Inos' teeth began to chatter. “I think I need some breakfast.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Perhaps they would have something down in the kitchen?”
“Galley, dear. Yes. Of course you must be starved. Let us go and see, then.”
“No need for you to come,” Inos said, “if you are enjoying yourself.”
“Of course I must come.”
“Of course?”
Aunt Kade assumed her most prim expression. “This is not Krasnegar any more, Inosolan. I am your chaperone and I must look after you.”
A terrible suspicion washed over Inos’s mind. “You mean that you don’t let me out of your sight from now on?”
“That is correct, dear. Now let us see if we can find you some breakfast.”
The ship sailed on, but Inos' heart sank… all the way to the bottom of the Winter Ocean.
There were worse things in store than seasickness.
THREE
Clear call
Southward dreams
1
“Why doesn’t something happen?” Inos demanded in an urgent whisper.
“Why should anything happen?” Aunt Kade replied.
Inos ground her teeth quietly, glaring hatred at her embroidery. They were sitting in the Willow Grove at Kinvale with many other ladies of quality, all sewing or crocheting or merely chatting in the heavy sunshine. It was afternoon in late summer and nothing was happening. Nothing, it seemed, ever happened at Kinvale. Nothing was supposed to—that was the whole idea.
“Besides,” her aunt continued placidly, “something did happen last night. You lost a brooch.”
That was a devastating and unwelcome truth, and an unusually pointed reproof from Aunt Kade. Inos was being as difficult as possible, but her pleasure at having punctured her aunt’s maddeningly constant good humor was spoiled in this instance by the reminder of her own stupidity. Losing a dearly loved heirloom did not compare with painting one tooth black and smiling excessively at dinner.
Embroidery was too intricate for Aunt Kade’s eyes. She was knitting some useless garment that would undoubtedly be given away to a servant as soon as it was finished. The process was important, the result was not. Inos was making a horrible mess of stitching a nosegay pattern on the corner of a linen kerchief and suffering acute agonies of frustration and boredom. She had been at Kinvale for a month. She would be there for nine or ten more months yet and nothing ever happened.
Except a few things she had made happen, of course.
She could concede that Kinvale was beautiful, a very great estate set in rolling hills, lush and rich as she had never imagined a land could be. It lay northeast of Pamdo Gulf, near the great port of Shaldokan—of which she had seen nothing at all—but far enough from the sea that it had never been pillaged by jotunn raiders, even during the worst periods of disorder in the past when the Impire had been weak. She had seen little of the smaller manors and hamlets nearby, but enough to know that they were old and settled and dull. The nearby town of Kinford she had visited briefly, and it was also old, prosperous, and apparently dull. The huge, sprawling ducal estate was old, luxurious, and driving her crazy.
The Willow Grove, where she was presently enduring a particularly acute boredom, was picturesque to a fault, flanking a lake that was itself resplendent with water lilies and graceful swans, set about with sculptures and little marble pavilions. Beyond the lake lay the park, where myriad servants tidied up the droppings of small deer and carved the boxwood trees into fantastic and amusing shapes. For someone who had seen exactly six trees in her life, Inos had tired of trees surprisingly quickly—they did not do anything. She had been impressed by the green hills, the farms, and the vineyards, but she had glimpsed all those only at a distance. Young ladies of quality were not encouraged to go mucking around in farmyards, and she had been swiftly intercepted on her one attempt to go exploring in that direction.
She passed her mornings now in lessons—dancing, elocution, and lute playing. In the afternoons she would sit and sew and talk with Aunt Kade and other matrons. In the evenings there was dancing or listening to music and then bedtime. And that was all. She had been allowed to go riding a few times with other wellborn maidens, but their path had been restricted to a cinder circle through the park, the horses had been ancient hacks, and their riders no more interesting—well-educated virgins whose brains had been wrapped up in embroidery and tucked away in some safe drawer at birth. Inos was permitted to read books, provided she did not overdo it. She might stroll on the terrace, so long as she did not leave Aunt Kade’s sight or talk to strange men. She could also sit and grind her teeth at needlework and wonder what would happen if one evening she were to tear off all her clothes and turn cartwheels across the ballroom floor.
Amid the splendor and wealth she was miserably homesick for barren, shabby old Krasnegar. Amid nobility and personages of the highest breeding, she longed for the company of Father and Lin and Ido. Even dull old Rap would do.
She was not supposed to be out of Aunt Kade’s sight unless some other old… gentlewoman… had been designated her keeper for a short while. It was humiliating! Did they think she was some sort of wanton? That she could not be trusted? Of course she was trusted, Aunt Kade would explain patiently. It was appearances that mattered. Climbing out casements, sliding down banisters…
Materializing in dignified silence, a young footman offered a tray of sweetmeats to Aunt Kade, who declined, and then to Inos.
“Thanks, Urni.” She pointed to one of the yummy little cakes. “That one! Did Alopa bake these?”
The tray wobbled dangerously. Scarlet flowed out of his high, tight collar, rising all the way to his powdered hair. “M-m-ma’am?”
“Just wondering.” Inos flashed him a benign but triumphant smile. “I thought maybe it was her baking that you were after in the little pantry two nights ago?”
Urni almost dropped her chosen cake from his tongs. The tray swayed again in his other hand, and he swallowed hard. “No, ma’am. I mean… No, ma’am.”
She chuckled quietly and said no more, letting him beat a speedy retreat. Off duty, he was rather fun, was young Urni—or so the chambermaids reported.
As Inos was about to pop the first morsel of cake in her mouth, Aunt Kade sighed heavily. “You really should not speak to the domestics like that, dear.”
“Oh?” Inos laid down her fork in case she was tempted to throw it. “It upsets you that all these old crones will see me failing to live up to their mummified standards of nose-in-the-air snootiness?. You would prefer me to behave like a marble statue? Exactly what harm is there in treating a man like a human being?”
Kade finished the row and turned the knitting. “None,” she told it. “Treat him like a human being by all means.”
“I don’t believe I understand that remark.”
“You were not treating him like a human being. You were treating him like a tethered bear.”
“I…” Inos fell silent, mouth open.
“They can’t fight back, my dear. They, at least, would certainly prefer marble statues.” Kade’s eyes had never strayed from her knitting, but now she added, “And here comes the duke.”