“Lord Akers the elder?”

“Yes, Sir Buzz is down on the southern border with the forces of the Three Tribes and his own menie. They’re screening against the enemy concentrated in the Bend area.”

“Thank you,” Sandra said warmly.

She had most of the same facts at her fingertips, but it was nice to see that Lady Jehane had made such progress. She smiled again, a closed secret curve of her lips.

“My lady?”

“Just remembering how much raiding there was back and forth across that area during the Protector’s War. Castle Parkdale was built to guard against the Three Tribes. Time, politics and war make strange bedfellows.”

A varlet leapt down from behind the carriage to open the door and fold down the step. Sandra gathered the pearl-gray silk skirts of her cote-hardie and let Tiphaine d’Ath hand her and Jehane down. The courtyard was bright, and she blinked for a moment amid the stamp and clatter of destriers and coursers and rouncys, the rattle and gleam of armor. The interior walls all glowed with color as well, climbing roses twined through light lath trellises, until they seemed to flame and shimmer in green and crimson and white and pale pink. There was another clank and thump as the soldiers present all brought their right fists to their chests and bowed, which was protocol for fighting-men under arms in a public venue.

The roses are Tina’s work, Sandra thought. And she does it very well. She hasn’t much head for politics but she’s not stupid at all.

“Baron de Mosier,” she said to the dark-faced nobleman who saluted Tiphaine and bowed Sandra through into the gate of the keep.

He had a neatly trimmed black mustache and goatee. Which makes him look like Evil Spock from the Mirror Universe. And nobody here but Conrad and possibly Tina would have the least idea of what I was talking about if I said that.

“How pleasant to see you again,” she went on. “I trust that Lady Gussalen is well, and young Lord Bertrand?”

“She is very well, God be praised, and thanks be to my patron St. James, to whom I have lit many candles,” the man said, trying to hide his flush of pleasure as he crossed himself. “My son is also well, my lady Regent.”

“The Grand Constable and I wish to see my lord Count Renfrew. We’re expected, you needn’t have us announced.”

“He and the Countess and their children are in the solar, my lady Regent,” the baron said, looking a little dubious at the informality but obedient nonetheless. “We were expecting them down momentarily. This way—”

“I’m sure you’re extremely busy with getting the garrison ready to march, Lord Ramón,” she said with a smile.

“That is so, my lady,” he said as he took the hint.

“Though if you could show my lady-in-waiting Lady Jehane to the reception chamber?”