Andressat relaxed. A properly managed estate, then, and secure enough that he need not fear, as he had feared every day after leaving home, attack by brigands or other enemies.

“You will be tired from your journey,” Halveric went on. “And I see the rain caught you this afternoon.”

“It has rained every day since I came over the mountains,” Andressat said. “It’s a wonder the whole land isn’t a sea.” He looked more closely at Halveric. The man seemed much older than a few years would account for; he sat his horse stiffly, as if in pain. What had happened? Halveric was younger than he himself … he had always seemed so vigorous. “Your country house looks very comfortable.”

An odd expression crossed Halveric’s face. “Thank you,” he said. “Come on in; Estil’s ready to welcome you.”

Estil. A brother? Surely not his wife … but in a few minutes he saw an outrageously tall woman, dark hair streaked silver, poised at the entrance to the hall. Halveric called her over, even as a servant held the count’s horse. Northerners. Even Halveric, who had seemed so urbane and civilized in Andressat.

The count smoothed his mustaches and bowed over the lady’s hand. “The honor is mine,” he said. She had powdered her hand with something like flour; he wondered why.

After a hot bath and shave and haircut from Halveric’s barber, Jeddrin Count of Andressat felt much better. Everyone here knew his name, though he didn’t know all of them, and Halveric had welcomed him with appropriate ceremony. His assigned suite was large, graciously furnished, items from the south laid out to lend familiarity. Even, when he came out from his bath, a basket of warm spiced cakes—dusted with his favorite figan—waiting on the table in his bedchamber. True, out the window were northern fields and that forbidding forest, but his host had done his best.

And his host’s wife. He had no way to address women who bore no title and yet were not servants … he could not just use her name, no matter that Halveric had suggested it. Traveling as he had been,

he’d not met any lords’ wives; the townswomen he’d seen had looked, to his eye, like ordinary people, just dressed differently.

Estil Halveric was taller than her husband, straight-backed where he was stooped, with an easy smile that yet had no hint of flirtatiousness. She looked strong, as if she instead of her husband could captain a troop. She moved briskly, yet with grace … he was used to women of position moving more slowly, languidly, yet perhaps that was the difference in climate.

He had already seen the hall where they would dine, the tables set in the same pattern they might have been at home, had it been a formal banquet. Halveric had asked if he preferred a quiet meal alone, but his curiosity was aroused. How would a northern lordling set out a banquet? How would they come in? Halveric had eaten with him, but only informally.