Now Sussena was a brilliant scarlet, and she looked absolutely mortified. She looked as if she would have liked to have apologized for Tobin, but really, he had been looking out for her interests. Abi felt a great surge of sympathy for the girl. This couldn’t be easy for her. Whether or not she herself had known better times within these walls, she was certainly conscious of how low her family had sunk.

“Lets get you settled, at least,” she managed, finally.

“An’ I’ll be takin’ m’leave, milady,” Wrenmarsh said. “Rafi’ll be here with extra provender in a candlemark or twain. Niver ye fret, m’lady. Wutever ye c’n think of, we’ll ’ave taken care of.”

Before Sussena could answer—and she looked to Abi as if she would very much have liked to have refused the extra food but knew her slender means would not stretch to feeding two more souls without that help—Wrenmarsh turned and left, and the sound of the wagons moving off came through the still open door until Tobin closed it firmly. The girl flushed again but turned her chair and began rolling it toward an open archway at the rear of the entryway, using her hands to push the bigger wheels forward. Tobin carried the packs behind her, leaving Abi and Perry to bring up the rear.

The room they entered had a huge fireplace in the rear wall, one that obviously shared a hearth on the other side with the kitchen. While the other three walls were ancient, dark wood, the wall with the fireplace in it was mostly stone that matched the exterior. Obviously there were ovens built into it on the other side, and it had been made to keep a much bigger household than this one fed. Tobin dropped the packs unceremoniously down beside a pair of cots beside the hearth. “Bath’s bucket i’ kitchen,” he said gruffly. “Outhouse be outside. None o’yer Palacey folderol ’ere.”

“Tobin!” Sussena finally exclaimed, exasperated. “They’re here to help1 Stop treating them like . . . like a nest of mice!”

“Mice ’ud be more use,” he muttered, and he stalked out through a passageway on the right of the hearth into the kitchen.

Sussena now flushed with utter mortification. “He’s taken care of me all my life,” she explained, unable to look at either of them. “So he thinks he has—never mind.”

Abi dropped her packs beside the others and went to pat Susenna’s hand. “Never mind, we understand,” she said. “And it’s not as if we’re here as guests, anyway. We’re here to do a job.”

“Do you have any old stories that would tell you where to start looking?” Perry asked. “This is a pretty big house, and I noticed there are several outbuildings too.”