Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends, I found myself further and further from my home.

Tyves 1st, 1513 – Carico estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

“Bet? What are you doing out here?” Josh asked as he walked down the stairs toward the stables where the two horses he asked to be saddled were waiting for him.

“Are you going somewhere?” Elizabet asked, without answering.

“Do you need me to stay?” He’d figure out some way to do it, if Elizabet were in trouble or having one of those feelings again. He didn’t quite know how, but he would. His “plans” for the evening could go hang, especially as he didn’t want to go at all.

“Nope. Just wondering why you have two horses saddled, there’s only one of you…” She turned toward him with a grin. “It’s a bit late for a ride isn’t it? I mean unless it’s supposed to be a moonlight ride with someone pretty.” She clasped her hands together under her chin and fluttered her lashes at him.

“No, I’m going to go throw myself on Darin’s mercy.” Josh rolled his eyes, stepping forward to smooth the saddle blanket hanging on Shade. “I’ve got–something I have to go do and I don’t want to go do it alone.” He added after a moment.

“Oh, well, it’s still with someone pretty.” Elizabet gave her best romance heroine sigh. He shook his head.

“Aren’t you too young to be noticing if my friends are pretty or not?” Josh asked. Elizabet stuck her tongue out at him.

“In case you didn’t notice, dear brother, I will be turning twelve next month. That would mean it’s time for father to step up the ol’ husband hunt. So, if society says I’m almost old enough to start looking for a future husband, I’m probably old enough to notice how your friends look.” Elizabet pointed out with that razor-sharp logic that never particularly failed to skewer him. “Besides, pretty is an aesthetic thing. I don’t think you have to necessarily want to bed someone to know if they’re pretty or not.”

“You are in an amazingly good mood tonight, Bet. Should I be afraid for snakes in my bed?” Josh teased, however it was true. Usually Elizabet was nowhere near this jocular.

“Apparently you haven’t heard then. Goody! Father is going to Camelot for a full month at court. He leaves Monday and won’t be back until my birthday, I think.” Elizabet rocked up onto her toes and did a pirouette.

“You’re not sure if he leaves Monday or if he’ll be back for your birthday?” Josh asked. Though that totally explained Elizabet’s mood. The whole household from their mother straight down to the lowest servant breathed just a little easier when Jayson was–elsewhere, especially for a long period of time, but no one more than he and Elizabet.

“He leaves Monday, I imagine he’ll be back for my birthday.” Elizabet said shaking her head. “Though if the Lord Wright were listening, a freak summer blizzard in Seryl that kept father away until after whatever Wright-awful extravaganza mother is planning to celebrate my birth would be the cream.”

“I think that’s asking a bit much, even for the Lord Wright, Bet.” Josh pointed out.

“Drat.” Elizabet sighed. “Well, maybe a rainstorm. Something that washes out a bridge or something.” Josh chuckled.

“But I’m keeping you from that something you don’t really want to do, aren’t I?” Elizabet asked. Josh nodded reluctantly. “Well, who knows, maybe it’ll go better than you expect.” She shrugged and grinned before hugging him around the waist and running off toward the house.

—

Outskirts of River Sulis

A hard knock on the door almost made Darin jump. He had been reading a book that Father Valen had lent him about the first Duchess of Orkney, Lady Morgause. It had been written by a contemporary of hers, but as it had been published under a pseudonym there was some controversy as to who had actually written it. The leading candidate in current analysis was Lady Guinevere. But Father Valen had told him that he thought that if the first duchess of Avilion were going to pen all about Morgause, she’d have put her name right at the front of it.

Others believed that it might have been St. Galahad, but again that was suspect, he also would have written under his own name more than likely, considering the heretical nature of some of his treatises. Plus, most of Galahad’s writings were written in such an enthusiastic, bright tone, as if there were just this wealth of knowledge inside his head that he had to share. Even as he had grown older and perhaps more jaded, certainly more world-weary, that tone hadn’t changed.

Valen had suggested, and Darin, after a few chapters, tended to agree, that it might well have been written by Lady Dindrane. It lined up rather well with some of the lady’s other writings in tone and personality, plus there were certain references that indicated that the author had had a true and honest fear of the woman. The fear that might have come from actually having lived with the woman? That was what Father Valen had thought.

He set the book on the table, unable restrain a shiver as he did it, even though he was fairly certain that it wasn’t Lady Morgause at his door.

“Josh?” Darin’s eyebrow crept up toward his hairline. “What are you doing here?” Josh turned around and offered him a smile.

“Throwing myself on your mercy.” Josh pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth and grimaced.

“Oh, Wright, what now?” Darin asked. If this is another pubcrawl, I’m staying home.

“I have to–I’m supposed to meet someone at this–pub over in Reme and–I just don’t know that I can handle meeting this person and going there on my own.” Josh said to his knuckles, which Darin noticed, even in the faint light of the moon, were whiter than usual.

There were all sorts of questions that were running through his head–questions and jibes at Josh’s sanity–but somehow he couldn’t seem to make himself ask them. “It’s not–like Marcinak–is it?”

“You wouldn’t say so,” Josh told him, something flashing through his eyes to quick for Darin to read.

“Um, okay.” Darin shrugged.

“That blue suit you got, could you wear it?” Well, obviously, as the suit was by far the nicest thing in Darin’s wardrobe, even including his Academy uniform, this was no run of the mill sort of pub.

—

Cats – Ignisward, Santa Bella, Reme

Darin could count how many times he’d been over the border into Reme on one hand and still have a few fingers left over. If you’d asked him, going over the border in the middle of the night with a nobleman who was getting twitchier the further they went wouldn’t have been the way he’d have chosen to do it again.

Joshua had been very quiet as they rode, which, they weren’t like Severus who always had to have conversation going, but they usually weren’t this quiet. And the quiet hadn’t helped Darin any either, because it left him a good hour and a half to brood over what the hell he was doing going to a pub–in Reme–to meet with a guy that Darin wouldn’t classify as a thug, but the way Joshua said it sort of implied that he thought that whomever they were meeting probably was one–in the middle of the night.

Hopefully it they got murdered, Joshua had told someone, maybe his sister? that he was going and that he was taking Darin with him. Elizabet would probably remember to tell Sara-Beth that Darin was dead and buried in some town over the border. He hoped.

