He shook his head, brightening up quite a bit. “It’s good for things? Like sword training?”

Tiphaine growled. “I’ll talk to the man tonight; remind me. Right now, finish your breakfast.”

She sipped her cup of coffee, pausing to admire the delicate rose flower pattern on the cup. She knew Delia had picked it out from the large warehouses the PPA kept for Associates when she’d married Rigobert, and she’d been working with a group of noblewomen and guildsmen here who were trying to get a bone-china works going in Portland for when the plunder ran out. This porcelain had blue roses. The set at Montinore Manor had yellow roses.

And my town house has plain brown dishes because I picked them before I wangled Delia into the office of Châtelaine of Ath and she dove with headfirst glee into Patronness of the Arts and Leader of Fashion mode.

The proprieties required Delia to stay in the Forest Grove town house when visiting Portland, mostly; and it was large enough for the nursery. The d’Ath town house on Cedar Street had been picked out before she realized she would turn into a family woman with a spouse who entertained during the Court season in the city, so it was comfortable enough but rather small and out of the way. All three used it for flying visits when they didn’t have time for the panoply of service and state.

I suppose I could request another town house, there are plenty on minimal-maintenance, there’s still less than forty thousand people inside the walls of Portland and only a few hundred in this neighborhood, but I’ll let Diomede do that when he’s married and old enough to need it. Probably we should get a residence in Newberg, as well. Assuming we win the war, of course.

She put the cup down, stood and slid the scabbarded sword into the frow-sling that hung from her belt and walked briskly out to the porch, nodding as servants curtsied or bowed. Outside she returned the fist-to-chest salute of the squire in half-armor commanding a squad of six crossbowmen on guard outside.

“Will you require an escort, my lady Grand Constable?” he said.

“No, I think I can survive in Portland, Jeffries,” she said.

Lioncel was just coming around the corner of the street, perched on the back of the pedicab Rigobert kept for town work, with the de Stafford arms displayed on the side: Gules a domed Tower Argent surmounted by a Pennon Or in base a Lion passant guardant of the last.

That was a heraldic joke, if you knew how to read it, rather like her own but a bit less blatant and, she had to admit, more witty.