The intendant escorted him away. The wardens retreated to the Warden Hall, Kem casting one last look back at Elen with his eyebrows stuck in his most quizzical expression. She gave him the little hand sign that meant Later and he signed a quick Okay back. The exchange so heartened her that she thought she could manage anything as long as he didn’t hate her.

Luviara lingered, looking her up and down. “That was interesting. A pity Chief Menial Hemerlin isn’t here to offer an opinion, which I am sure we would find illuminating. Where shall you go for the night, Deputy Courier?”

Heat rose in Elen’s cheeks, as if the theurgist’s words were an innuendo. “There’ll be a courier barracks next to their Map Hall.”

“Of course. Each to our place, as the empire decrees. You will be here at dawn when we make ready to depart for the north?”

“Do you think I will not?”

The old woman pressed her journal to her chest. “I think the world is a fascinating place, full of secrets whose depths we may never plumb, however thoroughly we may probe. May you rest easy this night, Deputy Courier. I am sure I will, for the first time in many days.”

52 IF THAT IS YOUR PREFERENCE

In the morning, Intendant Berel insisted on escorting Prince Gevulin herself in her personal carriage. She traveled with her younger sister, who was dressed as if for court in resplendent orange-and-gold silk. After all, Xilsi remarked to Elen as Berel and her sister got into the carriage, it was well known that Prince Gevulin had but one legal consort, a man with the same equipment he had, and no children yet by any of his concubines.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you? The intendant hopes to lure him into having sex with the sister and getting her pregnant.”

“Then what?”

“He will have to acknowledge the child before the Heart Temple. Then the emperor will acknowledge the child as a grandchild, to be entered on the rolls of the palace lineage as a prince of the Fifth Estate. A trifling rank among princes, to be sure. But the mother will be given her own suite of rooms in the Flower Court and the title of Blossoming Consort. That gives her a chance to give birth to a prince of the Fourth Estate.”

“To be born into the Fourth Estate you have to be born in the Flower Court?”

“That’s right. You can see why this is an opportunity a grasping person like Intendant Berel cannot pass up. But the prince is too smart to get a Karis Manor scion pregnant.”

“Why is that?”

“Whew. You really don’t know anything, do you?”

“I knew enough to get you across Grinder’s Cut.”