Joshua reined in his horse in front of a building that wasn’t much different than any of the other buildings on the block, light poured out from the two open archway doors on either side of an impressive wooden gate and started to dismount. Darin did the same, sliding awkwardly out of the saddle with care for the suit.

“Do you know where we are?” Joshua asked Darin, who looked back at him like he was insane.

“Reme?” Darin asked. He wasn’t so good with linking geography from a map up with physical geography and all of the towns along the border seemed to be Santa something-or-others. Josh gestured over his shoulder at the building.

“I meant what this place is.” Joshua said, crossing his arms and leaning them on his saddle.

“Nope.” Darin shook his head.

“If I told you we were at Cats would that mean anything to you?” Darin thought for a moment. It sounded familiar but he couldn’t have said where he’d heard it before or in what context, so he shook his head again. “Okay.” Joshua said before freezing like he was a mouse who’d just spotted a cat. Darin swung his head in the direction Joshua was looking in, but all he saw was a man who’d walked out of one of those archways that seemed to lead into some sort of shop.

“Isn’t that your father’s steward?” Darin asked in a low voice. Joshua nodded before dropping Shade’s reins into the hand of a young boy who skittered up. There was something odd about the boy’s face, but Darin couldn’t make out what it was in the dim light. The blonde boy obviously steeled himself with a couple deep breaths as Darin turned Reaper over to the boy as well. “Are we here to meet up with him?” Darin asked. Joshua nodded again.

“Okay.” Darin said as the stableboy lead the horses away.

“Joshua.” Masen Cox’s eyes flickered over Darin, eyebrow quirking upward.

“After you.” Joshua said, saying nothing about Darin or offering no introductions. Cox pushed open the gate into a richly appointed courtyard. There were several couches in the curved style favored by the Remans, snowy marble covered in rich red striped cushions. Seated on one of them, there were two girls, both an identical shade of blonde, but if their brows were any indications, the color wasn’t natural.

The one in red was probably ten, the other, in blue, maybe six. She turned to look up at the three men, showing that her face was as fully painted as a Gaulish belle for a fete. The red, red lips obviously not natural and the rouge on her cheeks heavy. There was fear in her eyes, he could see it, even as she coquettishly kicked her feet out.

Both girls were dressed in short dresses with what looked like ruffled breeches underneath, there was nothing wrong with the style, but there was something wrong with the whole thing, especially paired with the hair and cosmetics. He wished he could ask Joshua about it, but there was no time to for Cox was leading them toward a second gate.

In this courtyard there were more marble benches, one occupied by a woman dressed a green satin corset, chemise and petticoats. Darin shot Joshua an alarmed look as the blue haired woman stood up and greeted Cox with a kiss on each cheek. “Lord Masen.” She smiled sunnily. “Lord Joshua and–er” She stumbled to a stop when she saw Darin, to cover it she simply turned.

“Calico is waiting for you as you requested, Lord Masen, follow me, please.” Her Albionese was accented heavily and he’d have laid money that her Reman wasn’t spoken with the local accent. There was an older lady he’d done odd jobs for for pocket money who was from somewhere on the western coast of Reme that had the same sort of accent.

“Thank you, Miss Tabby.” Cox said. They passed through an arch and into a brightly lit public room that was scattered with well dressed men, drinking wine and munching exotic fruit while dicing or playing cards.

A young girl with hair the color of poppies–didn’t anyone in this place have a natural hair color?–greeted Cox the same way Miss Tabby had. She turned to lead him up the stairs in the corner of the room.

Miss Tabby turned to Joshua. “Lord Joshua, please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you–or your guest.”

“A glass of wine perhaps.” Joshua said. “But that’s all at this time, thank you.” Joshua indicated with his head the nearest table to the door and Darin sat down. Josh following suit a moment later as Tabby went off, probably in search of that wine.

“Joshua, is–is this place what I think it is?” Darin asked, watching the brightly haired employees hurrying through the public room, a young woman or young man would come to the bottom of the stairs and one of the richly dressed men around would follow them up the stairs.

It wasn’t that they were in a brothel that set the hair on the back of Darin’s neck on end. He’d been in a few brothels before, though never outside the public rooms, it was everything else about the place…

Joshua nodded and glanced away at the table top. As before, he felt about five billion questions piling up, but he couldn’t voice any of them.

Then the boy–the one that Darin had thought was just a stableboy, came running into the room–in the bright light he could see that like the girls in the atrium–the boy’s hair was bleached blonde and his face was painted. He headed up the stairs at a run and a moment later, a stick thin man dressed in the black robes of a judge stood up and headed for the stairs.

At first, Darin thought maybe the man was going to “meet” the young man who’d just come down, hair dyed a brilliant teal, but the judge walked past him and went up the stairs in the wake of boy.

Darin was going to be sick in about half a second. “I am so sorry, Darin.” Joshua said from across the table, though it was quiet enough that probably only Darin heard him.

“How–,” Joshua looked around at the other men, the ones who didn’t seem to respond at all to the idea of a graybeard and judge going upstairs with a boy that age, and Darin’s question fell off.

“I didn’t–I thought, look, we’ll–talk about it later. I–I promise, later.” Joshua’s hands shook and Darin could only nod. Then Josh started talking about a lecture that was supposed to happen the next week at school and Darin fell into the pantomime that everything was all right as if it had all been rehearsed ahead of time.

—

Shrine of St. Betsy, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

After they’d left the brothel, they’d ridden back to Albion in silence, but given that Cox had been just ahead of them on the road, Darin guessed there wasn’t a lot that Joshua would be willing to say. It was only after they’d parted company–if you wanted to call it that–Joshua hadn’t said more than two words to the steward the entire time–with Cox that Joshua thawed any at all.

“I couldn’t handle going there by myself again.” Joshua said after they settled onto one of the secluded benches near the back wall of the shrine.

“Do you go there often?” Darin asked.

“More often than I’d like.” Joshua admitted. “It’s one of Cox’s preferred places of recreation–they don’t offer the right sort of services here in Albion.”

“Okay, but you’re the nobleman, he’s the steward, why do you have to go with him to some place you don’t even want to go?” Darin asked. “Can you just tell him no?”

