Pale Lights

Chapter 53

Mistakes had been made.

“A satyrian, Lady Angharad!” Cleon Eirenos exclaimed for the fourth time, eyes bright as stars. “Between that and the robbers, it was an encounter worthy of song.”

She hadn’t even killed the thing, she mutinously thought. So why was half of Chalcia convinced she had saved them from being murdered in the night by a tower-sized satyrian leading an army of lupines? A few of them had cheered her at breakfast, this was the opposite of spycraft! And she knew the source of it all, too. When she came down for porridge Mistress Katina had winked at her and loudly refused to be paid the second half of the travel fee because ‘saved my life, you did’.

While Angharad suspected the old woman had been trying to do her a good turn, the rumors spawned by whatever she said the previous night had swiftly got out of hand. While it was true satyrians were clever enough to use tools and open gates, they rarely attacked towns and certainly did not raise massive packs of lemures to do so. Chalcia was safe: it was a walledtown, with an informal militia guarding it. A fact that Angharad knew for certain because its captain had come to shake her hand.

Apparently by the second wave of retelling the highwaymen had been decided to be working with the lemures. These vile traitors were, Angharad was informed, plotting to destroy the town with the satyrian’s help so they might loot it afterwards.

It had been too much to hope for that these wild tales would not reach the Eirenos manor, and sure enough Lord Cleon himself came riding with the carriage having already drunk deep of the nonsense. Like everyone in Chalcia, he seemed convinced that her protests about the significant exaggerations were a mark of humility instead of Angharad stating the bloody facts.

As the alternative was a slow, infuriating descent into frothing madness Angharad instead grasped for anything at all that might change the nature of her conversation with the lordling riding besides her carriage. The Eirenos estate was not enormous but neither was it small, and barely half an hour out of Chalcia they had passed its boundary stones. The private road to the manor was in much better state than the one she had suffered over the last few days, which she complimented him on. He demurred in accepting her words.

“When Minister Floros was still regent, she passed a decree that every estate must maintain a road finely enough that the tax collectors could reach the manor within,” Lord Cleon told her. “Else a most unpleasant fine will be inflicted on the owning household.”

Clever of Lady Floros, Angharad thought. A ruler telling a noble household how to rule their own lands was sure to be met with resistance and rebellion, but to coach it in terms of tax collectors being able to reach said household would make any defying such a decree sound like they were avoiding paying their taxes instead or fighting to preserve their privileges.

A shame this cleverness had not also been put to work turning the roads of Tratheke Valley into something less deserving of indignation.

It was a pleasant enough trip to the estate chatting with an eager Lord Cleon, until they were past the outskirts and approached a small cluster of hills. Up a shallow slope, past the rise of the largest hilltop, finally waited the Eirenos manor.

It had a long, lime-white rectangular façade with a slightly angled red tile roof, and though it was not particularly large Angharad thought the row of large glass windows on the second story more than made up for it. Twin stairs – with a small passage between them slipping below and to the back the of the manor - went up to a triad of plaster arches bordering an open vestibule. There were shuttered windows on either side, and further out on the estate another two buildings. A guesthouse, Angharad decided, and some sort of annex.

The grounds were more impressive, a large pond flecked with slender reeds out front and a garden in the Asphodelian fashion spreading out in every direction: a mere step away from being wild, loosely paved paths winding through groves of orange and lemon trees as silver-leafed shrubs and long grass grew in clusters. Near the guesthouse, to the side of the manor, was a manmade clearing ringed by trees bearing yet-unlit lanterns, long tables already set in anticipation of the reception tomorrow. There was even a stone floor in the center for dancing.

Lord Cleon rode ahead, to make room for his coach, and Angharad saw through the gap in the drapes that on the front stairs waited a handful of servants in dark green livery. One of them bowed to the lordling and took away his horse after he dismounted, leading it around the back. As the coach began to slow, she watched the young lord be fussed over by a… sister? No, she corrected as the coach closed the distance. The fair-haired beauty embarrassing Cleon Eirenos, despite her youthful looks, wore too fine a dress to be anyone but his mother.

Angharad had not met many women taller than her since leaving Malan, but Lady Penelope Eirenos came close – and wore that height rather differently. Hair of red gold, wavy and so long it must reach down to the small of her back, crowned an elegant face with seductive lips and vivid green eyes. The hourglass figure barely contained by a loose pale blue gown had Angharad struggling not to stare, disbelieving that Lady Penelope was old enough to have a son. She looked barely thirty.

