Chapter 181 News Arrives

The tenants of Greenwillow soon knew to a man the terms on which their taxes might go unpaid in copper, and old and young came out to the head of the village to see their lord off:

"Don't you worry, my lord. We've never grown Southland rice, that's true — but give us land, water, and sun, and there's nothing under heaven the people of the Empire can't grow."

"Fresh dates, just beaten down — for the lady to take home!"

"That's not the lady — that's the Odenheim young lady from East Manor over yonder; I saw her last time..."

"Ah — they're near enough already. She will be soon enough."

The one missing was the little steward Carver himself. The boy had clean forgot he was steward now, with comings and goings to see to — he was out there turning soil for all he was worth.

Ruth walked silent at the carriage's side the whole road. At Little Penn Village she had watched the lord set men to the forging of iron; on Lornmere Mountain she had watched him lead the panning of gold; and now she watched him teach people to plant rice.

He was a prince whose ten fingers had never known a day of plain work — how came he by all these things that plain folk did?

Other things were past her reaching yet. But this much she knew: their days were going to get easier and easier.

Lora's carriage had barely come up to the General's gate when Morn came out to meet her: "My lady — Roland sent a man home with a letter. It's been delivered into the Countess's hands already, and the Countess asks that you go over the moment you're back."

"Oh? What's so pressing? Very well — I'll go now."

Lora hurried off toward her mother's court. Still outside the door she heard Lilac's voice — so she had been sent for as well.

"Mother — a letter from Roland?" She made three steps into two and was in the room.

The Countess, seeing her daughter back, passed her the pearl pin from off the table: "Look at this. Do you know it?"

Lilac laughed: "My lady, have you forgot? The young lady remembers none of the old days — where would she know it from?"

"Right, right — the fret has addled me. A little gold bead dropped off this pin, and no good match for it could be found, so I never wore it." The Countess had been holding her breath all this while; now it came easy at last:

"Your brother came by this in the Western Capital. Someone carried it into a vault to pawn it — and as luck would have it, a vault newly opened, with your third brother inside it. The vault-keeper said the pin was damaged goods and not worth so much; the man wanted more for it all the same. Your brother happened to clap eyes on it, thought it looked like something of mine, and sent it home to be identified."

"This is what was lost from the family treasury? The one you kept in your dowry chest?"

Three months now they had hunted Webb and Susannah, and here at last was one thread of a clue. Only — how had the thing got to Augustburg? Wouldn't fleeing far and fast have been the safer course?

The Countess nodded and sighed: "Because it couldn't be matched, I put it away in the treasury. If they're pawning off even the crippled jewelry, the rest will never come back."

Lora took up her brother's letter and read it through. What was written there was what Mother had said — and at the end it added: he had tailed the pawner clean across half of Augustburg, and found the man was a bouncer at a brothel.

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"Seen that way, the pin was never his, likely. He must have lifted it off one of the courtesans, and reckoned he'd try his luck at some far-off counter where his face wasn't known — and never dreamed he'd walk it into a shop of ours."

The words were no sooner out than Lora could have bitten her tongue. Sure enough, the Countess looked up at her:

"A shop of ours? Since when does our family keep a vault?"

Lora covered in a hurry: "My tongue ran ahead of me. I meant a shop with our own people in it — isn't Roland in there?"

The Countess thought that over and let it pass; only she added: "But what was Roland doing at the West Market? That end of it is all foreigners."

Brendan's voice came from the doorway: "Foreigners? Roland's thick with foreigners — what about the Horn brother and sister, aren't they foreigners? What's this? What did Roland write?"

"Mother's pin turned up." Lora handed him the letter just as it was.

Brendan read the letter, then looked at the pin, and grinned: "Ha! So the fox has broken cover. We've combed every inch round about these months, their two hometowns included, and never a trace of either. My men are still sitting on Anwell.

Only — Susannah made off with all that money. What's she doing as a courtesan? If Father ever hears of it, he'll die of rage."

The grin on him was not a proper one. The Countess gave him a swat and scolded: "What a way to talk! They're not found yet — and don't you say it like that to your father when you're back in camp."

"Back to camp? Mother, my wound's not healed yet — are you that hard-hearted with me? If it were Carl, you'd have had him home at your side all his days. And it's not as if Father's called me back..."

Brendan, one hand braced at his waist and the other propped on the table, played his little act.

Lora held her third brother's letter right up under his nose and tapped the last line of it: "Here — this — the one sentence that matters, and you missed it? Doesn't Roland have it written plain: 'wound healed — back to camp, quick as may be'?"

"That's him saying it. Not Father."

On his face it was all disdain; inside, he was fretting a little. And reading the letter over again, there was nothing in it set for him to do. So he took his leave of mother and sister and hurried out.

The Countess watched her daughter's face — the childishness wearing off it, little by little — and spoke gently:

"Lora, there's a thing your mother wants to say to you. I've been reckoning: by the King's Birth-Feast next month, your fourth brother's wound should be about healed. They'll none of them be in Lohenheim — so your mother means to take you to Augustburg, and stay there till your father and the rest come off rotation.

Next year's rotation may not bring them back at all. Before, with you and Brendan and Carl about the house, it never felt empty to me. Now it's only the two of us, mother and daughter..."

Lora hid her wild delight and comforted her mother: "It's all right. In Augustburg we'll be that much nearer my grandfather and grandmother — they've never set eyes on me yet, have they? When you've seen me back there, I'll go with you and do my duty by them."

"That's the very thought... Your fourth brother goes out to Thornford — he can see us along the road as far as Augustburg."

Lora thought of her fourth brother's sham-sick performance just now, and her temper kindled — she must find time to have it out with him properly. Back in the tower chamber, she had Lilac call Keane in.

"Keane — when Lord Brendan found you keeping the iron-plate house as its manager, what did he say?"

Keane hesitated, then saluted with folded fists: "To answer you, my lady — the lord was not best pleased. I told him as you'd instructed, and when he saw the silver wasn't Odenheim silver put in, he said no more about it."

"And what's the hesitation in saying that? What else was in your mind just now?" Lora knew there was more behind it.

Keane went on: "The lord was with Simon Salt that day, and he gave me his orders: I was not to tell you. And later — I saw him go into the Gilded Lily across the way, more than once..."

"You weren't going to say it unless I asked?"

Lora didn't so much as look at him. She only took one of the cords at her sleeve and wound it round and round her finger. Keane's heart went into a scuttle; he dropped to one knee, fists folded:

"Your man was in the wrong. Lord Brendan said — the affairs between you brother and sister were none of my business, and if I didn't mind them, he'd go to the General... have me transferred into his own battalion... Your man was a fool for a moment, and—"

"When did he come to this?" Lora's temper was up. "Go — watch his quarters. The moment he's back, come tell me."

"Yes."

After Keane had gone, Lilac tried to soothe her:

"Don't be so angry with him. Keane and his sort are all orphans. When they were taken into the General's house, Shawn was still small and knew nothing; Keane already had his memories — so he's been a quiet one from small on up.

Lord Brendan is a young lord, for all that. The day you're married, Keane goes back to the barracks with your brothers — it's only natural he hearkens to a lord."

Lora's anger settled by degrees.

In this old world, a servant's fate hung for ever on a master's hand.

And her own thread of fate — where was that tied?