“If he were an ordinary steward, probably. If he didn’t work for my father, maybe. But he is my father’s steward and that means I’m stuck.”

“Wait, your father knows about that place? He knows that Cox takes you to it?” Darin said, his brain feeling broken at the thought.

“I wouldn’t be surprised that he knows where Cox takes me and that he knows exactly what happens there.” Joshua clenched his fists. Darin stared at him as he flexed his fingers.

“And your father, he just lets him?” Darin gaped.

“I’m keeping Cox out of trouble.” Joshua leaned back into the bench.

“…How?”

“If I’m with Cox then if we somehow get caught there, it looks like he’s there with me, not me there with him. It’d all get laughed off if I’m there fucking some whore. Cox is a grown man and married, it’d be a terrible scandal.”

“Good.” Darin crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “And those kids–they work there? How in Wright’s name is that not illegal as hell?”

“There aren’t any laws in Reme about children working in brothels.” Joshua told him. “It’s generally assumed that everyone disapproves of making whores out of children. But as far as the constables are concerned, the boys and girls who work there aren’t whores, they’re runners and work the stables and turn the spit in the kitchen.”

“Joshua,” Darin paused. “That kid-the one with the teal hair? He couldn’t be as old as we are. How is that legal? They weren’t even pretending that that boy was a stableboy! And I’m pretty sure that the girl that Cox went upstairs with is probably the same age as Vivianne Finessa.”

“If you’re buying slaves–and most of the workers there are slaves–they’re the kids of conquered territories or people who have relatives who in some way did something treasonous, it’s not that hard to convince the slavers to put seventeen on the slave bills than thirteen or fifteen for a little extra compensation.” Joshua looked as disgusted as Darin felt with a whole bunch of added bitter.

“But seventeen is still underage.”

“Here in Albion, it’s different in Reme.” Joshua sighed. “There you only have to be seventeen to work a brothel. I know.” Joshua put a hand on Darin’s arm and sighed. “I know. If it were here in Albion, I’d go picket outside the counsel chamber until the place was closed down. I would. But things are different in Reme, I’ve heard it too many times to doubt it.”

Darin sighed.

“And worst of all my father just looks the other way. Maybe–someday–when I’m Baron of River Sulis, I can put the right kind of pressure on them, get the place closed down. It won’t make it up to those kids–but–maybe…”

Clatan 26th, 1513 – Merchant District, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

“That’s brothers for you.” Mama said with a chuckle over the story that Lyssa had just finished telling about Julia’s brother Edmund. Edmund was a pest a lot of the time, still in the bratty boy stage. Julia sometimes said that all boys were always brats, but if her brother Brandon was a brat, he was at least nice enough to not be a brat when Lyssa was around.

“Was Uncle Christian like that?” Lyssa wondered aloud. Mama got a somewhat far away look on her face and smiled.

“Pretty much. He wasn’t as much of a pest as he could have been just because I think that Patron kept him away from us like Aunt Selene and I were contagious or something.” She shrugged. “But he could be when he put his mind to it.”

“…Mama?” Lyssa twisted her fingers around. Mama made a vague noise for her to continue. “Why do you call your father Patron?”

“It’s his name.” Mama told her. She always looked so closed off when Lyssa asked about her grandfather. Mama didn’t really talk a lot about Patron.

“Well, it’d be confusing if every father was named Father, wouldn’t it?” Lyssa giggled. “But my father’s name is Masen and I call him father.” Mama nodded in agreement.

“Lyssa, everybody’s got a different relationship with their father. And when I was your age, I called Patron father just like you do. But sometimes–with some fathers–something changes and you just can’t call him that anymore. Sometimes your relationship with your father changes–and it’s not applicable anymore.” Mama sighed deeply and looked off into the deepening gloom in the room.

“Applicable?” Lyssa sounded out the word.

“It means appropriate or relevant.” Mama explained.

“But why wouldn’t it be app–apple–why wouldn’t it be appropriate, Mama. He was still your father.”

“He was still the man who sired me, Lyssa, but there was one point at which he stopped being my father.” Mama told her. Lyssa looked at her mother blankly.

“I don’t understand.”

“And I really hope you never do.” Mama smiled again, but there was something in it that was sad. Sometimes when they talking about the Cassidy side of her family , it felt like trying read and make sense of a book that was missing half of it’s pages. Mama obviously loved Uncle Christian and Aunt Selene very much, but when it came to her grandparents, what she seemed to feel was–varied–at best.

Lyssa tried to think of a question or story that would put a smile back on Mama’s face. Not a fake smile or a sad one, but a real one. But she didn’t get a chance because the door swung open a half-heartbeat later.

“Lyssandra, please go to your room.” Father said in that impatient, almost grouchy tone he usually used with Lyssa when she was with Mama. She looked at Mama, who was staring into what she usually called the middle distance, an expression like she’d just bitten into a lemon on her face, her fingernails drumming on the arm of her chair.

When Mama noticed that Lyssa was watching her, her lips stretched into something that was almost but not quite a real smile. “Go on, Lyssie, your parents need to have a talk.” That word always sounded like a–what did the tutor call it–portend of doom? when Mama used it in reference to Lyssa’s father.

Lyssa slid out of the chair and padded across the floor, feeling small and very out of place as she did it. She–felt like when her grandfather turned his attention to her, in dislike as best as Lyssa could tell, simply because unlike her cousin, she wasn’t a boy. Mama had all sorts of things she said about that, but almost none of them when she knew Lyssa could hear her.

Her father watched her, not choosing to step away from the spot he’d stopped at when he opened the door until she was out of the door. She could hear his heavy footsteps against the marble of the floor even through the cushion of the rug.

She went to her room and sat down on her bed with an experimental bounce, looking at the wall that separated it from her mother’s. There was this funny little niche behind the fireplace in Mama’s room and Mama’d had the wonderful idea to set Lyssa’s desk into the niche with a tall cabinet for storing linens and things. It was wonderfully warm and cozy when it was winter. A whole year of the fireplace crackling and putting the warmth through the wall into the tile. It was one of the reasons that Lyssa loved wintertime.

