The King's Blood

there must be something, mustn’t there?” she asked, sipping at her coffee. “There were houses who fought at my husband’s side. He had those sympathetic to him.”
    “Not the way the story goes now,” Issandrian said. “To hear it, he fought the throne single-handed. The houses whose banners flew by yours were all neutral now and never took arms, and the houses that weren’t in the streets at all were fighting on the side of Palliako. Not all will escape judgment, but they will all try to.”
    “I see,” she said, and she did. Court life was always a tissue of reputation and rumor. This was no different.
    “I haven’t given up all hope,” Issandrian said. “There is discussion of an expedition to Hallskar. It’s possible that if they go by water, they’ll need a captain. I can’t get Barriath command of the ship with the actual members of court sailing on it, but there may be cargo ships, and with the right word in the right ear, Barriath could be hired on to take that.”
    It was, she thought, a terrible lot of conditional phrases for a single statement. Still, she smiled the gratitude that she knew she ought to feel. They chatted for a few moments more, Clara savoring coffee and pipe, and then it was time to keep on. Time to not stop.
    House Annerin was gone, leaving the city even before the close of the season and taking her daughter and grandson with them. The intention was to avoid precisely the kind of social call Clara was making, but still, she walked to the door slave and made her enquiries. No, my lady, the family had not returned and were not expected until after the winter. But yes, he could accept yet another letter and see that it found its way to her daughter. At Canl Daskellin’s mansion, they were very sorry, but the whole of the family was indisposed. Perhaps if she called another day.
    She walked for most of the morning, stopping at half a dozen houses, and hoping without reason to hope that by her presence she could force the world to open a place for her boys.
    When, near midday, she returned, feet aching, to Lord Skestinin’s house, the fight was already under way again.
    “I’m a sailor,” Barriath shouted. “I could drink three times that and be more sober than you are waking up.”
    She was accustomed to the sound of fraternal battle, but the voice Jorey spoke in now was low and cold and unfamiliar.
    “You’ve disrespected my wife in her own home,” Jorey said. “You have to leave.”
    Clara walked through the hall, her spine straight. Not here too. She could stand to fight the world, if she had to. She would endure the pain of waking alone in her unfamiliar bed with the echoes of her husband’s death still in her ears, but she couldn’t do it all here too. There had to be one place—one—where she could rest and draw strength. If it wasn’t her family, she didn’t know where it could be.
    “I’m not staying,” Barriath said as she stepped into the room. “Wouldn’t do it on a bet. But take it clear, I’m not the one looking down on Sabiha. She’s your wife and so she’s my sister, and it’s her fairweather friends you’re talking to. Not me.”
    Both her boys turned to her.
    “What,” Clara said. The exhaustion in her voice weighted the word so heavily that it was all she could manage. “What?”
    Jorey looked to his brother, then down. When he spoke, his jaw was set forward. It was something Dawson had done too. Clara wondered whether it was the boy imitating the man, or if there was something in the blood that would have made Kalliam men do that even if they’d never met.
    “Sabiha arranged a garden party,” Jorey said. “A half dozen of her old friends. Some that had stayed by her even through the… last scandal. They all sent regrets.”
    “And he’s blaming me,” Barriath said. “I wasn’t rude. I didn’t track these girls down and tell them to turn their backs on Sabiha.”
    “You didn’t need to,” Jorey said. “Everyone knows we’re here.”
    “We’re not,” Barriath said. “You are, but I’m elsewhere. I’m sorry, Mother.”
    She wanted to ask where he was going. How she would reach him. All the thousand questions that would have let her keep some semblance of family together. But she was too tired, her mind too scattered. He brushed past her as he walked out the door, and she felt like the motion of his passing could have knocked her over. Jorey hadn’t moved. His face was pale and pained. Sabiha had appeared