“Happen th’ old man had it hid an’ didna tell the wife afore he broket his neck. She were his second, an’ young, and mayhap he didna trust her to be sensible like.” Wrenmarsh shrugged. “So there was some bad years, rents was down, family sold off the land, piece by piece, ’til it come to t’day. Lady Asterleigh’s a good wench and doesna want t’ lose her only home, so I comes t’King, on account’o our special business, t’see if the Crown might do aught.”

Abi sensed there was a great deal more to this story than Wrenmarsh was saying, but she held her peace. She had not been her father’s daughter all her life not to know that some secrets were not for telling to just anyone.

“I suggested that the lady sell the property and come join the Queen’s Handmaidens, but it appears there are difficulties with that,” the King said, without elaborating on the “difficulties.” “Wrenmarsh suggested that perhaps a Master Builder might be able to find the hiding place of the family fortune, where the efforts of the family had failed. I thought of you. Abi, is it possible that your gift might betray a void in the walls where searching has not?”

Abi had been practicing that Gift daily, and at this point, all she had to do was close her eyes to see the flow of pressure and stresses in any built object. To her inner eye it looked like slowly flowing water, with a color variation showing where the stress was strongest. But could that reveal a hidden void?

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe? I’ve never had any building to try it on.”

“’Tisn’t far,” Wrenmarsh said persuasively. “Nobbut a few candlemarks.”

“Perry can go with you,” Mags suggested. “There’s always the chance mice might know about such a hiding place.”

Well, why not? She’d never been outside of Haven, and even if this wasn’t anything like Perry’s epic adventure in the Pelagiris Forest, it should be fun and different, and she certainly could not make matters worse. “I’ll go make up a pack,” she said. “Then I can leave when you’re ready, Goodman Wrenmarsh.”

“Yer a good lass,” Wrenmarsh said warmly. “No matter what, the Lady’ll be grateful to ye.”