No wonder Lord Artemon had bought a herd of horses. Angharad might also be tempted to the unwise to put a smile on such a beauty’s face.

The coach came to a halt, and after the door was opened for her she was welcomed in a whirl of attention. Lord Cleon introduced the eldest of his servants, though none were named majordomo, and then pulled his mother away from giving orders to introduce her properly. Her beauty grew all the more dangerous from closeness, the slight marks of aging that Angharad now noticed – subtle laugh lines and wrinkles – only adding a certain undertone of maturity to the curves and smiled.

“My mother, Lady Penelope,” Cleon introduced.

“It is a pleasing to finally meet you, Lady Angharad,” Lady Penelope smiled.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Angharad assured her.

She had restraint enough not to seek to kiss her hand, trading curtsies instead. Lady Penelope had arranged refreshments, and while her luggage was brought upstairs she sat for lemon water and small talk. It was inevitable, of course, that questions would be asked about the run-in with the lemures and the poachers. Angharad did her best to dispel the rumors, with some degree of success.

“It is still quite the feat to drive off a band of poachers then escape a satyrian and his hunting pack,” Lady Penelope said.

Her gown wasn’t even all that revealing, Angharad reminded herself. It mere drew the eye to the slim waist and the contrasting curves around it.

“If Mistress Katina had not scared off the third poacher, I expect it would have gone quite differently,” she replied. “If we had still been skirmishing when the satyrian arrived…”

“I’m sure you would have found a way,” Lord Cleon firmly said. “Your heroics made a strong impression on the people of Chalcia.”

He shot a look at his mother after the words, the moment that passed between them hard for her to decipher. Lady Penelope, after the refreshments were well emptied, suggested that Angharad be given a tour of the manor’s surroundings. She accepted, naturally. Much of what she had come here to accomplish must be through talk with Cleon Eirenos, and a walk was fine enough setting for that.

Lord Cleon was eager to show her the grounds, though he took care that his enthusiasm would not go beyond what her limp allowed. He kept an eye on her stride, a hawk for signs of pain or exhaustion, and Angharad could not quite decide whether she was irritated or impressed. Regardless, it was gallant.

Cleon was not the kind of man she would consider handsome. His shorter stature and wisps of a mustache did not help. Yet he seemed to her a lord of respectable character and his conversation was engaging as he guided her through the garden around the manor, though she glimpsed through his affected calm the occasional burst of nerves.

She suspected he had rehearsed some topics, too, given the almost literary turns of phrase he occasionally used.

After an hour, in deference to her tiredness he suggested they retire to the manor for a time so they she might rest before he took her to hunt quail in the nearby woods. There had, to her mild frustration, been little opportunity for her to ask about what she had come to investigate. Patience, she reminder herself. Lord Cleon was younger than her, by a year, but he was no fool. She must not be suspicious in her questioning.

A room had been prepared for her on the highest story of the house, along with Lord Cleon’s own and that of Lady Penelope, and Angharad’s affairs had already been brought up. She napped for an hour, as offered, and had a small midday meal with the Eirenos.

Lord Cleon had dressed for the woods and ate carefully, constantly looking her way as if afraid that some small breach of etiquette would sour her on him, while Lady Penelope eyed the scene with open amusement. The beauty languorously ate orange slices, the light come through the window catching her mane of hair and wreathing her in gold. Her pale blue gown, cut in that Asphodelian way that evoked ancient chitons, should have been loose but was too filled by a splendid figure for it to be so.

It was an effort not to stare at those elegant fingers as she ate her meal, leaving most of the conversation to Lord Cleon as she observed them.

They went hunting afterwards, she in her traveling clothes and he attired like a proper woodsman. Angharad was no great huntress, but she knew how to use a fowler and Lord Cleon assured her the quails in the nearby woods made for easy hunting. The manor raised some of them in captivity before releasing them, to weaken the breed. The young lord offered to carry her gun, but she tucked it under her arm instead.

Within the turn of the hour he’d twice startled a quail into flight and snapped a shot that downed it, while her own struggles were… mixed. She caught a wing, once, but honesty compelled her to admit it had been pure chance. She’d simply never had to line up a shot so quickly, or on so small a target.

