Probably nothing. Or else he’d find a way to blame Kero.

What is wrong with the man? she asked herself in frustration for the thousandth time. I’m doing the best that I can with what he allows me! It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t pick fauks that no one else cares about. Maybe if I’d talked him round to doing without me and gone to the cloister....

She watched the cook prepare the next subtlety, an enormous copy of the Keep itself complete with edible landscaping, and made sure that two men were assigned to carry it out. The mingled odors of meat and fish and fowl weren’t at all appetizing right now; in fact, they made her stomach churn. When this was all over, the most she’d want would be bread and cheese, and maybe a little cider.

Or maybe the problem that made her stomach churn was the thought of what could have happened if she’d actually gone to the cloisters. While not mages, the Sisters had a reputation for being able to uncover things people would rather have been left secret. What if Kero had gone, and the reputation was more than just kitchen gossip? What if the Sisters had found her out?

Father has had plenty to say about Grandmother. “The old witch” was the most civil thing he’s ever called her. What if he’d found out he had a young witch of his own?

He’d have birthed a litter of kittens, that’s what he’d have done. Then disowned me. It’s bad enough that I ride better than Lordan and train my own beasts; it’s worse that I hunt stag and boar with the men. It’s worse when I wear Lordan’s castoffs to ride. But if he ever found out about my apparently being witch-born, I think he’d throw me out of the Keep.

The mingled cooking odors still weren’t making her in the least hungry; she helped Cook decorate the next course with sprigs of watercress and other herbs, chewed a sprig of mint to cool her mouth and told her upset stomach to settle itself.

“What if” never changes anything, she reminded herself. He never did more than play with the idea, and he didn’t want to take the chance that Wendar couldn’t handle things. After all, the only thing Wendar has ever done was keep track of the books and manage the estate. There’s more to managing a Keep than doing the accounts. She set sprigs of cress with exaggerated care. Come to think of it, Wendar may have discouraged Father in the first place from sending me away. I suppose I can‘t blame him, he has more than enough to do without having to run the Keep, too. That may be why Father kept saying that it wasn’t “convenient” for me to go.

Why did Mother have to die, anyway? she thought in sudden anger. Why should I have been left with all this on my hands?

For a moment, she was actually angry at Lenore—then guilt for thinking that way made her flush, and she hid her confused blushes by getting a drink from the bucket of clean drinking water in the corner of the kitchen farthest from the ovens.