Chapter 114: WINTER COURT

DIANA’S POV

By the following day, Blackharrow had returned to diplomacy.

Diana had not.

She had slept badly. Lord Rovel’s question remained unpleasant, and Raigoro’s answer had followed her out of the Great Hall.

Not interrogate my wife.

He had said it coldly, then left with Daric and returned to treaty work without giving Diana a single private word.

She had wanted the distance.

Probably.

The senior commissioner had already spent part of yesterday in the Winter Court reviewing a Third Watch claim.

Apparently, he had assumed ordinary use would stop once the diplomatic reception began.

"Will the families remain during the reception?"

Diana looked at him.

Mistress Hale answered first.

"Yes."

The commissioner glanced toward the infirmary side of the court.

A wounded soldier walked slowly along the far path with an attendant. Near the low table, two children were arranging wooden animals across the stone.

"While the delegation is here?"

Diana raised her slate.

YES.

The commissioner looked toward the working tables being arranged beneath the sheltered section.

Yesterday, Valence had sat across from one injured man and examined what its failure had cost him.

Today, the rest of Blackharrow would not disappear merely because diplomats had arrived.

Tavia stood beside one frostbell bed speaking with a Valence engineer.

She looked over.

"It was built to be used."

The commissioner considered that.

Then he nodded.

The reception began without speeches. Diana had insisted on that.

Working tables had been placed beneath the sheltered section, and hot drinks circulated while Blackharrow engineers and Valence officials argued about future road obligations without requiring anyone to stand beneath banners while doing it.

For a while, the arrangement worked.

Then a woman near the infirmary door saw the Valence crest.

Diana recognized Mara Tellen.

Her husband had died at Third Watch, and Diana had reviewed one of her dependent-support disputes several weeks earlier.

Mara had two children. One sat near the wooden-animal table while the other stood beside her.

Mara stared at the red-and-gold crest embroidered on the senior commissioner’s formal coat, then crossed the court.

The commissioner was speaking with Blackharrow’s treasury master when she stopped in front of him.

"Are you from Valence?"

Conversation nearby faded.

The commissioner turned.

"Yes."

Mara nodded.

"My husband waited for your medicine."

Diana stood along with several Blackharrow officers.

Raigoro was near the eastern arch speaking with Daric. He looked over.

Mara had not raised her voice, which made every word easier to hear.

The commissioner glanced toward Diana before facing Mara again.

He seemed uncertain what was expected of him. Perhaps nobody had trained him for this part of diplomacy.

"I am sorry for your loss."

Mara looked directly at him.

"He was alive when they told me the Southern convoy was late. He died before another one arrived."

The commissioner said nothing.

Mara’s gaze moved briefly toward Diana before returning to him.

"I have already been told no one can prove the missing medicine would have saved him."

Diana remained still.

They had already gone through that question in Mara’s file, and yesterday’s claims review had established the same distinction for Valence.

"I am not asking you to prove it," Mara continued.

The commissioner waited.

"I am asking why it was not there."

He hesitated.

Diana knew why the answer would be difficult.

She had read the files.

Valence had delayed resources for internal priorities, political calculations, Southern defensive needs, and enough transport excuses to fill years of reports.

None of those reasons could explain one husband to his widow.

The commissioner said, "I cannot give you one reason that makes it acceptable."

Better.

Mara looked at him, then nodded and turned away.

Diana did not mistake the exchange for forgiveness or resolution.

Her younger child had left the play table and approached. Mara took the child’s hand, and together they walked toward the infirmary.

Conversation slowly returned around the court.

The commissioner remained where she had left him.

Raigoro had not interfered.

Diana noticed.

He could have removed Mara before the exchange became uncomfortable, protected the treaty session, or directed the officials into a private chamber.

Instead, he had let the commissioner answer because Mara had asked a legitimate question.

The Valence engineer beside Tavia exhaled.

"I thought this was a garden reception."

Tavia looked toward the frostbells.

"It is."

The man stared.

"Blackharrow gardens are apparently difficult."

Diana had to keep herself from smiling.