Father preferred summer. And summer was fun, she could play outside. Splash in the frequent mud puddles. There were fresh things to steal out of the garden and less hours were dedicated to lessons. Mama preferred fall, and Lyssa liked to go on long walks with Mama to the orchards where all the leaves would get painted. Mama would tell her stories about sprites that only came out at night to paint each leaf just the perfect shade. And she liked that too, but there was something sad about fall.

It was prettier, but sad. And Lyssa couldn’t help but think that there was something awfully sad about the fact that Mama liked fall best.

But that wasn’t really why she was looking at the niche. Without the fire crackling, you could sometimes hear if people were talking in the next room. She knew she wasn’t supposed to listen, but she was curious sometimes.

“It is my house, Annette.”

“Oh, aye, as you always remind me when your father comes for a visit. Your house, your money, your wife, your daughter.” Lyssa could practically see Mama ticking off the points on her fingers.

“Do not make this about my father!” Father snarled.

“How the fuck am I not supposed to, Masen?” Lyssa blushed even if there was no one around to see her. She knew that “fuck” was a bad word, although from what she knew about what it meant, it had something to do with sex. She and Julia had pooled everything they’d ever heard about what it was, but they still didn’t know what it was. Still, she’d bet every copper of her pocket money for the whole month that sex, whatever it was, it wasn’t bad. Mama joked about it sometimes, and you just didn’t joke about something that was bad.

So maybe it was just a bad way of saying something that wasn’t bad?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Father growled.

“The fact that you become an autocratic jackass every time your father comes for a visit. We can go months staying out of each other’s way and then your father comes for a visit and suddenly you have to become a de Ganis male again. That’s not going to work with me, Masen, and you know it. You know better.” Mama told him. “I don’t come in your room and order you around, it’s only common courtesy that you reciprocate. Especially considering what I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Oh?” Father wasn’t nearly as good at saying Oh? as Mama was. Mama could say whole sentences with one word, Father just sounded annoyed.

“Yeah, I imagine that you’re up here to tell me that your father has noticed you’ve been sleeping in Lyssa’s room. I’m not getting any younger, et cetera, et cetera. We need to get to work on that son we haven’t got yet.” Mama told him.

Lyssa rocked herself back and forth. Almost everyone else she knew had a sibling and sometimes Lyssa wondered what it’d be like to have a sister or a brother–a little–she knew that Mama had a lot of fun with Aunt Selene. But she liked having Mama to herself too. Julia didn’t get a lot of attention from her mama and papa and she had brothers and sisters.

And given that Father barely noticed her at all, that’d only be worse with a brother, wouldn’t it?

“Is it so wrong for an old man to want to see his line carried on?” Father had asked.

“He’s got your nephew, Julio recently got remarried, and Warner hasn’t even gotten married yet. He’ll see his line carried on without you having to climb into my bed leaving us both to close our eyes and pretend that we’re with somebody else. Especially as it sure as hell better be false hope we’d be feeding him.” Mama spat.

“False hope? What are you going on about, Annie?”

“Do not call me that.” Mama’s voice had gone so icy that even through the wall, Lyssa shivered. “We are not having any more children, Masen. We talked about that and bloody agreed. It’s false hope to make him think we’re even trying for another child. We aren’t. He’s never going to get his boy out of you and you just need to get that through his fat skull.”

“Annette.” Maybe it wasn’t nice to think, but Father couldn’t be as clever as he thought he was because even Lyssa knew that you wouldn’t get anywhere with Mama by snapping at her like that.

“No, Masen, let’s be honest. I thought that was the agreement. We could leave whatever we wanted to alone, but what we said to each other would be the truth. I am not bedding you for your father to get off on.” Mama practically snarled the last part.

“My father does not get off on us sleeping together,  Annette. I overlooked the sheep-fucking jokes, because they were implied, but I will not let you slander my father by saying he–he gets off on us making–.” Father growled out.

“Truth, Masen.” Mama interrupted. “What we do is not lovemaking–that requires love. Not just barely tolerance that when it tips over the line lands on it’s face in disdain.” Mama sounded tired and Lyssa sighed. Maybe this was why you weren’t supposed to listen to other people’s conversations. Wasn’t being married supposed to be about love?

Why didn’t Mama and father love each other? Why did they have to have agreements and arrangements and stuff that sounded more like what Father talked about with Lord Jayson than what the story books said mothers and fathers were supposed to have with each other.

Lyssa slipped off her bed and went over to her dollhouse, pulling her dolls out and trying to shut out her parents now. She found that a murmur of conversation between the dolls covered most of the murmur of conversation from Mama’s room. In her world mamas and papas would never have agreements. And when she grew up and got married she didn’t want to have an agreement with her husband. She wanted to be loved by him. She wanted, when she was dead and gone and up in heaven with Lord Wright and the Llamas, when somebody told her story, for them to say “And they lived happily ever after.” Not “and they came to an agreement.”

…That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it…?

“Time to get ready for bed, Lyssandra.” Father said from the door to her room. She looked up to protest, but the dim light outside the windows told her that it wasn’t as early as she thought it was.

“Aye, father.” She climbed to her feet and walked to the dresser behind the new screen that Mama had gotten for her. That had caused an argument when it was delivered too. She really wished Grandfather would just go home, all he did was make Mama and Father fight. “You can see right through the top of it, Annette, what good does it do?” 

“She’s seven, Masen,” Mama had rolled her eyes right in Father’s face. “Just who do you think is going to be in her room watching her get dressed?”

“Then why did you buy it for her?” 

“Because she asked nicely and paid for half of it with her own pocket money.” Mama had said. “We’ll worry about getting her a full coverage screen when she’s got something that we need to worry about getting covered. And when there might possibly be someone who wants to watch her getting dressed.” Lyssa hadn’t understood the look that Mama had shot at Father and some deep shiver inside said that she didn’t want to know either.

She looked up at the mirror that hung over the dresser to see Father still standing in the doorway. She started to turn to ask if something was wrong, her nightie clutched in one hand when Father turned abruptly and left with a slammed door.

Once dressed for bed, she slipped from the room and tapped on Mama’s door. “Yes?” Mama herself was getting ready for bed, maybe it was later, even, than Lyssa had thought it was.

