"You left me alone to deal with all those wailing old women from the village, not to mention Dame Berwick and her toothsome daughter." Rietta shivered. "If you ask me, Quinn escaped a fate worse than death with that one."
Cormac thought he knew such a fate firsthand, even thought of remarking on the pot calling the kettle black, but Rietta never seemed to catch his irony, especially when it was at her expense. He was definitely not in a mood to joust with her. "If you've come just to pull me back into that dank abyss with you, I've more important things to deal with now."
"It's bad enough that scalawag sister of yours hasn't blessed us with her presence," sniffed Rietta as if Cormac hadn't spoken. "What will everyone think if the lord himself isn't there to greet the mourners?"
Cormac poured himself a new glass of port and tossed it down in one gulp. "They'll think I've gone on with the business of running a vast estate. I made an appearance and accepted more condolences than I could stomach, anyway." He gave her a sly look. "However, they will wonder where the lady of the manor is."
Rietta was too smart to rise to the bait. "I watched you leave with Berwick. What have you done with him?" She glanced about the room artlessly, though it was obvious the other man was gone.
Cormac sighed heavily. "We finished our business, such as it was, and he left. I assumed he'd returned to the great hall."
"You've not given up on getting back Stonecliff already, have you?"
"Through marriage, yes. I can see no other lawful option, since Quinn had the ill-timed bad luck to be slain." Cormac fiddled pensively with a dry quill pen that lay on his desk. "More's the shame that he induced in me a brilliant idea for using Stonecliff to recover the family fortunes. It would be a perfect place to establish a fortress from which we could extort a toll on the vessels that traverse the river, including Berwick's own ships from Hillfort." Cormac sighed again and tossed back more port. "But it's not to be."
With a disapproving eye, Rietta watched his drinking. "As usual, Cormac, you're not using your head."
"I endeavor to, whenever possible." Cormac's perpetual scowl at his wife deepened. "Should I infer from your tone mat you have the answer that has eluded me?"
"As usual." She strode to his desk and removed the nearly empty bottle of port to a distant shelf. "And, as usual, it's right under your cherry-red nose." He scowled again at her inference. "Propose another union between the families."
"Of course I thought of that, but you can't possibly mean Honora," Cormac said. "You have loftier ambitions for your daughter than to marry her into a merchant family."
Rietta raised one thin, dark brow. "Don't be absurd."
"I know you look forward to the day, but you can't mean to offer up Kirah," he said, tapping the desk with the quill. "Even if she weren't too young, her marriage would mean that I'd pay a dowry, not receive one. That goes for Honora, too." Scratching his temple, he thought for a moment more. "Bram is also too young. Even Berwick, desperate as he is for a noble connection, would not promise Ingard for a marriage to one so much younger than she."
"Ingrid," Rietta corrected. "You're right. Bram is out of the question. He's going to become a Knight of the Rose, like my father, and his father before him, and-"
"Yes, I know, like all male Cuissets, back to Vinas Solamnus," interrupted Cormac in an unflattering imitation of Rietta's own haughty voice. "A bunch of pansy-assed, overdressed, magic-wielding charlatans."
If Rietta had had any respect for Cormac, his words might have angered her. They didn't. "You're such a peasant, Cormac. But that's an old argument I don't wish to pursue now." She straightened her skirts needlessly "You've forgotten Guerrand."
Cormac threw his head back and laughed at the absurd suggestion. "Don't you remember? We eliminated Guerrand as a possibility before we offered up Quinn. The reason hasn't changed. He's a wastrel."
Rietta leaned over the desk toward her husband, her expression intent. "It's true the reason hasn't changed, but the circumstances have. Now he's the only son available. You said yourself that Berwick is desperate. You simply have to persuade him that Guerrand has changed." Rietta snickered unkindly. "That tradesman hasn't many options with a daughter like his."
"What if Guerrand doesn't agree?"
Rietta sighed with exasperation. "You'll have to help him see that he hasn't many-any-options. Threaten to cut him off. He hasn't any means of support besides you, has he? He hasn't completed his training as a cavalier, so he's not likely to run off and join a crusade. Appeal to his sense of DiThon family loyalty. Make him see that he'd be doing it for family and castle-and to make himself more comfortable."
Rietta's words sounded surprisingly reasonable to Cormac, yet he doubted the comfort argument would gain him ground with his indolent half brother. Guerrand seemed unconcerned about material things. Cormac had never been able to use that as leverage to get Guerrand to do anything he didn't already want to do.
"For Kiri-Jolith's sake, Cormac, you're the lord and master here!" Rietta cut into his musings. "Don't ask him, just tell him he has to do it. Guerrand wanted to become a mage, not a cavalier. Yet you forced him to train as the latter, and he seems to have forgotten the former."
Secretly, Cormac did not consider that subject a victory, since Guerrand was taking the longest time in history to advance from squire to knight.
"If you're as wise as I think," said Rietta slickly, nearly choking on the words, "you'll insist that the marriage take place in a fortnight, on the same day you'd set aside for Quinn and Ingrid."
Cormac looked scandalized. "Without a proper mourning period? Such a rush will make the whole thing look like-well, exactly like what it is, a marriage of political convenience."
Rietta laughed. "Don't fool yourself that it's ever appeared to be anything else. No one is more aware of propriety than I," she said. "Yet, in this case, what is proper is less important than that we not give Guerrand time to change his mind or flee."
A small sound from near the fireplace punctuated Rietta's comment. "What was that?" she asked, looking toward the section of wall from which the noise had come.
Cormac dismissed it with a toss of his head. "Rodents. I hear them all the time in here. Likely they have thousands of hidey-holes in this old castle."
"I'll have the chamberlain put out traps." A small sigh escaped Rietta's patrician nostrils. "I fear I've been gone too long for propriety and must return to the great hall. Concerning Guerrand, you must do as you think best, my husband."
Rietta wore a tight-lipped, triumphant smile as she watched her husband's port-fogged mind ponder her words. She knew he would do it, had already decided to, but would not admit it to her so readily. She knew all too well how to persuade her husband to do what she wanted. She had but to provide and plant the seed. Cormac himself, with the aid of port as fertilizer and desperation as sunshine, would make the notion grow.
As she slipped from the room and donned her well-rehearsed expression of grief, Rietta only hoped Cormac would do it soon, before Berwick had time to pursue other avenues.
Hurry, hurry, hurry! Kirah screamed inwardly, as if willing her feet to move faster in the cramped confines of the crawl space outside Cormac's study. Kirah knew as Rietta did that Cormac would do as his wife suggested. The young girl had gasped aloud when she'd realized it. Thank Habbakuk they'd attributed the sound to rats. She'd started crawling when Cormac headed with purpose toward the door of his study. She knew with certainty that he was not en route to the privy.