Angharad was not used to being unskilled and must not have hidden her frustration as well as she thought.

“New to fowlers, I take it?” Lord Cleon said.

“My father was a fine huntsman, but I never took a deep interest,” she admitted.

Mother had dabbled, but she’d always said that if she was to head out and kill an animal it might as well be a whale so the profit would be greater than a pot of stew.

“I imagine the sword took up much of your time,” he said.

Angharad shot him a surprised look. She had never spoken of being a mirror-dancer in Tratheke society.

“I asked a well-travelled cousin about your silver marks,” Lord Cleon admitted. “I apologize if you feel it untoward of me.”

“It is nothing hidden, the stripes are meant to be seen,” Angharad assured him. “It is only…”

She hesitated, looking for a sentence that would be neither a lie not too revealing a truth.

“I understand,” he grimaced. “The cane took the place of the sword.”

“Something like that,” Angharad precisely replied.

“In the interests of honesty,” Lord Cleon said, “I followed advice and also asked one of the royal sniffers as to whether or now a god endowed you with contract. I was informed that you were, though I know nothing more of the matter.”

She gritted her teeth, but curtly nodded. It was not an unreasonable precaution when inviting a foreign noble into your home. Indeed, it was to his honor that he would so straightforwardly tell her of it.

“Such knowledge can be asked for?” she said, surprised.

“If you ask coin in hand,” he said.

Angharad felt a silver of contempt. Not for Lord Cleon but the contractor taking bribes for secrets even when in the service of the Lord Rector of Asphodel. Sniffers were rare and valuable enough even the lesser of their kind would be able to take such liberties, which spoke well of Song. She was anything but the least of such contracts, yet held discretion as a virtue. Almost to a fault.

“I am contracted myself,” Lord Cleon continued. “It is a strange thing, to hold a god so close.”

Angharad raised an eyebrow. Not how she would have described it, but then she feared the Fisher as much as she respected his power. Closeness was not something she sought from that old monster.

“How so?”

“They see our weaknesses,” he said, “but in such a tight embrace it is inevitable we might glimpse theirs as well.”

The Fisher, Angharad thought, was the last entity she would associate with weakness. It abhorred the concept, and even as a diminished prisoner the great spirit remained a fearsome thing.

“I prefer to keep mine at arm’s length,” Angharad admitted. “We do not often see eye to eye.”

“I can sympathize,” Lord Cleon nodded. “Mine grew… odd, as time passed. Harsher, even as the granted boon thinned. I might not make the same choice now I did then.”

“Oh, mine thins not at all,” Angharad murmured. “Sometimes I worry of that.”

They left it at that, neither inclined to speak more in depth of their contract. Angharad knew, of course, of his. Song had skimmed his contract and told her of it. She felt guilt at that, but a shallow sort. He, too, had asked a sniffer about her. Angharad’s was simply the finer of the two.

They pushed deeper into the woods, Lord Cleon taking the time to show her how to more quickly snap a shot, and as the topic was on hunting she guided the river where she needed it to flow. First as to the many hunting grounds to which the Eirenos had rights, and his own experience with them. Then to what she wanted to know.

“I am told that the lictors patrol the valley in depth, now that there has been some trouble in the hills,” Angharad innocently said. “Do they not scare off the game when you take the field?”

He hummed, wiggling his hand.

“Most of the patrol routes have been the same since my father’s youth,” Cleon told her. “They do not change, and none come anywhere close to our hunting grounds. But there have been a few changes in the last few years, it is true.”

He frowned.

“The Lord Rector – it only began after Evander Palliades took the throne – claims the new expeditions are to drive back lemures, but before that mischief began in the hills there was no true need for that,” he said. “There has long been rumors that arms are being smuggled into Tratheke, so I have wondered if it might not be an attempt to catch the smugglers.”

“Smuggling from where?” Angharad said, as if disbelieving.

“The western hills, near the mountains,” he said. “That is where they stomp around most. It’s not done wonders for stag hunts in that slice of land, but it was always better out east anyhow. No great loss, though it sometimes has me thinking of selling our lodge out there.”

She considered, for a moment, telling him of the blackpowder and arms she had found in the wrecked carriage where the poachers had waited. Yet, weighing the matter, it seemed like there was little to learn by telling him. More importantly, it might be she had narrowed down where the entrance to the shipyards might be hidden: out in the western hills, near the mountains.

