The eyebrow twitched a fraction higher. “Isn’t that a courtier’s function?”

Genuine confusion, or another of Anastacia’s little jokes? It was always hard to be sure. “In the rest of the Republic, perhaps. In the Southshires, truth is all we can afford.”

“If you’re going to start moping, I’d like to be excused.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Josiri’s mouth. “If you don’t show your duke a little more respect, he might have you thrown from the manor.”

Anastacia sniffed. “He’s welcome to try. But these stones are old, and the Council’s proctors made a thorough job of binding me to them. You’ll fail before they do.”

“You forget, I’m a Trelan. I’m stubborn.”

“And where did stubbornness get your mother? Or your uncle, for that matter?”

Josiri’s gaze drifted back to his mother’s portrait. “What would she do?”

“I doubt she’d put a mere thing, no matter how beautiful, before the lives of her people.” She shrugged. “But she was a Trelan, and someone once told me – though I can’t remember who – that Trelans are stubborn.”

“And none more than she,” said Josiri. “I don’t want to give up the last of her.”

Anastacia scratched at the back of her scalp – a mannerism she’d picked up off one of the servants in her frequent forays to the kitchens. Her appetites were voracious – especially where the manor’s wine cellar was concerned.

“Might I offer some advice, as one prisoner to another?”

“Of course.”

“Burn the painting. Your mother’s legacy is not in canvas and oils, but in blood.”

The words provoked a fresh spark of irritation. “Calenne doesn’t seem to think so.”

Anastacia offered no reply. Josiri couldn’t blame her for that. This particular field was well-furrowed. And besides, good advice was good advice. Katya Trelan had died to save her family. That was her true legacy.

“I should tell her how things went,” he said. “Do you know where she is?”

“Where do you think?” Anastacia’s tone grew whimsical to match her expression. “For myself, I might rearrange the window shutters on the upper floor. Just in case some helpful soul’s watching? One who might be agreeable to expressing your annoyance at the archimandrite where you cannot?”

Josiri swallowed a snort of laughter. Regardless of what his mother would have done about the painting, this she would approve of. Humiliation repaid in kind.

“That’s a grand idea.”

Anastacia sniffed again. “Of course it is. Shall we say nightfall?”

That ran things close, but the timing should work. Makrov was due to hold celebration in Eskavord’s tiny church at dusk. Afterwards, he’d make the long ride back to the fortress at Cragwatch. It all depended on whether Crovan’s people were keeping watch on the shutters.

Still, inaction gained nothing.

Josiri nodded. “Nightfall it is.”