Maris shrugged again. “That is not for me to say. I am old, no gainsaying that. I’ve been told my tongue’s too sharp. But Barholt was willing to marry me—he enjoyed it, he said. He told me once it was like a currycomb, working the mud out of his mind. I’ve told these girls—” She patted Naryan’s shoulder. “Told them many times not to copy my bad example. Dip your tongues in honey, I tell them: men want the honey, not the sting.”

“Nobody’s going to want me anyway,” Naryan said, scowling. “Not now.”

“Not with that look on your face, no,” her great-aunt said sharply. “And if you can’t smile when you’re miserable, you’ll have a life as miserable as you now imagine.”

“You sit your mounts very well,” Arian said to the girls, desperate to turn the conversation. “Do you ride often? I know your father breeds horses for the royal stud.”

“We did,” Vilian said. “But now we’re in the city—”

“I used to ride with Gwennothlin Marrakai,” Naryan said. “We sneaked into this field a few times, raced up and down, set up stakes, and tried to knock sticks off them with swords.” She sat up straighter.

“Until you got caught,” Vilian said.

“Until you watched us instead of the road like we’d told you,” Naryan said.

“What happened then?” Arian asked.

“I would have ridden right out the far end,” the older girl said. “There’s a wall behind those trees, but it’s not very tall and I knew my horse could jump it. Gwenno wouldn’t leave the sprout behind, though, and her pony couldn’t manage it.” She shook her head. “They caught us. Escorted us back to the city, to our fathers. No more riding out without an official escort. Boring.”

Arian could sympathize with that. At Naryan’s age she’d been free to run loose in the forest whenever her chores were done.

“Did you also want to train in arms?” she said.

“We all do train,” Naryan said. “In the family grange. Of course that’s Girdish fighting: training with hauks and marching in lines. I like a longer sword better.” She glanced at Arian’s sword. “Like yours.”

“Will you, then, continue your training?”

“I don’t know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know if they’ll let me.”

“May we join you?” That was Lady Marrakai and a Serrostin girl of about Vilian’s age.

“Certainly,” Arian said.

“Gwenno wrote us about meeting you at Duke Verrakai’s estate,” Lady Marrakai said. She greeted Maris and the Mahieran girls, then turned to Naryan. “She also said she missed you, Naryan.”

“Did she really?”

“Yes, indeed. You and she used to share secrets, did you not?”

“She didn’t write me any letters,” Naryan said. A mix of resentment and misery both in that, Arian thought.