and stopped, hand to throat, listening.
“We’re quite alone here,” he said. “The way the doors are arranged, no one can hear from the hallway or from below us in the plaza. Are you really concerned about Alicia?”
“It’s just that I can never tell what she’s thinking. She’s like the Old Dark Man. I could never tell with him, either. I still can’t understand why it took so long for that Tingawan woman to die. Not