“It’s me, mama. Father didn’t say if I was supposed to sleep in your room tonight or in my room.” Lyssa told her.

“Oh. In here, I guess, I don’t know if he’ll be sleeping here tonight–but better not to wake you up if he decides he’s going to.” Every time they had company that stayed at the house and not in the inn, Lyssa slept in Mama’s room. The one time someone had jokingly suggested that Lyssa sleep in Father’s room, Mama had turned around eyes blazing like full summer sunlight hitting an emerald and told them that Lyssa’d sleep in her father’s room over her dead body.

“Mama, can I ask you a question?” Lyssa hovered in front of the door for a long moment.

“Anything, I just reserve the right not to answer it.” Mama joked folding her petticoats.

“Mama–why does Grandfather want you to have a son?” Mama sighed so deeply it looked like she had deflated slightly. Leaving her stay on and hair still back, she walked around the screen and slid onto the bed, patting the mattress beside her.

“Sweetie, your grandfather has this idea–it’s wrong, but it’s one that a lot of people have clung to for a long time, that boys are better than girls. You see, unless you actually put it into law, like they did up in Avilion, boys inherit everything when a father dies. So it’s important, in some places–and some houses like the one that your great-grandfather was born into…”

“The de Ganises?” Lyssa asked clamboring up onto the bed and pulling Mama’s coverlet up like a fort.

“Yep. It’s important to have a son to leave everything to for them.”

“What do you think?”

“I think if fathers cared a little more about not marrying their daughters off to jerks maybe they wouldn’t have to worry so much about what happened to their estates when they died if they didn’t have a son.” Mama shrugged.

Lyssa glanced down at the stitching on the coverlet. “Mama?”

“Hmmm?”

“Do you ever wish you hadn’t met Father?” Lyssa asked, blinking back tears.

“No.” Mama said it with no hesitation. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because maybe you’d be happier if you didn’t have to be with him.” Lyssa said.

“Nope. Cause if I hadn’t met and married your father, I wouldn’t have you.” Mama said, stroking her hair. “And all the maybes that come out of having not met Masen would never make up for not having you in my life.”

“Really?”

“You can bet on it.” Mama smiled and kissed her hair and maybe it wasn’t happily ever after, but it was pretty happy right now.

Clatan 20th, 1513 – Merchant district, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Just one last check through. Tawny promised herself, she’d just double check the linens in Luis’ room one more time before she went downstairs. She had promised, as it was Sunday, that the housekeeper could go home after the meal was prepared, which meant that finishing everything was Tawny’s job. She wished she could tell if the queasy feeling in her stomach was due to nerves–this was going to be Luis’ first official visit since the wedding–or if it were due to finally, finally being blessed with a pregnancy, hopefully the boy that she needed.

The bed was spotless, not a crease or misplaced fold in sight. Even the fur throw–probably not necessary as it was summer–was laying nicely. Now to double check the towels and she’d go down. Her hand flicked at her hair, then falling to smooth her skirt. Oh, how she wished that she knew what Miguel was wearing! What if she was being too informal? It was only a family brunch, but she didn’t know if how formal her father-in-law was. But then again–what if she went and changed into a nicer dress and within ten minutes of arriving they were all down to waistcoats and shirt sleeves? There was no way to know.

So she kept to the buttercup yellow dress that she had on and just headed down the stairs toward the kitchen. Should I light the candles in the hall? It was always a little dark and chilly in the hall, the single window at the far end only sort of lighting far enough to make out the steps. But it was the middle of the day, certainly no one would give her praise for wasting wax when you could see well enough.

A check into the kitchen and a double check of her menus told Tawny that the housekeeper had made good on everything that she had promised to deliver. As Miguel had yet to make an appearance, ratcheting the queasy feeling in her stomach up to the point where she knew it was mostly nerves, she paused in the kitchen doorway and surveyed the dining room.

Perhaps it wasn’t charitable, but somehow Tawny doubted that Miguel had chosen the furnishings. They were in a tad too good of taste. Ornate, showy even, but not the undignified clash of ORNATE that the rooms that Tawny knew he had a hand in.

She bit her lip and refrained from going and one more time straightening the silver or smoothing the table linens. Everything was as straight as it could be, everything was smooth. She wasn’t too sure about the table arrangement–but what could she do? Their table only sat six with any comfort! Which was a problem when you had to seat seven.

Miguel had just shrugged and suggested that Lyssandra could just eat by herself in the kitchen. It was what his mother had done with the children when they had had guests. Tawny’s mother had done the same thing, but the table had usually been set up in the music room. And there had always been several children at the table, it wasn’t like they had ever been banished to the room in lone splendor.

What kind of hostess would she be if she stuck one of her guests in the kitchen like a servant to eat by herself? When it was apparent that Miguel didn’t care about the impression that gave, she had done what was becoming a distressing habit. She’d gone and thrown herself on Annette’s mercy. Annette had been the one to suggest that they bring in a smaller table and set it at the end of the the larger table.

Except of course that the only table that would fit in the space was a dark red wood that didn’t at all go with the white wood of the table or with the ebony accents on the chairs. Annette had been the one to suggest they cover both with table linens–the bows at the corners she swore were what many of the nobles used for garden parties.

“Wife!” Miguel called, interrupting her revery before she could run around the table and take them off again. Her mouth suddenly went so dry it, she would have expected sand to fall out of it should she open it. Of course Miguel wasn’t even waiting for her in the house, so she walked down that long, cold hallway alone and out into the warm early summer sunlight. The blue sky was spotlessly clear. It was apparent only a moment later why Miguel had called her.

Or at least had called for his wife, an identity that slowly but surely would eventually subsume her own entirely, if she was given the time.

Her father-in-law and his brother were stepping down off the carriage that they had most probably taken. Miguel grinned and Tawny just smoothed her skirt over her still girl-slim hips and tried for a serene expression.

“Father!” Miguel said with more genuine warmth than Tawny had ever heard applied to the word “wife” as the two embraced. “Uncle Ellan, welcome. I hope your trip was well.”

“Ah, well, you know that our king does as good a job taking care of the roads as he does chasing his wives around their bedchamber apparently.” Tawny tried not to cringe. That was all she needed, a reminder that between his two wives, the king had eight children for his trouble. One less wife and eight more children.

