I found my father’s ledger books and his keys and did the best that I could to keep records up to date and to spend only what we needed. It was not easy, and I often wondered how he, a soldier, had so effortlessly managed all this business of being a noble. I had never imagined that it required so much accounting, let alone such a plethora of managing people. Daily I prayed to the good god that my father would recover and take these burdens from my shoulders. Two weeks after I had buried my dead, I decided that the household was close enough to normalcy that I would fetch my sister Yaril home from the Poronte manor. I ordered up the carriage, and made the same trip that only a few months ago had taken us to my brother’s wedding. Now I went to visit his widow. I wore my best clothing, the suit that my mother had made for me for Rosse’s wedding. It was now uncomfortably tight on me.

The plague had passed the Poronte estates by. It was strange to see an aspect of normality when I arrived. Men were working in the fields, cattle grazed peacefully, and the liveried servant who opened the door smiled a gracious welcome. Even so, when I entered the chambers that had been so full of flowers and music at my last visit, I found them decked for mourning. Cecile’s parents came to meet me in their parlor. I formally thanked Lord and Lady Poronte for taking in my sister. They replied awkwardly that it was the least they could do for Yaril at such a dreadful time.

I had expected to bring both Cecile and Yaril home with me. But Cecile’s mother begged me to allow her daughter to stay until the greatest blackness of her grief had passed. She said that the shock of passing from the joys of being newly wed to the horrors of disease and widowhood had been too much for Cecile’s gentle spirit. She had been bedridden for days after she arrived there, and even now only rose for a few hours each day.

She needed time, her mother said, time to recover and find her way into her sad new life. I wondered uneasily if they intended to let Cecile return at all. It was Cecile’s duty to return to her husband’s home and take up the management of it, but I did not have the heart to demand that. Instead I said that when my father was better, they could all take counsel together to decide what was best.

I was disappointed that Yaril had not come to greet me, but Cecile’s mother told me they had asked her to wait in the garden until “things were settled.” With the matter of Cecile decided, they released me to find her. When I saw Yaril walking alone on the sandy path between the meticulously tended herb knots, my heart went out to her. She looked so small and so young in her deep blue mourning dress. “Yaril?” I said softly, prepared to discover that she was still disgusted with me.