Ren hoped to learn something of Maunyn’s smoothness with women. He had little luck with tavern servers, even the ones he could pay for. He watched as, room by room, Maunyn’s hand found its way to the matron’s shoulder, trailing a finger to her bare neck—all these matrons wore their hair bundled up it seemed—and then down her back. Those terrible hands which had done so many brutal things could goad a woman like this one to bed him at the slightest suggestion.
They reached a chamber and Maunyn gave Ren the look. Ren nodded and turned to leave. A servant guided him back to the main hall. He struck up a conversation, and she seemed amenable. He imitated Maunyn’s gait, the tilt of his head, letting his silver eyes widen at just the right time, and pursing his lips pensively. Little tricks he’d picked up over the years. Ren had charms of his own.
By the end of the tour, Ren knew every opening to the house and where the children slept. It was a straightforward task should the matron refuse.
He paced in the courtyard, waiting for his lord, tugging at the stiff felt vest, longing to be out of it and free to move as he pleased. He ignored the hired thugs. Finesse was better than crude brutality, but he had to admit it had its place. He’d once seen a visit go sour, and the bullies terrorized the manse by turning over carts and pushing the servants around. In the end, the matron had yielded and paid her due. Maunyn always seemed to know the force needed to persuade.
The doors opened and Maunyn descended the steps, pulling his riding gloves on.
Ren drew close and whispered, “I have the samples, milord. Good ones.”
Maunyn only furrowed his brow. “What for?”
“The boys, milord?”
Maunyn walked off. “Fool,” he said over his shoulder. “All are mine. Hurry! I have more important work for you.”
Ren turned back, confused. Why had Maunyn brought him? The youngest, the flat-faced boy, looked down at him from a window with his beady little eyes.
“Not all trees give a good seed,” Ren muttered. He was a good seed, though. Just needed attention.
The eldest Sarstin boy was a clearer resemblance to his master, but the youngest? Ren grimaced. And the girl? Not in a cycle would he have thought she could be Maunyn’s. The girl took after her mother.
Matron Sarstin was glaring at him. Maunyn had ridden off, already halfway down the road, the hired spearmen clattering after him.
Ren gave a last glance around the place, taking in the details in case his lord sent him back under less pleasant circumstances. He walked with purpose out of that estate. His master had more important work for him.
6
Light filtered in through the tall, narrow slits in the outer wall, illuminating the room and the desk at which Taul’s love, his consort and matron, Ryldia Lor’Toshtolin, looked over the latest figures from the valley. In Bedor’s light, Ryldia’s face appeared like the ancient mosaics on the walls of a sanctuary. She ran a finger down an open ledger, tapping the figure at the bottom of the page. She turned the page, and then another, then pushed that ledger aside and returned to the contract in question.
“It’s less than I’d hoped for,” she said.
The gentle curve of her neck beckoned Taul. She had fine, high cheeks, sharp and angled down to a round chin. Silver speckled her large, pale blue eyes, like a robin’s egg. Serene like a clear night, her gaze traveled the length of the contract. A black steel ring, the Toshtolin matron’s ring, adorned her right hand. Her left hand grasped the swell of her belly, the last hope of her matroncy.
Savin, the house diviner, drew close, and she whispered something to him. Another error, no doubt, but Ryldia was discreet in her corrections, as a good matron should be. As matron, she held the power of life and death in her house, but she wielded that power lightly.
Taul leaned over the table toward the ledger, and the fragrance of her drew his attention. Sweeter than any blossom, any orchard. He loved working with her like this. She sparkled like a star in the firmament of his mind. He reminded himself that it was just the binding. And yet, he wanted it no other way. Taul savored what Balniss had given up in becoming a diviner. He gazed at her belly. The child, an heiress, would seal the future for their house.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said, frowning at the error. “Let it not happen again, Savin.”
