Grins disappeared, replaced by scared looks.

“If I were you,” Dorrin said, “I’d be wary of looking as if you’d stolen from the closets. We made the Verrakaien change to servants’ clothes, and that left only these fancier clothes for you. Those of you skilled with the needle could remake some of these—you might look like outsider merchants, and not Verrakaien.”

“But what about Jen and Tam?” one man asked. “They should be buried in our vill, with their kin.”

“How far away is your vill?” Dorrin asked.

“A half day’s walk,” the man said. “Kindle, we call it, for the fire-oak grove.”

Dorrin turned to Selfer. “Captain, is that militia squad up to escorting two bodies for burial?”

Selfer considered. “Mounted, yes, if I send along one of my cohort. We could transport the bodies on pack mules and be there and back easily by nightfall.”

“Very well,” Dorrin said. “Who is from that vill?”

“Just me and Piter here,” the older man said. “Jen was my cousin.”

“Then, Captain, find this man something less conspicuous—” The first man was wearing a gray silk shirt, embroidered blue-velvet doublet, a satin scarf around his neck and a black velvet cloak draped over all “—and do what is needful.”

Within the half-glass, the two from Kindle were on their way home, with the bodies of their dead and the escort; the other freed prisoners had agreed to stay as servants for the time. Two claimed skill with needlework; Dorrin assigned them to restyle Verrakai finery to more practical garments.

Now she must deal with the younger children, still up in the nursery. That took much of the afternoon, conferring with the nurserymaids and interviewing the children. Dorrin had little experience with children; these seemed normal enough, and she took the maids’ word for their character.

Except for one, Restin, a nine-winters boy, whom the maids said had been a rambunctious, difficult small boy but had “improved” after a long illness. She’d noticed Restin doing exactly what he was told—never complaining, never arguing, always mild and biddable.

Always watching her. Something about him made her uneasy, and she could not define what it was except his eyes seemed too adult, too knowing, for a nine-winters boy. Was he actually older, within the Order of Attainder, only pretending to be nine? She called the oldest of the nursemaids out of the room.

“Restin—are you sure he’s only nine winters?”

“Yes, ma—my lord. He does seem quite the little man, doesn’t he? But it’s his way, not his age. Some children, you know, ‘specially them as has the death-sickness, they change. The fever, his mother said.”

Cold ran down Dorrin’s spine. “The death-sickness?”

“It’s like they’re dying, long afore the crisis. Sickly, weakening. Then the fever takes them. Then the priest prays over them—the only good I ever hear of them.”

“Where?”

“They take ’em to the old keep, when the fever comes, to save the other children sickening. Two or three hands of days, it is, and when they come back, they’re different. Stands to reason, my lord. It’s the same with black-foot and red-spot and lump-jaw, all those ails children get. Like as not the child’s changed. Curly hair straight and straight hair curly. Only with death-sickness, they’re quieter, easier to manage, more grownup.”