Even after going to the tailor that Annette had suggested and reading the books that were–well just short of horrifying compared to what a well-bred young woman ought to be reading–even after the bedroom romps that had happened every night that Miguel wasn’t passed out drunk, Tawny still had nothing to show for her trouble. Last month’s course had been right on schedule and this month’s was not even due for days yet.

Luis turned is eyes toward Tawny then dismissed her in the same breath as the gate opened again. It was, of course, Miguel’s cousin, his wife, and their daughter. Masen first, his cold lavender eyes flickering from his own father to Miguel’s onto Miguel and then on to Tawny before starting a circuit again.

Lyssandra, adorable in her white and blue muslin dress, even after Annette had told her not to be an idiot, that of course Lyssandra was Masen’s daughter, she found herself looking for a trace of another in her. But of course, Annette was right, the girl was her father in coloring and those features that weren’t feminized versions of Masen’s were squarely Annette’s.

Lastly through the gate, with a well timed grin–for Miguel, his father, and uncle were all looking at Masen–was Annette.

“Well, now that we’re all here,” Miguel said heartily. “What say we start our meal?” He lead the way into the house, leaving Tawny to bring up the rear behind the guests.

Obviously the first test was passed as no one looked in askance at the extra table or the linens, even the bows, when Tawny made her way around the table to the kitchen to grab the first course.

“How are you, father?” Miguel started by asking.

“Oh, fine, fine. Not getting any younger of course. The old bones protest a little more every day.” Luis told him. Ellan snorted.

“Your father is exaggerating, of course. I can barely restrain him from heading down to the knight’s training facility and outdoing the young bucks on the course.” Ellan shook his head. “He’s as hale and hearty as he was when you were her age.” He gestured down the table at his granddaughter. Lyssandra glanced down at her hands folded in her lap, shooting Tawny back fifteen years to her own childhood.

She had just finished telling her brother how he had been wrong about something, she didn’t even remember what it was any more. Probably because it was so overshadowed by the looks that her mother and father had given her. The look of horror on her mother’s face, the look of distaste on her father’s. They had gotten up and left the table, meal half finished, her brothers and sisters following suit, leaving her alone at the table with her grandmother.

Grammy had looked at the still swinging door and shook her head. “Lass, I’ll tell ye somethin’ me own grammy told me when I was no older than ye. Something ye’ll do well to remember to the days when ye have a little girl lookin’ up at ye with your exact same eyes. No man is going to love a clever girl.” Tawny had protested. “What about Princess Jessica and Lady Morgan le Fay? What about the stories of the first baroness of Finessashire and her daughter, Danielle?” There were all sorts of clever girls in her stories, and they all found someone to love them!

“And how d’ye know that their husbands loved them and not their father’s gold?” Grammy had said with bluntness that bordered on brutality. “Excepting Lady Morgan, but she were married to a corpse that shoulda been years dead and in the ground, do ye wanna marry a man dead?”

“But that’s not what the stories say.” Tawny had told her grandmother.

“Aye–and thems stories, me girl.” Grammy had sighed. “Those writers say what will make good stories, that don’t mean that’s the way tis in the real world. Nope, boys want them a pretty girl–an’ if you’re not a pretty ‘un,  and you gotta admit, you’re not, Tawny me girl. You’ve got too much o’ your daddy in yer face. Then you gotta be a docile, sweet ‘un.”

Tawny had looked down at her hands the same way that Lyssandra had. But she came back to herself as Annette’s hand lightly clasped Lyssandra’s forearm. Tawny paused for just a moment to look at Annette who screwed her face up comically and stuck her tongue out at her daughter, who put her hand over her lips, probably to hide a smile.

Apparently no one had ever told Annette what Tawny’s grammy had told her, because she showed no fear of being clever, even against the pressures of her husband and her father-in-law.

“Annette, be nice.” Masen frowned at his wife.

“I’ll be nicer when your father is smarter.” Annette told him dismissively.

“A woman should know her place.” Luis interjected.

“I know my place. It’s just not what you think my place is, Sir Luis.” Annette said, her green eyes sparking.

“So, father, have you heard anything about the new silk route that’s opened up from Smina, the baron’s just signed a proposal allowing the merchant to open up a shop here in River Sulis, I’ve heard because he’s coming in through one of the northern ports in Albion it should be nearly a quarter less import tax.” Masen asked suddenly.

“No, you know us over there in Sarrashire, plain stubborn old men who like their linen and their woolens.” Ellan said, apparently going with his son’s bid to redirect the conversation rather than fighting with his daughter-in-law. “Give me a good old Sarrashire sheep any day.”

Annette’s lips tightened again, but the light in her eyes said she was amused, not angry. “What?” Apparently Masen caught the expression as well.

“Just thinking of all the things that a sheep is good for that a silk worm isn’t.” Annette offered in a dry tone. She couldn’t really be thinking of–of…

“Our tutor told us the other day that it was Earl Elyan I of Sarrashire who first brought the sheep to Sarrashire.” Lyssandra played with the handle of her fork as she stared at the table top and spoke.

“I’d heard that too, honey.” Annette said before any of the men could interject something.

“Yes, the men of the de Ganis family have always been destined for big things.” Ellan said smugly. That was probably a cue to go get something from the kitchen, because Annette had pursed her lips in a way that said either she was about to break out laughing or say something that would just turn this brunch into a brawl.

—

After brunch, Luis and Miguel had disappeared into what Annette referred to as Miguel’s cave–she said that every primitive sim needed one and as Miguel was certainly the most primitive sim she knew of course he would have a cave. Masen and his father had left to go out for an afternoon of something and Annette had taken Lyssandra out to do something completely different. Tawny had done up the dishes and retreated to the sunroom.

Of all of the rooms in the house it was the one that Tawny was most comfortable in. Up to and including her own bedroom. Who had decorated the sunroom, Tawny didn’t know, it–seemed to be a different hand than the dining room. She imagined that one of Miguel’s wives had done one room and the other had done the other. It seemed peculiar not to know who was responsible for the furnishings in your own home–but this wasn’t really Tawny’s home.