Not exactly a small stretch of land, but knowing that Eirenos lodge there was close enough to the patrols for hunting to be affected should help narrow it down.

Having learned as much without need for true skullduggery pleased her greatly, lifting her mood on the way back to the manor visibly enough Lord Cleon almost commented on it. He thought better, though, and instead began to tell her of the feast he was to throw the following evening.

“It will be mostly families from our part of Tratheke Valley,” Cleon said. “The Pisenor, the Saon and the Iphine foremost among them. From further out there will be only Lord Arkol, who did business with my father, and Lord Gule who was kind enough to accept my invitation.”

Angharad blinked in genuine surprise.

“The ambassador from Malan?” she checked.

Cleon seriously nodded.

“He has been a benefactor and something of a mentor, these last few years,” the young lord said. “I am pleased he was able to spare the time, given his duties.”

“Ah,” Angharad said. “That shipyard business, yes?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Lord Cleon inclined his head.

“What the Kingdom of Malan wants with skimmers I know not, given their lauded ironwood, but I suppose everyone wants a piece of the Lord Rector’s pie these days.”

He paused.

“Good on him,” the younger man feelingly said. “Minister Floros can play the paragon all she likes, the lords of the valley know better.”

Angharad’s brow rose.

“I must admit I have heard little but compliments of Apollonia Floros’ character,” she said.

Even the Lord Rector seemed to respect her, according to Song, and they were sworn enemies.

“Oh, I’m sure she’d rather die than dirty even the least of her handkerchiefs,” Lord Cleon sardonically said. “Honorable to a fault, Apollonia Floros. So much that the very day the regency ended she withdrew all her troops from the capital and dismissed all her vassals and allies from positions of power.”

Angharad’s eyes narrowed. An honorable act, yes, yet…

“How many such appointments were there?”

Honor could be a knife, a daughter of Peredur well knew. Cleon grinned unpleasantly.

“Near every key post in the capital and valley,” he replied, and she winced. “And she had been resisting building back the lictors for years, volunteering her own men to patrol instead to raise the crown’s income. So when she pulled everyone out…”

“Chaos,” Angharad quietly said.

As if most the officers on a ship died overnight, leaving it to drift aimless and angry.

“The Lord Rector spent the first year of his reign struggling not to drown in that mess,” Cleon said. “And when the man proved his mettle, kept his head above the water, what was said?”

He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Praises for Minister Floros, at having taught him so well,” he scorned. “As if she had not just set a fire and watched with her hands in her lap as he fought to put it out.”

“Such disorder must not have endeared her to the valley lords,” Angharad ventured.

“It is good of you to think so,” Lord Cleon coldly laughed. “But you think too well of my fellows. Sleeping in a viper pit for too long has a way of making one grow scales. Apollonia Floros was firm and just and most importantly of all she ruthlessly ground the Trade Assembly beneath her boot.”

“While the Lord Rector has pursued a more… measured policy,” she delicately said.

Meaning he was not powerful enough to grind anyone under his boots and needed the Assembly’s support against the Council of Ministers besides. Lord Cleon nodded.

“I understand that in Malan honor is greatly prized,” he delicately said, “but most of my fellow lords prefer profit to principle. Even those with fine reputations. I would not have-”

And suddenly he hesitated.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He coughed.

“I understand that Lord Menander is something of a patron of yours,” Cleon said.

Angharad cocked her head to the side.

“While we are acquainted, and it was arranged for him to introduce me into Tratheke society, I do not consider him close to me,” she said. “We are not overly familiar.”

He searched her face for a moment, then nodded sharply.

“Good,” he muttered, then his voice firmed. “Good. Menander Drakos likes to act like the court’s kind grandfather, a man who takes no sides, but he is as ruthless as the rest of them.”

His lips thinned.

“My father, you might have heard, once tried to begin rearing horses.”

“I had,” Angharad cautiously said.

“Then you will also have heard it was a fool’s venture that nearly bankrupted our house,” Cleon said. “Lord Menander was the one who helped him obtain the horses, negotiating on his behalf, so he knew exactly how deep the debt ran and what our means were.”

The young lord clenched his teeth.

“And when the interest payments began to pile up, he slid in with his snake’s offer,” Cleon said. “There could be no loan, but oh he did love antiquities. And House Eirenos could buy them back when they had the means, he swore.”

