“I'll need another platter of the sausage rolls. Trader Loud-Shirt seems to think we baked them for him alone.”

“That's better than doing what that Orpel girl is doing. Look at this plate. Heaped with food we worked all morning to prepare, she's scarcely nibbled it and then pushed it aside. I suppose she hopes a man will notice her dainty appetite and think she's an easy keeper.”

“How's the empress's second choice faring?” the cook asked curiously.

A serving man mimed the tipping of a wineglass. “Oh, he drowns his troubles and scowls at his rival and moons at the little empress. Then he does it all over again. All very genteelly, of course. The man should be on a stage.”

“No, no, she's the one who should be on a stage. One moment she's simpering at Reyn's veil, but when she dances with him, she looks past his shoulder and flutters her lashes at young Trell.” The serving maid who observed this added with a snort of disgust, “She has them both stepping to her tune, but I'll wager she cares not a whit for either of them, but only for what measures she can make them tread.”

For a brief time, Althea listened with amusement. Then her ears and cheeks began to burn as she realized that this was how the servants had always spoken of her family. She ducked her head, kept her eyes on her plate, and slowly began to piece the gossip into a bizarre image of the current state of the Vestrit family fortunes.

Her mother was entertaining Rain Wild guests. That was unusual enough, given that her father had severed their trading connections there years ago. A Rain Wild suitor was courting a Trader woman. The servants did not think much of her. “She'd smile at him more if he replaced his veil with a mirror,” one servant sniggeringly observed. Another added, “I don't know who's going to be more surprised on their wedding night: her when he takes off his veil and shows his warts, or him when she shows her snake's nature behind that pretty face.” Althea knit her brow trying to think what woman was a close enough friend to the Vestrit family that her mother would host a gathering in her honor. Perhaps one of Keffria's friends had a daughter of marriageable age.

A kitchen maid tugged her empty plate from her lax hands and offered her a bowl with two sugar dumplings in it. “Here. You may as well have these; we made far too many. There are three platters left and the guests are already starting to leave. No sense a young man like you going hungry here.” She smiled warmly and Althea turned her eyes aside in what she hoped was a convincing display of boyish shyness.

“Can I take my message to Ronica Vestrit soon?” she asked.

“Oh, soon enough, I imagine. Soon enough.”

The sweet gooey pastries were messy to eat but delicious. Althea finished them, returned her bowl and used her sticky hands as an excuse to go back to the yard pump. A grape arbor screened the kitchen yard from the main entrance, but the new leaves were still tiny. Althea could watch the departing carriages through the twining branches. She recognized Cerwin Trell and his little sister as they left. The Shuyev family had also come. There were several other Trader families that Althea recognized more by crest than by face. It made her realize how long it had been since she had truly belonged to their social circle. Gradually the number of carriages dwindled. Davad Restart was one of the last to depart. Shortly after that, a team of white horses arrived drawing a Rain Wild coach. The windows were heavily curtained and the crest on the door was an unfamiliar one. It looked something like a chicken with a hat. An open wagon was drawn up behind it and a train of servants began carrying luggage and trunks from the house to that conveyance. So. The Rain Wild Traders had been houseguests at the Vestrit home. Increasingly mysterious, Althea thought to herself. Crane her neck as she might, she got no more than a glimpse of the departing family. Rain Wilders were always veiled by day and this group was no exception. Althea had no idea who they were or why they were staying at the Vestrit home. It made her uneasy. Had Kyle chosen to renew their trading connections there? Had her mother and sister supported such an idea?

Had Kyle taken Vivacia up the Rain River?

She clenched her fists at the idea. When the kitchen maid tugged at her sleeve, she spun on her, startling the poor girl. “Beg pardon,” Althea apologized immediately.

The maid looked at her strangely. “Mistress Vestrit will see you now.”

Althea suffered herself to be led back into her own home and down the familiar hallway to the morning room. Everywhere were the festive signs of guests and lively company. Vases of flowers filled every alcove and perfume lingered in the air. When she had left, this had been a house of mourning and family contention. Now the household seemed to have forgotten those difficult days and her with them. It did not seem fair that while she had toiled through hardship, her sister and mother had indulged in social celebration. By the time they reached the morning room, the simmering confusion inside her was so great she guarded against it breaking forth as anger.