It was Miguel’s home. Still it seemed odd that he had turned the decorating over to his wives and he had never even consulted her about what she would like or prefer in a room, not even her own bedroom. Maybe he was just tired of letting women decorate a room that they would be leaving shortly.

Maybe if that knot in her stomach was a baby and not just ill-humor she would get that chance.

“Wife, I wanted to compliment you.” Miguel said from across the room, bringing Tawny’s attention flying back from the maybes and hopefully that a baby might mean for her. “The brunch was excellently done. The only rough spots were of the fact that we have to invite that woman and her smart mouth.” He almost-smiled at her.

“Thank you. I shall continue to try and do my duties.” Tawny said.

“Well, just don’t forget that you haven’t done your most important one yet.” Miguel snarled before turning and stalking away. As if the slamming of the door shook it loose, a tear coursed down her cheek before she dashed it with her hand. Somehow her eyes, through the tears that smarted in the corners of them, were drawn to the big white grand piano. She had never seen anyone play it, ever, but somehow, she wondered, if it was some other woman’s hope. What had gotten her through these days…

Catch your breath hit the wall, scream out loud, as you start to crawl back in your cage the only place, where they will leave you alone.

Darid 25th, 1513 – The Academy of St. Hugh, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

“Don’t tell me you’re done already.” A strong pale hand caught Brother Dustin by the throat. It’s twin caught him as somewhat lower as well, the lower hand shifting slightly so that broad, close cropped nails dug in the length of him. Dustin didn’t know what to tell him, not that it really mattered, he couldn’t have spoken even if he had known.

Loki stepped just a bit closer, the grip on his neck tightening to the point where his instincts were starting to kick in, adrenaline raced down his muscles, it’d hurt more if he tried to run, but his body wanted to. Perversely, it also wanted to press him back against the broad chest flush with his shoulders, to grind against Loki.

He’d prayed to the Lord so many times to clear him of these thoughts. But he came back, he always came back. Even when he had to walk, humiliatingly, into the dining hall at the abbey, the eyes of all the monks on him, his abused body clenched tight against leaking, unable to clean up because they were running late–or because Loki just hadn’t given him permission to do so. The knowing looks burned like salt sprinkled on the shallow cuts of Loki’s riding crop on his back.

But every time Loki cocked an eyebrow at him, Dustin slunk back to his metaphorical bed–in the years that they had been doing this, there had only been a couple of times that they’d had anything so mundane as a bed. Hughian monks, bar the abbot, slept in a barracks like dormitory room. Some other orders gave their monks the privilege of cells, even if they were no more than a cot, clothes chest, and place to kneel and pray.

There had been the once that Valen had sent Loki and Dustin to Port Finessa to collect some materials for him, they’d stayed one night in an inn because the weather had taken a nasty turn and the one monastery that would have put them up for the night, the brothers were suffering from a nasty flux. A couple of overnights to the capital in Reme, where Albionese monks were not always welcome.

But even had a bed been available to them, Loki probably would have chosen the floor, or a bench, or table. Beds, Dustin figured, were for lovers–not whatever the hell he and Loki were–other than on a fast track to hell.

“You’re not attentive tonight, cher.” Loki pouted in his ear. It was pretty much the only Gaulish that Loki ever used and the closest to informal they ever were. It was like they couldn’t do this if Loki was calling him by his Wrightian name. He grabbed hold of the back of Dustin’s neck with those neat, even white teeth sinking in to a point that would leave a bruise. He hoped to Wright that it was some place that his tail would cover. The last time he had to wear a high necked undergarment for like a week for the bruises to fade. It wouldn’t do for the students to see a monk running around with bite marks and bruises on his neck.

Loki was getting worse about it, it was like something inside the other monk was slipping… But like Dustin had any room to talk. He was the one who let Loki fuck him open wide right there on the desk that Loki’d be teaching at come morning. He raised his hand and touched the lock of hair right above Loki’s temple. It was one of their signals that Dustin needed to talk to the other man.

He wondered if it would work. It didn’t always. But Loki stepped away, letting Dustin take a couple of hard breaths. “I’m sorry.”

Loki stepped closer, heavy lids half closed. “Don’t be sorry, just say whatever you need to babble about so we can get back to what we were doing.” He gave Dustin’s nipple a quick pinch/twist as if to remind him. As if he could forget. “I don’t have all night, someone’s bound to notice we’re gone, and I don’t feel like dealing with Valen’s slurring tonight and Baron Jayson in the morning.”

“The baron? Why are you seeing him?” Dustin blurted out without thinking.

“Are you jealous?” Loki asked with a sneer.

“No.” Dustin didn’t know why his voice trembled on it. He wasn’t jealous, in fact it would probably be better if Loki found some other playmate. (…Plaything…) Not that he would, at least not in Jayson of Carico, the baron would never submit to Loki, and Loki needed to be the undisputed alpha.

The sneer jumped up a notch, before melting into smirk that ended in a heavy lidded salacious smile. “I need to talk with him about Joshua.” Dustin bit his lip.

“Why?” He couldn’t have been acting up in class, Joshua hadn’t been in since the previous week.

“Because he’s been skipping class.” Loki told him, rolling his eyes.

“I thought he was ill, he hasn’t been in anyone’s classes.” Dustin offered. It was hard not to notice Joshua, even in a class full of young noblemen, he hardly blended in, there was something about his glossy ash blonde hair and cat swept slate eyes that made him stand out almost always.

“I had thought that myself, but according to what I heard from a little bird, whatever this mysterious illness is hasn’t stopped him from going to the tavern in the evening.” There was something about Loki’s expression that twisted Dustin’s stomach with both fear and lust. He ignored the lust for now.

“You do know what will happen if you talk with the baron, Loki.”

“Oh, how sweet.” Loki simpered. “You’re worried for poor Joshua. If you have the time for that, cher, I guess I’ll have to take it off your hands.” The other man pulled Dustin into a crushing grip, forcing his mouth onto Dustin’s and smothering any protests with his mouth and tongue. Leaving Dustin with nothing to do but scrabble at his back and tip his head to give Loki the angle he needed to steal all of Dustin’s air entirely.

