We then gathered around a simple table of food, and Sianh cracked open a bottle of Serafan spirits. “We toast with a strong drink for a baby, so that she might grow strong, too,” he said.
Theodora woke, cried, ate, and slept again like clockwork, much to the delight of everyone gathered, and consented to being held by stranger after stranger, some more adept at bouncing a baby than others. After a couple of hours grazing on Emmi’s delicious food and sips of Sianh’s exceptionally strong drink, the guests began to leave, one by one.
“I’ve something to ask you,” Kristos said, when only we were left gathered around the remnants of the food. Kristos slathered gami on his flatbread, scraping up the last bits remaining in the crystal dish.
I sighed and passed my flatbread to Penny, who lobbed her plain flatbread at Kristos’s head.
“What was that for?”
“Next time let the mother of your child have the last of the gami,” I suggested.
“I didn’t realize!” Kristos hurriedly offered his bread to Penny, who passed mine back to me.
“What did you want to ask?” I prodded. “If it’s sharing this almond pastry, you’re out of luck.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking,” Kristos said. “No, it’s the council. Remember we said that we were going to have to have some legal framework for casting? We need your help.”
“I suppose I can offer my expertise,” I hedged. Reentering the fray of politics filled me with apprehension. Without the partner I’d had in Theodor, I felt lost.
“Yes, good, of course. But there’s more, too. The council thinks it would behoove us to open some sort of office not only for policy but for training. They’ll give you space out of the university. It would be combined with a sort of advisor to the council position, I believe.”
I nearly dropped my pastry. “What gave them the idea I would ever consent to that?”
“What?” Kristos said around a large bite of flatbread. “It made sense, given the circumstances. That is, you don’t have an official role any longer.”
I stared at him, involuntarily wavering between rage and weeping. “A lot of things made more sense a month ago,” I finally said, tears spilling over my cheeks.
“Damn it, Kristos,” Penny said, scooting her heavy chair closer to me. It made a terrible noise as the legs dragged on the floor, but she doggedly pulled herself close enough to grab my hand.
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be insensitive.” Kristos stared at his food as though realizing it would be uncouth to continue wolfing down his pastry while his grieving sister sobbed into her skirts.
“But you are being insensitive,” Penny hissed. “Honestly. She can take as much time as she needs to—”
“No,” I half shouted. “No, I can’t. I can’t just sit here in my brother’s house for the rest of my life like some dotard aunt.”
“I was looking forward to having an auntie here,” Penny offered, a little too eagerly. “You’ll be such a help with Theodora!”
“The governor of Galitha can hire more help than you could ever need, I’m sure,” I said with a smile. I knew Penny was after the same thing her decorating projects had been aimed at—making me feel useful again. “You two will want to get married and make this a proper—what? Governor’s Mansion, is that what we’ll call them?”
“Who said anything about getting married?” Kristos said, blanching as he received the full extent of one of Penny’s worst glares. “What? It’s a joke, of course.”
“You are intolerable,” Penny said, glowering at him as he ducked his head and nibbled on his bread.
“You’re right, Kristos,” I finally said, wiping my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. “I don’t have an official role any longer, and I don’t have a shop to go back to, and I don’t have a house of my own to maintain. But I never said I was interested in being a government official, or even that I’m able to.”
Kristos groaned. “Not this shrinking violet stuff again, Sophie. You’re more than capable.”
I held back a torrent of anger I had done very well to bind up and put away—that Kristos had no right, ever, to criticize what I used my gifts for. “I need to think about this.” I cut him off from further argument, raising my hand and standing up. “I need some air.”
68
I STRODE DOWN THE STREET, NOT ENTIRELY SURE I KNEW WHAT direction I was walking until I found myself near Fountain Square. The cathedral had been restored to a place of worship and contemplation after having been pressed into the service of the Galatine Civil War. I still didn’t have any compulsion to seek solace in the meditation on the Galatine Divine and her Sacred Natures, but I did seek quiet. I tentatively opened the great front doors. No placard announced any services in progress, though a clutch of reverent women sat in an alcove filled with lit candles, praying, and several parishioners still sat in the pews.
I walked the perimeter ringed with stained glass depicting the Sacred Natures, the sea and sky and wide plains of Galitha rendered in colors more saturated than life. Carefully laid piecing of the glass suggested the movement of grain and waves in the images as though some divine breath washed over them, imbuing them with life. I sank onto a bench in front of a great sunburst of glass pierced with the light of the last of the sunset.
“I told him you would not like the idea.”
I started as Sianh sat down beside me.
“Did you follow me?” I hissed.
“No, I was observing a service in celebration of the Sacred Nature of the Galatine Fields. Agriculture, yes?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied, distracted. “Why were you watching that?”
“It is instructive, if I am to stay in this country. To know what its people believe.”
“Some of its people.” I sighed. The fractured light from the sunburst window scattered red and orange and gold on my hands. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“I was preparing to leave when you entered. I am not surprised to see you distressed, no, though I did not realize you took to prayers in times of distress.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I just—it’s quiet here. Usually,” I said with a pointed glance at Sianh.
His smile was soft. “Yes, and you wish to have quiet, so I will take my leave.” He stood.
“Wait,” I said, impulsive, and he sat next to me again, close enough to speak in hushed tones that didn’t echo among the high arches of the cathedral. “Where are you going? I mean, now that your contract is over.”
“I was promised retirement, remember? A pension.”
“And I’m sure it’s been given to you.”
“Yes. And a land grant, for a bonus. A part of the Pommerly estate near Rock’s Ford.”
“You’re going to take up farming?” I laughed, a hard, bitter noise breaking on the muffled quiet of prayers. “Forgive me, but the thought of you trading a sword for a plow is…”
“It is an unlikely image, yes. I believe I will raise horses, not crops. I have also been asked to take a position at the Rock’s Ford Academy.”