The King's Blood

they’d appointed would consult on whatever issues they’d felt the lord should decide. Justice would be dispensed, tours made of the villages and farms, and a plan drawn up for the management of the holding over the next year. And all of it as quickly as possible so that it could all be finished when the King’s Hunt began, and they all rushed off to one holding or another—or, if they were unlucky, prepared their own homes to act as host to king and royal hunters—and ran down boars and deer until first thaw.
    There was no time to rest, and Clara didn’t know how they managed it. How her husband managed it.
    For her, the short days and long nights were the time of year when she could rest. Recuperate. For weeks before and after Longest Night, Clara slept long and deep. She spent her days sitting before a fire, her fingers busy with their embroidering and her mind at rest. The stillness of winter was her refuge, and the thought of a year without it inspired the same dread as contemplating a night without sleep. She was an older woman now, the grey in her hair no longer sparse enough to bother plucking out. Her daughter was married and with a child of her own. But even when she’d been young, Clara had known that winter was her season away from the world.
    And spring was her return to it.
    “There have always been religious cults,” she said. “Lady Ternigan was brought up in the Avish mysteries, and it never seemed to do her any particular harm.”
    “I’m just concerned that there won’t be any silver left for the real priests,” Lady Casta Kiriellin, Duchess of Lachloren, said. “Your son’s in training for the priesthood, isn’t he, Clara?”
    “Vicarian,” Clara agreed. “But he’s always said there are as many ways to worship as there are worshippers. I’m sure if something new comes along, he’s quite prepared to learn those rites as well.”
    Lady Joen Mallian, the youngest of the group, leaned forward. Her skin was pale as daisies and showed every drop of blood in her cheeks. There was a vicious rumor that she had a Cinnae grandmother.
    “I’ve heard,” she whispered, “that the Avish mysteries make you drink your own piss.”
    “The way Lady Ternigan’s tea tastes, I shouldn’t doubt it,” Casta Kiriellin said, and they all laughed. Even Clara. It was uncalled for and cruel, but Issa Ternigan did serve the strangest teas.
    The party was seven strong, each of them dressed in new clothes with bright dyes. Clara always thought of these days as a sort of religious rite. The twittering and gossip and bright colors worn as if by mimicking the glory of flowers they might call forth the buds. The gardens belonged to Sara Kop, Dowager Duchess of Anes, who sat at the head of the table in a dress of glowing white lace as pure as the old woman’s hair. She’d been deaf as a stone for years and never spoke, but she smiled often and seemed to take pleasure in the company.
    “Clara, dear,” Lady Kiriellin said, “I’ve heard the most unlikely rumor. Someone’s said your youngest is pitching woo at Sabiha Skestinin. That can’t be right, can it?”
    Clara took a long sip from her teacup before she answered.
    “Jorey has taken a formal introduction,” she said. “I’m meeting the girl this afternoon, though of course that’s all form and etiquette. I’ve known her peripherally since she was just walking. I can’t fathom why we put ourselves through all the fuss of ritual to pretend to meet someone we already know quite well, especially as Dawson’s the one she’ll really need to win over. But tradition is tradition, isn’t it?”
    She smiled and lifted her head, then waited. If anyone was going to bring up the girl’s past, this would be the moment. But there were only polite smiles and covert glances. Jorey’s unfortunate connection to the girl hadn’t passed unnoticed, but neither was it a thing of open derision or false concern. It was good to know, and she tucked the information away in the back of her mind, should she need it later. Joen Mallian suddenly squealed and clapped her hands together.
    “Did I tell you I’ve seen Curtin Issandrian? Last night, I was at a reception that Lady Klin held. Nothing formal, you understand, just a dinner party for a few people, and he is my cousin, so I was utterly obligated to go. And who should be there, sitting by the roses as if nothing was odd, but Curtin Issandrian? And you’ll hardly believe it. He’s cut his hair