I hugged her and lifted her gently off her feet for a spin. “How are you? I hear that you and your baby made the trip in better shape than Beckram.”

She kissed my cheek and I set her down.

“Beckram fussed,” she agreed, “but Leehan slept most of the way. Are you all right?” There was more concern in her eyes than a tiring ride from Estian would have called for. But she knew me as well as I knew her. She wouldn’t pry unless I wanted to talk.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. A bit stiff when I awoke. Tosten wasn’t exaggerating—the last two days he and Oreg had to hoist me in the saddle—but I felt much better once I was in Hurog.”

“I heard about your triumphant entry,” she said. “Did the gates really open for you? And what’s this about your newest stray? Tosten says he’s our father’s get.”

I nodded, since it sufficed for most of her questions. For a woman who had been mute for most of her life, words often cascaded from her in an effervescent flow. Her words, though, reminded me that I needed to do something with Tychis—and looking at my sister, I suddenly knew exactly what that was.

“What?” she said, no doubt seeing the sudden satisfaction I felt on my face.

“A new mother needs help,” I said. “I believe I’ll give you someone to fetch and carry for you and Leehan.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please, not you, too. You’d think that I just got off my deathbed. Not that birthing is easy, mind you, but I don’t need any more coddling.”

“Perhaps not,” I said, smiling at her. “But we have a newly discovered brother who was raised on the streets of Estian, and he needs to coddle someone. I think I’m going to give you and your baby to him.”

12
WARDWICK

I’d have thought that persuading people to do what they wanted to do would have been easier.

ITTOOK US TWO WEEKS TO ORGANIZE A MEETING OFmost of the Shavig Council. Two weeks of lightening my purse to hire every laborer and idle farmer in the area to work on Hurog had given us three more usable rooms and seen the great hall finished to the extent that our meeting was unlikely to be interrupted by wandering horses.

My uncle’s people worked hard as well. Some of them stayed in the keep, but most sheltered in the holding’s farms so there would be room for the Council when they came, which they did, despite the snowstorm that preceded them. Shavigmen knew how to travel in winter.