“A messenger, a woman, came here with a letter yesterday, yes?”
“A lot of people came here yesterday. Chatoyant and Aunt Glisten even came up from Elayison.”
“She was a messenger mage. Up from Crystalline.”
“Oh, yes. I saw her.”
“I don’t know who she came to see, but she will have given them a letter of mine and I want it back. I would have taken it off her, but as you know I got sidetracked helping your cousin. I can’t come here myself and search it out. That’ll set whoever it is on guard and I’ll never get it back. So I need you to find it and bring it to me.”
“What’s in the letter?” I asked, naturally curious.
“I’d rather not say.” Klea looked at her hands. “A private matter. A delicate private matter. You’ll recognise the letter because it’s got a crouching unicorn seal on it. So you’ll find it for me?”
I’d seen this a hundred times before. Klea would have written something rude about the wrong person or something like that and now she would be worried that someone would use it against her. The feuds mages got themselves into… Probably when I got the letter and, of course, had a sticky nose into it, it wouldn’t even seem important to me. Anyway, it was an easy enough task, and I already owed her a favour.
“No problem. I’ll take a look around.”
“You’re a darling,” she said, smiling brilliantly at me. It didn’t seem fair that someone could have magic and such looks. And she was a wonderful singer, too; apparently in Crystalline, people paid money to see her sing. “I’d better go back to my little hideout. Got any food?”
“There is some cake and some fruit left,” said Shadow. He pointed out the remains of the food I’d given him last night
Klea’s eyes widened. “He really does speak our language. Is he normal ‘down there’?’
“Do you mind?” he snapped.
“I beg your pardon?” said Klea, opening her eyes.
“Shadow, at least address her as ‘my lady,’” I told him. “He’s got no manners but he doesn’t mean any harm. Ghosts are very shy about their pricks, apparently.”
“Modest, you mean,” snapped Shadow. “And if you will forgive me, my lady, people will be up soon. Perhaps if you are worried about discovery...”
“It’s Blessing time,” I told Shadow. “Everybody’ll be asleep until well into the morning.”
Klea grinned. “No, our pale friend’s right. Best be careful.” She shoved the food in her pockets and pulled her kerchief over her face. “Now if you find the letter, how can you let me know? I know, pull one curtain closed in your window. I’ll be checking. And please don’t let anyone know I’m here, will you? This family’s a snake pit.”
I nodded my agreement and she jumped out the window. I expected to see her flying out over the lawn, but she actually flew discreetly along the side of the house away from the Eyrie until she reached the cover of the trees clustered at the other end.
The pale morning sun glistened on the dewy grass. Tendrils of morning mist hung over the trees. A lovely day for the Blessing ceremony, and the heavy dew would mean the ground was perfect for planting. A deer was digging at my strawberry plants, but as I picked up my crossbow to shoot, it scampered away. Great Uncle Five came pottering across the lawn, having been up newt hunting since before dawn. I didn’t worry that he might have seen Klea leave my room; since she wasn’t any kind of amphibious animal, he was unlikely to pay any attention to her.
“This is a beautiful place,” said Shadow from his vantage point well back from the window. “Is the rest of the Empire like this?”
“Most of the Empire is warmer and greener than here. Don’t you like Klea?”
His eyes widened. “I... I felt... she treated me like some kind of toy.”
“That’s just mages. Power makes them frivolous. But I think she’s pretty reasonable. No chance she’ll be on Illuminus’ side, anyway. She loathes all of Flara’s children. Let’s see if we can scare up some breakfast.”
I dressed, put my towel and underwear in a basket and ran down to the bathhouse. Once I’d chased out a half-naked peasant lad who’d obviously spent the night curled up in a towel against the boiler, and emptied and cleaned the baths from the night before, I had a quick bath myself before people started using up the hot water. Then I checked that the boiler was stoked and that there was still plenty of soap, and ran up to the kitchen to make sure everything was going smoothly.
Of course it wasn’t. Tane the Blessing cook and our normal cook Hilly were having one of their quarrels.
“How can I cook for such misers? The shame! The shame!” Tane was wailing at the ceiling, while the empty griddle smoked. The servants holding the empty serving dishes stood around waiting with varying degrees of impatience.
“This bacon has to last four days,” shouted Hilly, arms spread over the front of the larder door. “They can fill up on eggs.”
I looked over the bacon on the table and thought it was plenty, but told Hilly to open the larder and get out another dozen rashers anyway. Tane had to have a win, otherwise he would sulk. That sometimes led to his getting drunk. We couldn’t afford to eat much meat at Willow, so nobody was very good at cooking it. Since Tane was the cook at the village inn and the person in the village who had most experience of cooking meat, we always had him cook for us during family visits. He was good at it too. But he had this weird conviction that people would go hungry if he didn’t cook everything in sight immediately. In the old days, this meant that we always ran out of meat before the final day and had to buy it in from the neighbouring estates—at huge cost. A few years ago I’d hit upon a system of locking up the larder and having thrifty Hilly dole it all out day by day. It saved a lot of money and kept Tane much more sober, but Ladybless, the kitchen dramas.
Oh, bacon! I loved it and I only ever saw it during a family visit. Once Tane had finally cooked some, I bundled a rasher into a roll and gobbled it down before thinking of the ghost. Under the pretence of being very hungry I shoved a couple of extra rolls and some cheese into my basket and ran back up the stairs. I met Thomas on the way and managed to find out that it had been Lady Chatoyant who had received the messenger mage from Crystalline. Thomas was so busy sorting out breakfast that he didn’t pry into why I wanted to know.
Katti, who had returned to the room, was unimpressed that I hadn’t saved any bacon roll for her, and curled up on the bed and ignored me, but Shadow was happy to have the bread and cheese. He asked me all about the map I had on the wall. It was so lovely having someone listen to me going on about my dreams of going on the Spice Road that time melted away. Then I realised I’d be late and, pulling on my green Blessing robes, I hurried down to the Dining Room which had been set up for family breakfasts.
I could hear the argument in progress all the way down the stairs. (Ah, Family. Such joy!) When I recognised Auntie Eff’s raised voice, I broke into a run.
“What’s happening?” I asked Thomas, who was standing impassively by the door.
“Innkeeper’s been here demanding recompense for her inn. Lord Impavidus thinks we should pay,” muttered Thomas, out of the side of his mouth.