Angharad’s eyes sharpened. That sounded exactly like what Song had tasked her with finding out.

“He bought house treasures,” she said.

“Gobbled them up like a pig at the trough,” Cleon bit out. “Always hungry for more. My family was granted treasures by the Lissenos, Lady Angharad, over our century of service to that line. Now they serve as adornments in his many manors instead. The man bought up everything he could, from paintings to papers.”

“He bought the whole collection?” Angharad asked.

The young man snorted.

“We’ve some correspondence in the annex safe still, I think, along with some statues,” he said. “Only dregs remain.”

The annex, was it? That was where she must look for what Song wanted. Tomorrow, Angharad thought, during the reception. It should not be difficult to feign exhaustion and sneak off. It could also be true, she reflected, that the desired information might now be in the hands of Menander Drakos. Bought years ago. In truth that might be best for the Thirteenth. Lord Menander knew of the Watch investigation and might well accept a request from Song.

“You have righted your house,” Angharad said. “Can you not buy them back as he promised?”

“He has been putting me off,” Lord Cleon darkly replied. “I thought to take this to the Lord Rector, but I was advised otherwise by Lord Gule. There are other recourses, he showed me, which would not bring shame to my father’s name.”

Sensible. Lord Gule was induna by birth, he would understand better than most the necessity of maintaining one’s name.

“But let’s leave that grim talk behind,” he said. “Come, let us find out if you can bag a quail on the way back.”

Alas, though many a tree branch suffered her wrath the birds all neatly escaped.

--

After a small evening meal and drinks in the garden, Lord Cleon retired for the night.

He apologized twice for it, but he was to rise early on the morrow and could not afford to be exhausted when receiving so many noble guests. Angharad waved all apologies away, perfectly understanding the necessity, though she requested a pot of tea so she might enjoy the quiet of the darkened garden for a span before retiring to her own rooms.

It was a little embarrassing how eager he was to accommodate her.

Night on Asphodel was different, so far from Tratheke. It felt like a true land again, with the distant pale stars and wind in her hair. The only lights still left on were a few lamps inside the manor, mostly around the kitchen, and strangely enough candles at the upper window of what Angharad believed to be some sort of annex. Hopefully it was not lit every night, else it would make sneaking there on the morrow significantly more difficult.

She had mostly finished her tea and it was beginning to run late when a maid returned to her table. Not, as Angharad had expected, to take away the pot and make inquiries as to bedding. She was bringing an invitation.

“Lady Penelope would speak with you in her parlor, if you are not too tired,” the girl said.

Far be it from her to deny the whim of such a beauty. Besides, Angharad suspected she knew what this was about. After having observed them over the day, Lady Penelope was now to either approve or disapprove of her as a prospect for her son. Disapprove, most likely, but that was only sensible. Angharad would not have wanted to wed herself, in their shoes.

A valet took her, leading her across the grass with a lantern until they reached the dark silhouette of the building.

Angharad had half-guessed the inside of the annex to be little more than a warehouse, but she had been wrong. There were wooden floors and hung tapestries, a single lantern lit and revealing shelves of dusty curios. Wrapped paintings were propped up against walls, to safeguard from vermin and the elements. The floors here were swept, but not well. This main room was too small to be the whole of it, and there were side doors hinting at the space being partitioned, but that was not where she was headed.

At the back of the room narrow stairs went up to the second story, where waited the candles she had glimpsed.

She sighed at the thought of more stairs to suffer, but limped onwards. The thick, iron-barded door at the end of the stairs was open. Through it, the noblewoman found a room that was halfway between the promised parlor and a gallery.

Half the den was crammed full of statues, bronze and stone, that went from simple busts to a large marble piece depicting a boy-child riding a swan. A few shelves of ancient, carefully tended books were tucked away against the wall while below them glass cases with iron honeycombing displayed empty wombs in the trembling candlelight. The precious pieces once filling them must all have been bought.

There was a heavy steel safe with two different locks, resting in a corner, and Angharad took note of it. Her short lesson on lockpicking would be of no use here, which meant she must find the keys.

The other half of the room was a lady’s parlor, wrested from the gallery. A wooden writing desk had been brought up and displayed some correspondence, but the heart of it all was a lushly carpeted salon with two elegant love seats flanking an oval low table. A small dressing table with a mirror also bore a handful of books, and to the side lay an elegant little loom which did not seem to have been used in quite some time.

