The grim work complete, Dez followed Dunbrae back to Rose Hall by winding ways and darkened alleys. When they passed the back garden of the shabby tavern known as the Grinning Goat, she stopped, but only for a moment as she recognized the dark-haired young man bent in conversation with one of Sir Radulf’s knights. Dunbrae said nothing, and Dez didn’t doubt that he noted both the men in the dilapidated garden and Dezra’s own surprise to see that Madoc ap Westhos—Usha’s old friend Madoc Diviner—was one of them.
When they were past there, Dezra said, “You asked why I’m out and about tonight. An errand to the baker, yes.”
A light twinkled deep in Dunbrae’s dark eyes. Dez ignored that.
“But more than that. I’m tired of hanging around the Ivy, tired of being trapped in this city and not being able to do anything about it.”
Dunbrae grunted. “You thinking I might know a way out of the city? Well, I know plenty of them, and they’re all watched and shut up tight.”
Dezra said no more.
They walked on in silence, threading the back ways and the alleys until they were again in the shadows pooling around Rose Hall. In the high part of the house, but not where the glass windows were, a line of light edged the window sills. Aline Wrackham was up and pacing.
“Been like that for days now,” Dunbrae said, jerking his bearded chin at the window. “Ever since the knight came calling.”
Dez nodded, but she asked no question. With Dunbrae, she knew, this was the only way to an answer.
“She’s up thinkin’,” the dwarf said. “Damn knight. She’s makin’ plans I thought she’d never make again. Ach, not that she tells me what she’s thinkin’ and feelin’ and plannin’. I know, though. I’ve been part of... it since the start.”
Qui’thonas! The word Dunbrae didn’t speak sang in Dezra’s heart, like a bowstring plucked. The resonance surprised her.
“Now you’d best get back to the Ivy,” the dwarf said. “And don’t get into too much trouble, eh?” He glanced up at the high window and the shadow of Aline Wrackham, pacing. “I think I might be wanting a word with you, one of these days soon.”
Dunbrae said no more and they parted, each on their own path again.
“My dear,” sighed Lorelia Gance, sweeping into the room where Usha and the woman’s two little sons had been spending two hours to complete what should have been a half hour’s work. “I just don’t know how you can stand the heat in here!”
“Ma!” shouted one of the boys, dark haired Kalend gathering to leap off the stool where he’d been squirming.
Usha fixed him with a warning look. He scowled at her but stayed where he was.
“I’m doing fine, Mistress Gance, and nearly finished.”
As she sketched, Usha glanced from Lorelia to the sons, struck again by how much the children looked like their mother. The boys, she was sure, would become stocky men, broad shouldered, stubborn-jawed, the kind of men to whom foursquare was a natural stance. The wife of Haven’s leading council member, Lorelia was a short, stout woman, with large, capable hands and, no matter that the skirts of her gown hid it, a stance that spoke of a woman who would be hard to budge if she didn’t want to move. The family’s wealth would compare well with Aline’s, but unlike Aline, Lorelia wore her riches like a badge. Jewels adorned her fingers, her neck, and even the pins that held the fanciful arrangement of her red hair in place.
“Let us out of here, ma,” whined the younger child. “She makes us sit here and sit here.”
Lorelia laughed, as only a woman can who is utterly charmed by her offspring and cannot imagine that everyone else isn’t as well. “Sit a little longer, my loves. Let Mistress Usha make her sketches, then you can go and run.” Their eyes lighted, two mouths popped open to yell for joy. “But not in the streets.”
Eight-year-old Thelan, who’d sighed, now huffed. Nine-year-old Kalend fell into sullen silence.
“They are a handful,” Lorelia said fondly. “When you are finished, my dear, won’t you come into the garden? I’m entertaining a few people.” She smiled. “It will do you some good to let me brag about you in front of people who might be inclined to hire you.”
Usha’s back ached. She’d had been on her feet for hours. The upper room was stuffy, and all she wanted was to go back to her tiny studio and begin the work that would earn her enough money for her and Dez to live in their imposed exile. And yet, the thought of sitting in a shady garden among people who might well offer other commissions was not to he resisted.
“Thank you,” she said to Lorelia, “it would be a pleasure to meet your guests. I’ll join you shortly.”
I hope.
Their mother gone, the boys began to fuss, and Usha summoned yet more patience. She could hold onto it for as long as needed, for the commission to paint a portrait of Lorelia Gance’s sons had been exactly the work she’d hoped to get. It had come rather soon after her decision to outfit a studio. At first Usha thought she’d seen Aline’s hand in this, but Lorelia had come to Usha on her own, having heard that Usha, who had reputation as a portraitist, was—“Unfortunately, of course, my dear!”—trapped in Haven. The woman had such a blunt and honest way with her that Usha couldn’t imagine she’d dissembled when she’d said that she certainly knew who Aline Wrackham was—“Poor thing, and her a newmade widow right before the city fell!”—but she had not seen Aline since Lir’s death. With the retainer Dez suggested she negotiate, Usha had managed to pay the bill at the Ivy and keep a modest amount after.
Usha looked over her easel at the boys and winked. Thelan smiled, then swallowed it, seeming to remember he was angry at being trapped indoors with her.
“Almost finished,” she promised. And she was, thanks to all the gone gods! Despite all the wriggling and protest, she had a small series of sketches of each child and wanted only this one of the two together. In another moment, she released them and laughed to see them tear out of the room in a clatter of heels and a roar of delight.
Having made grateful use of a pitcher of cool water, a deep basin, and a stack of linen towels, Usha followed a young housemaid into the garden nearest the house, a long rose arbor so thick with blooms that they shaded the little stone tables and benches beneath and just allowed a glimpse of a small grove of apple trees at the western edge of the garden, and of the kitchen garden on the eastern side.
Lorelia Gance’s house had been in her husband’s family for generations, and it wore its history easily. The part facing the street was made of stone, and the steps leading up to the broad oak door were shallow in the tread. Here was the oldest part, and Usha thought it must have been a long time ago when this building was small kin to the Old Keep on the hill above the river, for the marks of generations showed in the shallow depressions worn into the stairs. Over the years, the family had added rooms and floors, some of the additions half-timbered, the most recent all of pinewood but for the foundation stones any sensible person used who lived near a river. Over the years, as the house grew what was a broad, upsweeping orchard running almost from the dooryard of the oldest part of the house to the crest of the hill above the river had become gardens as much of the orchard land was sold off to others. Of outbuildings, there was only a stable now.
Under the arbor the air was not very much cooler than indoors. The little stone tables and benches were warm to touch, but the fragrance of sun-warmed roses charmed. Usha had expected the garden to be loud with Lorelia’s whooping sons, but their voices came only faintly from the stable. She looked around, wondering where she must go to find Lorelia and her guests when a long-legged man walked into the arbor from the orchard end. He wore his yellow hair cropped short, sunlight darted off the black mail he wore over an open-necked black shirt and glinted from the jeweled pommel of a sword riding in the scabbard at his hip.