“Sorry,” Jerrold said gruffly, feeling an idiot, and gathering up the reins of his mount.He swung up, wanting nothing more than to leave this place.
“Comfit,” Rosalind spoke, her voice brittle.“She loved those damned sweets.Never in public, always behind closed doors.Comfit.”
“I’m sorry,” Jerrold repeated.
“I served the Airions.The Wyverns took everything from me,” Rosalind said.“They took my Queen, my position, my place.Years of service to the royal family, years of preserving their history, and they tossed me out like so much offal in a midden.”She lifted her eyes to him then, and he could see the rage.
“The Airions took from us as well.”Jerrold pointed out.“Maybe not those two, but those of their Blood.”
“Both sides,” Rosalind nodded.“But as we stand here, we have survived.And I would continue to live and thrive, if only to spite them.”
“Aye to that,” Jerrold said.“I will think on what you have said, Rosalind of Edenrich.”
Her answering smile was wry.“My thanks, Jerrold of the Black Hills.”Rosalind stepped back and Jerrold urged his horse out the gate and off down the road.
He’d much to think on as he rode.She wasn’t wrong.It would be for the best if they all started to use the titles, mouthfuls that they were.Not as a surrender, but as a protection.
Jerrold nodded to himself.He’d talk to Rasfel about serving as a messenger, as soon as he was done with the quarrymasters.He sighed, he’d best be about it.They’d be expecting him.
But as his horse trotted along, the sense of dread he’d felt, anticipating their arguments, was gone.He’d already decided what do, hadn’t he?A sense of anticipation took hold.The look on their faces when he’d tell them to take their dispute to the Lord High Baron!
It almost made him crack a smile.
His humor fled as he thought things through.This cripple, this man, he was nothing like any of them had expected.His ideas seemed impossibly naive.
His mother had hope, and he blessed her for it, but how could this work?Sending messages about marble, talking of the problems of restoring the quarry system, the roads, the skills needed to select and cut the block and then transport it?Even if Rosalind was right about the Lord and Lady, did they really have any hope in maintaining this Lord High Baron in his title?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Farmstead in the Black Hills
Halithe had her doubts when the wagon pulled up the next morning.But Dayva turned out to be a bright, brown bird of a girl with a happy smile, bringing a cartload of broadcloth, wool, and linen, a gift from her Ma.Lanning, her Da, rode in the wagon with her, a taciturn man with black hair and a broad beard with two white stripes at his chin.
“You’re a carpenter?”Rosalind asked after the introductions and at his nod, had pulled him aside and started to talk about looms.
Herself’s eye lit up at the cloth, and she immediately made plans for every length.In the days that followed, Halithe discovered quickly that it was fun to be “Leeda.”
Sewing didn’t seem so boring when you were surrounded by people working on a goal.She could sew a straight seam when it was for a purpose.
Like for her Papa’s new outfit.
“Stop wiggling,” Rosalind huffed.
“I am not ‘wiggling’,” Ritathan said, attempting to keep his dignity intact while standing in the middle of the room and wearing only his trous.
“If you would stand still, this would go much faster,” Rosalind said, measuring his arms with a length of twine.“Then you can get back to your chores.
Ritathan raised an eyebrow.
Halithe grinned and returned to her work.The Hearth Mother had set them all to various chores.She even had Ritathan working in the kitchen, much to his dismay.
Captain Roth had tried a few times to get Halithe into sword classes, but Amari had said that could wait.And she’d not spared herself.She sat not a few feet away, expanding the waist in one of her own trous.
On the other side of the room, Dayva chirped, “You’re very tall,” her dimples showing.“I don’t think I have ever met someone so tall.I thought my brother was tall, he towers over my Da, but you are taller even still.I’ve never met anyone so very tall before and—”
Halithe paused in her sewing to see if Dayva actually ever took a breath.
At the Court, one didn’t chatter.One might gossip quietly, in soft whispers and asides, but every public word was weighed.But talk spilled out of Dayva, who rattled on, and amazingly, none of it was cruel or spiteful.She just talked, about everything and everyone, and it mattered not a bit that her audience didn’t know the people she talked about.Dayva, Halithe decided, had never found a silence she couldn’t fill.