When he was breathless and shaking with reaction, Loki struck again, forcing him to the floor, pinning him in place. He felt the other man’s spit slide between his cheeks before being forced open with careless disregard for the state of Dustin’s internal organs.

—

Darid 27th, 1513 – Carico estate, River Sulis, Lothianshire, Albion

Josh’s hand shook as he reached for the library door.  Dorine had had that almost expressionless, sympathetic look on her face when she had tapped on his bedroom door to tell him that his lord father wished to speak with him in the library. It told Josh all he needed to know. He’d been caught, there was nothing to do but face up to the music. But that didn’t stop him from wishing that he could do anything but go into the library and speak with his father.

But Jayson was not one to be kept waiting and so Josh pushed the door open. His father was sitting at one of the tables reading a book. He looked up when Josh entered, glanced one last time at the page and shut the book with a soft thud.

“Have a seat, Joshua.” Jayson’s voice was as clear, icy, and even as if he were giving a speech. Josh wasn’t fooled, but he walked to one of the chairs by the fireplace, unlit logs sitting on the andirons at the moment, the fire wasn’t needed and given all of the books in the room, if it wasn’t needed, it wasn’t kept lit. He slipped into the chair and stared at the carvings on the fireplace.

He heard his father put his book away, then his firm footfalls as he walked to the other chair and sank into it with an easy grace that always made Josh feel like a lumbering behemoth. Jayson smoothed his tunic and looked at Josh with what was ostensibly disinterested curiosity.

“I’ve had a most interesting conversation with Brother Loki at the Academy, Joshua.” Jayson began, pinning him in place with a glare that practically dared Josh to squirm. He didn’t and Jayson continued. “He tells me that you’ve been skipping your classes this week. Is there a reason for that?”

It sounded so reasonable, so like if Josh would just explain then this could all go away. It wouldn’t and so Josh worked up enough spit to say “Not really.” If Josh had cared to inform his father about why he was skipping class–well–he wouldn’t have been in the situation that lead him to skip class in the first place.

No, he really didn’t want to tell his father about Philipa’s drug problem or all the money that she owed some thug in a stylish suit. He didn’t want to tell him about how he had gone to talk with said thug when Philipa told him that Marcinak was pressing her to steal some trial information from her father so that he could set his lackeys to intimidating the jury in a case against one of Marcinak’s lieutenants.

Philipa would never have gotten into her father’s office to steal that information. Either Marcinak didn’t understand that–or he was trying to set her up somehow. Josh didn’t know. Although that wasn’t really the reason that Josh had been skipping class this week. Sure, walking through the halls with a face as worked over as his had been would have been more attention than Josh would have wanted, but not all of it would have been negative.

No, it had more to do with where he sat than what his face looked like. Josh felt like he owed Darin some sort of an answer for all the crap he’d put the other boy through the other night and Josh didn’t have one. And somehow, even having run over in his head what was likely to happen to him if he did cut class–Josh didn’t have any hope that he would have been able to get away with doing it–he couldn’t go sit in those classrooms right next to Darin and not be able to tell him something.

You don’t just kiss a man and go on with your life as if nothing happened. Josh had a tough enough time with the idea of kissing a girl and going on with his life like it hadn’t happened. No, Darin’s willingness to let it go or not, he deserved an explanation and Josh didn’t want to face him until he had one.

Seeing as he couldn’t come up with a reason why he kissed him and his mind just wouldn’t let go of the fact that he had, the only thing he could do was avoid Darin, which considering he sat next to him in most of their classes, wasn’t all that easy to do. At least without skipping school.

And if telling Jayson about Philipa was out of the question, telling his father that he’d randomly kissed a man for no apparent good reason was a whole other universe of something altogether.

“I see.” Jayson said, folding his hands. “Joshua, what am I going to do with you? One of these days you are going to have to think about what you’re doing. You will be a baron one day and do you think that the other noblemen are just going to shrug or throw their hands up if you continue to act without thinking.” He paused as if collecting his thoughts.

“Has it occurred to you, Joshua, that having an ineffectual lord in this town is simply asking Reme to attempt to take it back? And do you really think that you would survive it if they did? And what might happen to your mother? Your sister? if that happened?” Jayson sighed but it didn’t cover the sound of the door closing.

Josh’s spine tingled, knowing there were eyes on his back. He knew exactly who was watching him, but Josh knew enough to know you didn’t take your eyes off Jayson, the other wouldn’t make a move until Jayson loosed his reins.

“Ah, Cox, right on time.” Jayson said with a half smile. Josh heard the sound of cloth rustling and felt his throat go drier if that was even possible.

And just a moment later, at the corner of his vision, Cox appeared. As Josh had suspected, he’d shed his coat and waistcoat, Madame Cox refused to even send his clothing to the laundress if he had blood on it. Blood, she had apparently told him, was not part of his job description and cleaning it up was not at all part of her job description. If he was going to get his clothing bloody, he could make sure that it got clean too.

“I am just trying to make you think, son.” Jayson said before standing. “I’m sure you understand.” Josh said nothing, nor did Cox. The library door shut with a soft click that might as well have been the ponderous thud of a stone crypt door.

Josh said nothing, just got out of his chair, no reason to make more work for the parlor maids and walked over to the empty space next to the door. Cox followed and Josh turned, his lips turned faintly up at the corners because you didn’t show fear to a mad dog.

That was the last coherent thought that went through his mind before he doubled over the wind knocked clear out of him.

His last thought at all was how brightly the light seemed to catch Cox’s wedding band right before the fist it was wrapped around caught his chin and all he saw was black.

—

The library was dark except the light of a single candle when Josh came to himself, curled up on one side, blood puddled under his cheek. The hem of a something fluttered near him, neat slippers stopped just a fingers-width from the blood.

“Bet?” He pushed the rough croak out of his desert-dry throat.

“Well,” She said, voice sounding on the edge of tears. “It’s not the queen.” He tried to chuckle–it hurt. The cold stone floor had leeched all the heat from his body and seemed to make every bruise protest that much more as he slowly pushed up into a sitting position and then even more slowly got to his feet. He could barely stay on them starting to tumble back to the floor when Elizabet caught him. How her small, almost frail body managed to keep him even a little upright amazed him.

“I got you.” She whispered in his ear. “I got you.”