Savin, his tattooed scalp visible through a thin layer of stubble, nodded. Taul would need to remind him to keep his appearance. He looked like a failed diviner. Lor’Toshtolin was a respected crater house and kept the standard.
With a kithaun stylus, Savin corrected the errors, transfiguring the writing into the correct amounts by the thought of his mind and the power of the enchanted device. He turned the contract back to her, and she gave it a last look.
Taul still frowned at Savin, who stepped back from their matron’s presence, head bowed. It wasn’t his fault the figures were off. Taul chewed his lower lip as they both waited for Ryldia’s verdict.
“Otherwise, a fine contract,” she said cheerfully. She set the matron’s ring against the parchment and closed her eyes. A faint blue light shone from it and smoke wisped from where the blue fire singed the document. Her skin paled considerably as she exerted power over the signet. Contract signed, she pushed away from the table. Savin let out a satisfied sigh and rolled up the contract. She puffed her cheeks out and exhaled. Her skin flushed darker gray, a thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip.
Taul leaned out of the matron’s office and called Ryldia’s handmaid for water and linen. He started around the table to help her.
“No, no, I’m fine,” she said. “Just need to rest. I’ll see the confinement chambers later.”
“They will please you,” Taul said, beaming.
“I’m certain of it,” she said tenderly.
His love for her swelled beyond reason.
The handmaid hurried alongside Ryldia and helped her up. Together they left, leaving Taul to finish up with Savin.
“These contracts will force Lor’Toshtolin into competition with Lor’Baldir,” Savin said. “At least a fifth part of the pears for Vakayne.”
Taul nodded. Savin was not a house member, only a hired servant, and didn’t need to know the truth about the orchard. No one needed to know for now. He hoped Lor’Vamtrin would keep it quiet. Valley Mornae didn’t see the rivalries up close, nor the dangers of failure. Their battles were with nature. Toshtolin’s rivals within the crater were more elusive.
Taul searched the ledger for the almond harvest. The numbers declined ever so slightly, year after year. He’d need to visit the groves. There were simply not enough tenders capable of caring for so many ailing farms. Nervous energy fluttered through him like an unexpected sea storm rolling in. Was it unexpected, or had he simply ignored the signs? In Ryldia’s great-grandmother’s time, two tenders had managed Zeldra. Each generation added another tender with less success. It was not numbers, but quality that mattered. What could he do about that? A tender of his grandfather’s era was not like one of these times. The master leading the class decided who passed the guild trials. Voldin, his cohort’s master, had done things the old way. Taul grimaced at the memory of that dark night. He’d barely passed.
He tugged at the recently coiffed puff of silver on his chin. A vanity, he knew, but all the style amongst the influential Halkamas houses.
He just needed to get through Ryldia’s labor and the child’s confinement. Then his mind would clear, and he could figure out what to do about the orchard. This pregnancy must succeed, unlike Ryldia’s earlier attempt.
The image of blood, clots, and a tangle of flesh blotted out all other thoughts. He exhaled away the memory, turning back to the papers awaiting his signature. He sealed them with hot wax and pressed Lor’Toshtolin’s stamp to it.
As the wax hardened, the branches of the pear tree, Lor’Toshtolin’s sigil, broke in places. He blew on the wax, willing the branches to make the proper shape. Slowly, they solidified into a shape not unlike the twisted branches and roots of Zeldra.
Hours later, Taul stood, hands clasped behind his back, at the entrance to the apartment, awaiting Ryldia’s verdict. He’d done better this time, selecting an airier section of the estate. Lor’Toshtolin had expanded since the last pregnancy, absorbing a compound to the southeast. With a third more space and another villa, Taul had moved house members, servants, stores, everything necessary to make her place the best in all ways.
The facade would receive goddess-light and fill every chamber his consort would sit in or hallway she’d walk down. The private garden struggled, but little grew in the crater. Still, he beamed to see the shrubs budding through the slits of her matron’s council chamber. It would be the place she spent her time for the next ten years once the baby was born.
