The Namornese were good at pretending they hadn’t heard an outburst from one of their companions. They must have a lot of family dinners like this, thought Sandry. Or maybe even imperial ones.

The rain continued as they took the road again, still mostly dry under Tris’s shield. Now the courtiers were truly awake. Soon everyone but Zhegorz and the guards were playing silly games like “I See” and “Fifteen Questions.” The group continued word games as Ambros led them off the main road at last onto a smaller, well-kept road paved in stone like the main highway to keep wagons from making ruts.

After another hour, Briar demanded, “So when do we get to these precious lands of yours?”

Ambros looked back at him with a smile. “You are on Clehamat Landreg,” he told Briar. “The extended estate, at least. Grazing and farming lands. We’ve been riding over them since we left the highway.”

Briar looked at Sandry. “You never said.”

“I didn’t remember,” she answered. “The last time I was here was ten years ago. All I remember was that I was bored to tears. Nobody would play with me.”

At last they reached a stone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. Another road led through a framed stone opening in it. This new route was stone-paved as well, but only the center was as well-kept as the roads they had followed to get this far. Stones were missing from the edges, and stones in the roadway were cracked and broken. As Ambros turned onto it he called back, “Now we are on the Landreg lands that are part of the main estate.”

It was another hour before they saw more than isolated houses, or fields green with the spring’s planting. Eventually they came upon a massive herd of cows at the graze, then shepherds and goatherds with their flocks. They passed apple and pear orchards that already showed small green knobs that would become fruit, and cherry orchards where the fruit was starting to turn orangey red. At one point Briar reined up and squinted at a distant field where glossy brown animals grazed.

“That’s a lot of mules,” he said to no one in particular.

Ambros replied, “It’s only one herd. The entire Landreg family is famed for the mules we breed and sell.”

“It’s been a family specialty for more than two hundred years,” Sandry added with pride.

Briar, Tris, and Daja exchanged glances. It was Daja who grinned and said it aloud: “That certainly explains more than it doesn’t.”

“I am not listening to you,” Sandry told them loftily as the courtiers laughed. “Do you notice that I am not listening to you?” she continued. “Mark it well. I ignore you.”

“And I feel ignored,” said Briar, rejoining them. “I am so ignored and unheard that I know it won’t matter if I say, Why does it not surprise me, that the Landregs breed mules?”

When they came to a river spanned by a bridge, Ambros led their party onto a small, muddy, rutted track that bore away from the bridge. Sandry drew her mount up. “Wait a moment,” she called, frowning and confused. “I remember this bridge. We ride over that and we come to the village not long after, and the castle after that.”

Ambros turned his mount. “In better times we would,” he said heavily, something like shame weighing down his shoulders. “But the bridge is not safe. It’s old, and it’s needed work for some time, replacements on the roadbed and the supports. Then two years ago we had heavy flooding that weakened the supports more. It’s not safe. We must ride six miles downstream to the ford.”

Sandry didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t understand. This is the main castle road. Why hasn’t it been repaired?”

Fin said, “Are those ripe cherries over there? It’s early, but I want to see. I’m a bear for cherries.” He rode toward an orchard nearby, passing out from under Tris’s shield and into the rain. Without a word, the other three courtiers followed him. The group’s men-at-arms drew back out of earshot. Zhegorz fidgeted, obviously not knowing what to do, while Briar and Daja exchanged glances. What’s going on here? Briar seemed to ask Daja with his eyes. Her shrug said, I have no idea. Tris hadn’t seemed to be paying attention, but she closed her book, holding her place with a finger.

Ambros rode back to Sandry’s side. “Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, his cheeks slowly turning red. “I’d put off doing the work, that was first. And then we had so much flood damage everywhere that year, and late that summer the taxes went up. I could not repair the bridge, pay the taxes, and send you the usual amount. Your mother’s written orders are clear. She, and then you, must receive that exact sum every year, without fail.”

Sandry tightened her fingers on her reins. I knew Mother’s instructions for our income, she told herself, ashamed. I knew she didn’t leave any room for the steward to exercise his judgment. But I thought he would, anyway. I thought…

She suddenly remembered those columns of dry, boring numbers: the ever-increasing tax sums, the estimated costs of the flood damages, and the profits from the estates. If she had done all of the additions, gone over the accounts entry by entry, she would have seen that there wasn’t enough money for everything.

“I thought we could manage the bridge repair last year,” Ambros continued, his quiet voice strained, “but Her Imperial Majesty raised the taxes again, to cover fighting on the Lairan border. Again, it was a matter of repairing the bridge or sending what we are ordered to send to you. Our obligation to you comes first.”