Chapter 111: THE OPENING SET

DIANA’S POV

The formal reception program arrived before breakfast.

Diana considered refusing to read it.

Unreasonable.

She read it anyway.

Mistress Hale had placed the clean copy beside Diana’s morning household files with three scheduling notes, two corrections from Government Terrace, and a small mark beside one line.

Diana found the line immediately.

GRAND DUKE AND GRAND DUCHESS: OPENING MARRIED SET.

She stared at it.

The words had not improved overnight.

Alma poured tea.

"You are reading that line again."

Diana turned the page.

Alma waited.

She turned it back.

Traitorous paper.

The dance was tomorrow evening.

Twenty-four hours was an unreasonable amount of time to spend wondering whether one man would cross one room.

Diana reached for the next file.

Mistress Hale entered before she could successfully pretend interest in a housing adjustment.

"Your Grace."

Diana looked up.

The housekeeper carried another copy of the program.

"The musicians need final confirmation before rehearsal this afternoon."

Mistress Hale placed the program on the desk.

"If you prefer, the opening married set can be removed."

Diana looked at her.

"The reception can begin with the general court sequence. No explanation is necessary beyond a change in household schedule."

Convenient.

Very convenient.

Diana looked down at the line again.

GRAND DUKE AND GRAND DUCHESS.

She could remove it.

Nobody would wait for Raigoro or watch whether he approached her. Lord Rovel would not see. Lady Jessa would not see. Valence would have no moment to measure.

Diana would not have to find out either.

Her chalk touched the slate.

Alma watched.

Mistress Hale waited.

She wrote: KEEP IT.

The words looked reckless.

Mistress Hale read them.

"All right."

Diana wrote:

HAS HIS GRACE CONFIRMED?

"Government Terrace returned the program this morning."

Diana waited.

Mistress Hale understood.

"The opening set was not among the corrections."

Different answer.

"The rehearsal is at fourth bell."

Mistress Hale left.

Alma placed tea beside the program.

"You could still change it."

Diana knew.

Removing the dance because Raigoro might refuse would be an answer before he had given one. Diana had spent enough of her life arranging herself around what other people might do.

She folded the program.

Tomorrow could humiliate her without assistance.

A knock came from the outer office.

Master Marlon entered with a file.

"Your Grace. The first test file for the Third Watch mechanism is ready."

Good.

A problem involving numbers instead of husbands.

Diana stood immediately.

Master Marlon glanced at the untouched breakfast, then at Alma.

Alma shook her head.

Conspiracy.

Diana ignored both of them.

The compensation review had been moved to the Winter Court rather than Government Terrace.

Diana had suggested it. If Valence officials wanted to discuss individual losses, they could do it somewhere the people behind those losses remained visible.

The first claimant waited beneath the sheltered section near the private family room.

Diana noticed the cane first, then the brace beneath his left trouser leg. A younger woman sat beside him with a document case balanced across her knees.

The senior Valence commissioner and one treasury representative occupied the opposite side of the table. Blackharrow had sent Master Marlon, a treasury officer, and a military medical reviewer.

Raigoro stood at the far end.

Diana slowed.

He looked toward her.

"Your Grace."

Professional.

Nothing more.

Diana took her seat.

The man with the cane looked at her before looking at Raigoro.

Unexpected.

"Your Grace."

She inclined her head.

Master Marlon opened the file.

The facts came first.

Third Watch. A leg wound. Initial treatment successful.

The problem came afterward.

The required medicine had been delayed because the station stock listed in the Southern supply schedule had never arrived. Blackharrow replacement stock reached the station two days later.

By then, infection had worsened.

The man survived, and so did his leg.

His military career had not.

The Valence treasury representative read the record.

"What compensation has Blackharrow already provided?"

Master Marlon listed it.

Disability support, reduced-rent housing, medical assistance, temporary family aid.

The treasury representative began making figures beside the entries.

Diana watched the claimant watching him.

The official said, "Then much of the financial loss has already been absorbed by Blackharrow."

The man looked at him.

"Absorbed?"

The official glanced up.

"I mean financially."

"My sister stopped working for four months because I could not climb stairs alone."

The woman beside him said nothing. Her hands tightened around the document case.

"My wife sold my father’s cart because the military reimbursement had not arrived yet."

Master Marlon turned a page.

Both facts were there.

Recorded.

The man continued.

"I know nobody can prove the missing medicine ruined my leg."

The medical reviewer nodded.

"That is correct."

"I am not asking you to."

He looked directly at the Valence commissioner.

"I am asking whether your settlement will say the medicine was supposed to be there."

The commissioner looked down at the file.

"Yes."

The man waited.

"It was an obligation Valence failed to meet."

The claimant sat back slightly.

He showed no gratitude or relief. He had only heard someone from Valence say the sentence correctly.

Diana understood.

The medical reviewer separated what could be supported from what could not. One expense lacked evidence, another had already been reimbursed, and a third remained directly tied to the shortage.

The amount left was modest, but defensible.

The claimant read it and nodded.

"That is fair."

It would not repair his leg or return four months to his sister.

The number did not pretend otherwise.

Master Marlon moved the reviewed file aside.

The Valence commissioner said, "We have dozens more like this."

"Hundreds, potentially," Master Marlon answered.

The commissioner pressed his lips together.

Diana enjoyed that more than she should have.

He looked toward her.

"Your Grace, individual review at this level will take considerable time."

Diana took her slate.