Lady Penelope sat on a love seat, a cup of wine in hand, and Angharad swallowed at the sight: she wore only a pale embroidered nightgown, baring shoulders and drawing the eye to the generous swell of her breasts. A simple leather cord hung as a necklace, bearing two small iron pieces tucked away in her cleavage. Keys, Angharad thought. She let her eyes linger there an additional half-second to make certain that was truly what they were.

Well, that was one of the reasons.

“Lady Angharad,” the lady of the house smiled, resting her elbow on the arm of the seat. “I am pleased you could join me. Do sit.”

Angharad did, and the older woman poured her a cup of wine before leaning over to press it into her hand. She dutifully took a sip, then almost choked.

“Valley wine,” Lady Penelope slyly smiled. “Rarely great vintages, but surprisingly strong.”

“So I see,” Angharad said, then coughed into her fist.

Not something to drink too quickly.

“An evening conversation like this,” the fair-haired beauty said, “is how I should make inquiries into your background, Lady Angharad.”

The Pereduri sipped again at her cup, more shallowly this time.

“Implying you will not,” she finally said.

“There would be no point,” Lady Penelope said, “when you are about as interested in my son as you are in statuary.”

She hid her surprise.

“Lord Cleon is a skilled huntsman and a fine conversationalist,” Angharad mildly said.

“He also has a few years of growing left to do before inheriting the best his father’s looks,” Lady Penelope said, then paused. “You also occasionally look at me as if intending to devour.”

Angharad flushed in mortification, straightening on the loveseat.

“I meant no offense, my lady,” she said. “I only-”

The tall beauty waved her words away.

“It’s quite flattering, really,” Lady Penelope said. “And when I told our maid Elena to dip her neckline when serving you at midday you did not look, so you do not appear to be a philanderer.”

Angharad might have taken that as a compliment, had she at all recalled such a thing. She did not, but then that meal had been a balancing act of listening to Lord Cleon and not staring at his lovely mother’s graceful fingers.

“I do not consider myself one,” Angharad choked out.

Lady Penelope arched an amused brow. It was unfairly seductive on her.

“Neither does it appear you paid Katina to make a stir on your behalf, which dispels my first concern about you,” the lady said. “Given your character and obvious good breeding, you did not come here to take advantage of my son being taken with you.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Had I seen you string him along today, we would be having a very different conversation.”

Angharad silently nodded. It was almost a shame that Lady Penelope’s expression softened after that. The tall older woman looking at her so imperiously had… not been unpleasant.

“I imagine turning away your first friendly face at court would have been difficult, even suspecting his intentions,” Lady Penelope said, not unkindly. “You must understand, however, that no matter sympathetic I am to your position I cannot leave him with even the illusion that pursuing you is possible.”

“It would be unkind to him,” Angharad quietly agreed.

The lady drank deep of her cup, then set it down.

“Good,” the older woman said. “Good.”

She sighed.

“I failed him, after my husband died,” Lady Penelope said. “Watched as he broke his own heart selling Lord Menander those old papers the man is so obsessed with. I will not see him so wounded again.”

“Lord Menander has an interest in papers?” Angharad said with forced casualness. “From Lord Cleon’s depiction of the tale, I thought him more concerned with artifacts.”

“Oh, he always put on a good show about wanting the jewels and the rings,” Lady Penelope snorted. “But I could tell what it was he was really after – papers from the days of the Lissenos, old land deeds and maps. He paid a fortune for them.”

Now why, Angharad thought, would Menander Drakos be so interested in these? Enough to pay good coin for them, anyhow. Something was afoot.

“Drink,” Lady Penelope ordered her.

Angharad drank.

“I will be telling Cleon,” she said, “that after having made inquiries into your background, while I do not find you personally unfit there is unpleasantness to your family name that makes you unsuitable.”

She paused.

“That will wait until you have left, the day after tomorrow. By all means you should enjoy your stay here, Lady Angharad, but do not accept an invitation to the manor again. Keep a respectable distance.”

The Pereduri silently nodded, for these were fine enough terms. In truth this might be the best way to cleanly end her ties to Lord Cleon, though for the kindness he had offered her she would attempt to find a way to repay him.