The commissioner saw it, then looked around the court again.

The people hidden inside administrative categories remained inconveniently visible here.

The reception continued, but the Valence officials looked at the families now.

They noticed the older man near the southern wall, the wounded soldier walking another slow circuit, and the children near the wooden animals.

No one suggested moving them again.

A younger Valence clerk approached one frostbell bed.

"Were these brought from the South?"

Tavia looked offended.

"No."

"They resemble flowers near the royal gardens."

"Frostbells grow here."

"All of them?"

"Everything alive in this court grows in Blackharrow."

Diana turned toward them.

The clerk glanced at her.

"I thought perhaps Her Grace had brought something familiar."

Tavia looked toward Diana.

Diana lifted her slate.

ME.

The word appeared before she could reconsider it.

Everyone nearest her went quiet.

Diana stared at what she had written.

Me.

For once, she had answered without reaching for Selena or even the name Diana.

Just herself.

Tavia read the slate before turning to the clerk.

"Her Grace brought herself."

The young man smiled, apparently unaware of the danger.

"Then Blackharrow received the better part of the exchange."

Across the court, Raigoro looked over.

The clerk realized too late that exchange was an unfortunate word for a forced marriage created by treaty failure.

"I meant no offense."

Raigoro approached, and Diana became aware of every step before she could stop herself.

"The marriage is not part of the restitution account."

He said it coldly, and the matter ended there.

The clerk bowed quickly.

"Of course, Your Grace."

Conversation moved elsewhere.

Raigoro gave Diana only a brief look as he passed before returning to Daric.

The distance still existed.

Tavia glanced from Raigoro to Diana and, wisely, said nothing.

Later, the senior commissioner asked Diana who had designed the Winter Court.

She shook her head and wrote:

HOUSEHOLD WORKS.

WARD COMMAND.

INFIRMARY.

TAVIA.

MISTRESS HALE.

CARPENTERS.

She continued until the slate became crowded.

The commissioner read it.

"You coordinated it."

Diana hesitated before nodding.

"Why?"

She looked toward the infirmary.

Mara had returned and now sat with one child asleep against her side.

Diana wrote:

PEOPLE WERE WAITING BADLY.

The commissioner read it twice.

Diana remembered Rellan.

Families reading messengers’ faces across crowded corridors. Children hearing casualty reports because nobody had somewhere better to put them.

The court existed because the problem had been ordinary enough for everyone to accept until Diana did not.

The commissioner looked around again.

"So this is what you built."

Raigoro’s voice came from behind Diana.

"No."

Everyone turned.

He gestured toward the court.

"This is what everyone else built after she noticed what was missing."

Diana looked at him.

The distinction mattered, and he knew it.

She had not become valuable because she could do everything. She saw gaps, then found people who knew how to fill them.

Raigoro looked at the commissioner.

"Do not mistake coordination for ownership of every skill in the room."

Something caught in Diana’s throat.

It was professional praise and nothing more.

Diana felt it anyway.

Raigoro turned back toward Government Terrace without a private glance or smile.

Diana watched him leave.

Around her, Valence had come expecting a displaced Southern princess decorating a northern castle.

What surrounded them instead was ordinary Blackharrow life: soldiers, widows, children, engineers, household workers, and a place where Diana’s decisions had become ordinary enough that no one announced them.

By late afternoon, the Valence delegates began returning to their guest rooms to prepare for the formal reception.

Household staff cleared the working tables while Mara remained near the infirmary passage with one child asleep against her side.

Diana helped move nothing.

Mistress Hale had threatened consequences if the Grand Duchess began carrying furniture while wearing formal sleeves.

Diana believed her.

The doors from the Winter Court into the covered passage toward Government Terrace opened, and musicians filed out carrying instruments toward the Great Hall.

Farther along the route, servants were already preparing the hall for the evening reception.

Diana looked toward them.

Tonight was the opening married set.

Her attention went to the Government Terrace passage.

Raigoro had been there earlier.

Now, only Daric remained near the arch.

The first musician began tuning.