THEN DO NOT REVIEW ALL OF THEM AT THIS LEVEL.

The commissioner looked at the slate.

Diana added:

BUT DO NOT TURN THEM BACK INTO ONE NUMBER.

Master Marlon nodded.

"Routine claims can be sorted through the offices assigned yesterday. Medical questions go to medical review. Military records to military review. Treasury verifies documented costs. Legal handles disputed causation."

The commissioner asked, "And joint review?"

"Disputed or exceptional claims."

The commissioner looked at the reviewed file.

"How many?"

"We will know after the first sorting."

Better.

Diana had no objection to efficiency. She objected to efficiency that erased the person being counted.

The commissioner looked toward the Winter Court around them.

A wounded soldier walked slowly along the heated path. Two children argued over a wooden dragon near the far wall.

Nobody had removed them because diplomats were present.

Eventually, the commissioner nodded.

"Put that procedure into the draft."

Master Marlon made a note.

Raigoro left with the commissioner when Government Terrace called them back to the treaty session.

He did not linger.

Diana watched him go and wished she had not.

Master Marlon closed the file.

"Rehearsal at fourth bell."

Apparently everyone in Blackharrow had seen the program.

Excellent.

Diana returned to Household Relief and achieved very little for the next hour. After she opened the same page twice, Alma suggested asking Raigoro whether he intended to dance.

Diana declined with enough expression that Alma stopped speaking.

She escaped to the Winter Court instead.

Tavia found her there.

Naturally.

The northern woman sat on one of the stone benches with a territorial road ledger open across her lap and a cup of wintermint beside her.

Diana stopped.

"You look annoyed."

Diana wrote:

I AM SURROUNDED BY OBSERVANT PEOPLE.

"A terrible condition."

Diana sat at the opposite end of the bench. ℴ

Tavia returned to her ledger and, suspiciously, stayed quiet.

"Is it the dance?"

Diana closed her eyes.

"You could remove it."

Diana finally wrote:

IT IS ONLY A DANCE.

Tavia glanced at the folded program beneath Diana’s arm.

"Then remove it."

Diana wrote:

VALENCE WOULD NOTICE.

"Of course."

Diana narrowed her eyes.

Tavia calmly took another drink of wintermint.

"You kept the dance."

Diana raised her brows.

"Yes, I understand. Protocol. Valence. Entirely administrative."

Diana pointed the chalk at her, which Tavia ignored.

"You also know which door he uses when he comes from Government Terrace. And you notice every time he leaves a room before you do."

Diana forgot what she had been about to write.

Tavia continued, "You watched him across the courtyard yesterday instead of walking over to him."

Diana wrote immediately:

YOU WERE WATCHING ME.

"You were not subtle."

Diana glared.

Tavia shrugged.

"I am not saying you are in love with him. I am saying you care whether he comes."

THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING.

"No. It is not."

Irritatingly reasonable.

Diana turned toward the frostbell beds, where the one-winged wooden dragon had somehow acquired command of three horses and a goat.

Behind her, Tavia said, "You do not have to decide what it means yet. But pretending you do not care at all is becoming difficult to believe."

Diana looked back and wrote: I BELIEVE IT.

Tavia smiled into her cup.

"That was not the audience I was worried about."

She closed the road ledger.

"I do not know what Raigoro feels today, and neither do you. But I have known him a long time."

Diana looked toward her.

"Raigoro never courted me. I never waited for him."

Diana stared at her.

"People have tried to interest him. Northern houses. Foreign courts. Women who were beautiful, clever, politically useful, or unfortunate enough to be all three."

Diana immediately regretted looking.

Tavia continued anyway, and Diana looked away.

"Most of the time he barely noticed what they were attempting."

Then Tavia looked at her.

"With you, he noticed everything."

Diana’s fingers tightened around the slate.

Tavia remained serious.

"I am not telling you what he feels now."

At least Tavia would not invent certainty for her.

"I am telling you what I saw before."

Diana wrote:

MAYBE I WAS WRONG ABOUT THAT TOO.

Tavia read.

"Maybe."

She frowned.

"You wanted honesty."

Apparently.

Tavia picked up her cup.

"But do not rewrite everything that happened before simply because what is happening now hurts."

Diana looked down at her hands.

The quiet time beside Vharos. Questions asked for no administrative reason. His attention dropping to her mouth after their accidental kiss.

None of it had promised a future, but it had happened. She did not need to erase it merely because she could not name what it meant now.

A household clerk entered the Winter Court carrying several fresh programs.

"Your Grace."

Diana looked up.

"Final rehearsal copy."

He handed her one.

A small notation had been added beside the opening sequence.

HOST COUPLE ENTERS FLOOR ALONE.

GENERAL COURT JOINS AFTER FIRST FIGURE.

Diana stared at the first word.

Alone.

Wonderful.

Tomorrow there would not even be another couple beside them to dilute the moment.

The clerk continued.

"Mistress Hale asks that Your Grace report to the Great Hall at fourth bell."

Diana nodded.

He left.

Tavia leaned toward the page.

Diana turned it away.

"I already know what it says."

Diana folded the program.

Tomorrow night, Valence would watch: Rovel, Jessa, and officials who might had spent days studying what kind of woman Blackharrow had received and what kind of marriage had survived around her.

Before then came rehearsal.

Diana tucked the program beneath her arm.

She had chosen to leave the space open.

Raigoro could decide what he did with it.