“I will take my leave, then,” Angharad said. “Thank you for your forbearance, Lady Eirenos.”

“Oh, finish your drink,” Lady Penelope sighed. “Or am I such terrible company you would prefer risking the servants talk when you emerge after a mere minute or two? I am supposed to be interrogating you.”

“I would never dare offer you such slight, my lady,” Angharad replied, inclining her head.

She had not drunk enough to excuse how flirtatious that had sounded. Yet instead of an arched brow, Angharad was graced with a smirk.

“I thought not,” Lady Penelope said.

Angharad was not one to refuse a beautiful woman curious about her, so she soon found herself skimming over the top of how she had been raised in Peredur – Lady Penelope complimenting the stripes when shown, and trailing a finger to see how the tattoo felt to the touch – as well a painting a picture of the cities she had visited on the path that eventually led her to Asphodel.

It was difficult for Angharad to consider herself well travelled, given whom her mother had been, but her tales about the ports on the way to Sacromonte garnered eager interest for Lady Penelope. The older woman seemed almost wistful when the City was mentioned, mentioning her parents had once intended to take her there for a span but that a sickness of her mother’s had prevented the journey.

When Angharad next eyed the candle, she realized that at least half an hour had passed and she was well into her second cup of wine. Hardly even tipsy, but there was a certain warmth to her cheeks that came in part from the drink.

“Never, truly?” she asked.

Lady Penelope sighed, leaning on her love seat and looking like a painter’s finest rendition of beauty of lush beauty.

“There was no true cause for me to leave Asphodel as a girl,” she said, “and I married Artemon at seventeen. I was pregnant within the year, and after that the troubles put an end to any notion of traveling abroad."

"You could now, surely,” Angharad suggested. “Sacromonte is not so far by ship, and though it is a fading kind of splendor it is still a splendid city.”

Not that Tristan would agree. The man took a queer pride in hating the city of his birth more than most foreigners did.

“When my son is wed, perhaps,” Lady Penelope said. “I must confess that staying out here in the valley sometimes feels… confining.”

“I felt the same in Peredur,” Angharad said. “It was one of the reasons I so embraced the dueling circuit.”

Penelope chuckled, sliding a finger along the rim of her cup.

“You must think me hopelessly provincial,” she said. “Wed young and then buried in the country.”

“I was to be a country peer myself,” Angharad dismissed. “How could I look down on such a life?”

“Well,” Lady Penelope idly said, “I did live a little, before marrying.”

Angharad swallowed.

“Oh?”

“There are risks to dallying with a boy before one weds, but with a girl…” she trailed off. “Well, I learned a thing or two before being swept off my feet.”

An electric tingle went up her spine.

“Enjoyable learning, one hopes?” Angharad lightly said.

“Very,” Lady Penelope smirked, a sight that had her stomach clenching with want. “And I am not so old a widow, Angharad, that I have never thought of taking a lover.”

“It would be a genuine shame,” she replied, “if you did not.”

“The issue has always been one of timing and discretion,” the lady continued, pushing herself up to rest her elbow on the side of the seat.

It did not feel like a coincidence that this flattering pushed up the frame of her nightgown.

“I will be leaving the day after tomorrow,” Angharad said. “Never to return.”

Lady Penelope cocked her head to the side.

“So you are,” she replied.

She said nothing more.

It was madness, Angharad thought. Thoroughly unwise. But then she watched Penelope Eirenos sitting on that loveseat in that pale nightgown clinging to her curves, looking like a present in need of unwrapping, and madness struck her as the only reasonable course.

The moment the decision was made she shed the last of the blushes, instead smirking back at Lady Penelope. This, she knew how to do.

“It would be a shame,” she said, rising with her cane. “To end your education at a mere thing or two.”

She went around the table, green and heavy-lidded eyes following her as she did, before sliding next to her on the love seat. The cane was discarded, ignored, and even as Penelope’s hands went to feel up her arm and shoulder she leaned over the other woman. Flushed cheeks and bitable lips, all looking up at her with only the thinnest veneer of calm.

Angharad did exactly what she had been accused of wanting: she devoured Lady Penelope.

A surprised moan as she deepened the kiss, hands attempting to draw her in until she withdrew and dipped to nip at Penelope’s neck – she felt her shiver, kissing her way down to the shoulder as another hand trailed down the side of the nightgown until she found the bare skin of her legs.

“Angharad,” she gasped as her neck was nipped again, just enough it would not leave marks. “I-”

She silenced Lady Penelope with another kiss, heated enough their teeth almost clicked, and while the older woman pawed at her shoulders Angharad moved to slide a knee between her legs. Not yet slid all the way up, taking her time. She made a mess of the older woman, pulling down the nightgown to paw at those firm and rounded curves, to thumb her nipples and watch her squirm. Angharad’s hands ran up her bare legs under the nightdress, finding that the peach of her ass was exactly as full as the gowns had hinted – she almost groaned, the need to pull that dress off her an almost physical thing.

But she forced herself to patience, to taking her time as Penelope moaned and flushed red and nearly tore the strings of Angharad’s traveling dress getting her out of it. The widow’s eyes burned at the sight of her own figure finally bared, groping for her breasts, but Angharad caught those wrists and pressed them above her head even though she ached for attention.

Instead she knelt before Penelope, pulling the nightgown’s hem up to her waist and opening those long, smooth legs. She pressed a kiss against her thigh, then another few further and further up until the gorgeous widow’s hand in her hair was trying to drag her all the way between her legs. She shot up an amused look, hands keeping those thighs open and in place.

“Do pay attention,” Angharad said. “After I’ve shown you a new trick, I will be expecting a demonstration.”

Lady Penelope nodded, biting her lip, and Angharad leaned forward.

It was for the best the window was closed, for little of what followed was quiet.

--

The warmth of another body pressed close against hers was satisfying, something she had missed without knowing it.

All the more when Angharad’s gaze could stray down the curve of Penelope’s slender neck to her bare body, the blanket they had taken to sharing when dozing off hardly covering a thing. Her lover’s breath was deep, steady. In the throes of sleep. Much as she would prefer to simply enjoy the other woman’s embrace, she had a duty.

So Angharad closed her eyes and breathed in.

First she slowly, gently reached for the leather necklace bearing the keys. She caught the iron pieces and held them as she lifted the necklace off Penelope’s neck, but quickly realized there would be no passing it through those beautiful gold-red curls without waking her. So instead she carefully slipped out, bit by bit as not to wake Penelope, and padded over to the writing desk. There, standing on wobbly legs, she found a letter opener and returned to the love seat.

She cut the rope and lifted the necklace, waiting to see if Penelope would rise from slumber. She did not.

The letter opener returned to the desk, where she had found it, and move to the safe. The keys were small, small enough that she could hope the locks were not large either and so would not be noisy. That proved true of the first she opened, a barely audible click, but the second felt stronger against her grip when she turned.

Looking back at the sleeping Penelope, who the fading candlelight of the last candles lapped at hungrily – unless that was Angharad’s own gaze, which while sated still craved more. There was a snippet of guilt, but more of worry.

She covered the second lock as best she could with her palm to muffle the noise and turned the key.

It felt like a cacophony, so loud as to be deafening, but it opened. Another worried look back showed that Penelope had stirred but did not seem awake. Angharad cracked open the safe’s door, finding it mostly empty save for two things. One was a pouch of jewels, which she left untouched. The other was a small pile of letters, each bearing the ancient seal of House Lissenos in the corner.

These she brought out in the candlelight, gaze skimming them one after another.

She had in her hands correspondence between Lord Rector Hector and his mistress ‘C. E.’, which was lovely and rather poetic but likely not what Song had wanted. Still, it must have some importance for it to be kept in the safe instead of on the bookshelf. Was ‘E.’ for Eirenos? Not for her to decide, Angharad mused, and simply looked through all the letters before putting them back.

Out of thoroughness she closed the steel door, and that must have been one noise too many.

“What are you doing?” Penelope Eirenos coldly asked.

She did not turn to look at the expression on her lover’s face, which was sure to be a harsh thing.

Instead she released her contract.

--

Angharad Tredegar opened her eyes and breathed out.

She slid out of Lady Penelope’s embrace, leaving her to her slumber, and dressed before slipping out of the parlor. She fancied she felt the other woman’s sleepy gaze on her back as she left, retiring to her room in the manor. Not that Angharad would be able to sleep quite yet.

Her recall was only impeccable for a day after the vision. She would need to write down everything she had read before it faded, if she was to get Song the information she had wanted.

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