“Three days? Four? Poor Master Jacomel will have the keep to himself again.”
Cas did not answer. He hunkered down and picked up the closest page. “?‘Ten bolts of red wool for a traveling suit,’?” he read, squinting to see past the heavier tomato stains. “?‘Ten bolts of green velvet for a hunting dress. Twenty-four buttons, silver gilt and enamel . . .’?” He glanced over the other pages. “This is all clothing.”
“Jehan’s. Faustina said it took up the hold of an entire ship.” Lena turned the pages over. “Everything was lost.”
“How is that possible?” Cas asked in amazement.
“Everything was stored on the carriages. The carriages were abandoned.” Lena removed the stuck-together parchment from the steam and tried to tease the pages apart. It did not work. “Oh, Grandpapa,” she said. She returned them to the steam.
Cas studied a different sheet. “Rakematiz.” He glanced up. “That’s some sort of fabric, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s a very thick silk. Costly.”
He read aloud, “?‘Four hundred and sixty-eight feet of cream rakematiz, woven with gold, the pattern one of stars, crescents, and diamonds, for a wedding gown.’?” Cas whistled.
“It is depressing,” Lena said, shaking her head. “Jehan borrowed one of my dresses for the wedding. There was no time to make one. It was my best gown, but . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “It was not the sort of wedding one dreams of.”
The lynx yawned and stretched, turning on its side and rolling the sleeping ghost with it. Lena watched the cat with wary eyes.
“She won’t hurt you,” Cas assured her.
“I don’t believe you. The last cat I came across tried to eat me.” Lena lowered her voice. “Why are they so large? The one in the copse was nowhere near this size.”
“She’s not so big for a city cat. I’ve seen bigger.”
“Lovely.”
Cas sat crossed-legged on the hearthstones. The fire offered a pleasant warmth. “The way the story goes, the lynx lived on these lands long before man. They were here when the giants ruled the mountains.”
Lena turned a skeptical glance on him. “What giants?”
Cas waved a hand in the air. “You know, the giants,” he said. “Palmerin is said to have been built on the ruins of a great city of giants. These giants kept little cats as pets. The cats slept on the giants’ shoulders. They were fed off the giants’ plates. When the lady giants went to call on their friends in town, they carried their cats inside little baskets. Their race eventually died out, but their pets remain in Palmerin.”
Lena was smiling. “Who told you this story?”
“My mother.”
Lena turned the pages over, her expression thoughtful. “There are stories I’ve never heard of, and food I’ve never tasted. It feels like a foreign kingdom sometimes, your Palmerin.”
A piece of ash clung to her hem. He brushed it away. “Abril wasn’t at supper.” He had not realized it until much later, after the guests had retired to their chambers and the servants had spread their sleeping pallets along the great hall. The painter had missed her meeting with Lena in the archives, and she had not come to the keep to dine.
“No,” Lena said, frowning. “She was supposed to meet with the weavers this afternoon. She did not appear for that, either.” A long, frustrated sigh followed. “I’ll go to her inn tomorrow and tell her she doesn’t need to hide from me.”
“What about your grandfather’s history?”
“I will finish it,” Lena promised. “The best I can. But when it comes to Abril, or Jehan, or Lord Ventillas for that matter, I’m not sure history is entitled to a person’s . . .”
Cas waited for her to finish. When she did not, he offered, “Suffering.”
“Yes.” A look passed between them. “To their grief. Some things are private. I am not certain my grandfather would have agreed with me.”
The undercook took no interest in them. Kneading dough, yawning over her task. At this distance, she could not hear their conversation. He said, “I used to like people. Before.”
Lena turned her head and waited for him to make sense.
Cas tried to explain. “Ventillas was the quiet one in our family. I was the opposite. I liked the hunting parties and the balls. The noise. I would have liked having all these guests.” He gestured toward the upper floors. “It doesn’t suit me anymore. I’m not sure how to be around other people.”
Lena sat beside him on the stone, the parchment on her lap. Her dress billowed about and covered his knee. “By giving it one day,” she said. “And then one day after that, and another after that. And if, after all those days, you still don’t like people”—they smiled at each other—“what of it? It’s no great crime to prefer the quiet.” A glance at the parchment brought a small sound of triumph. “It worked!” She eased the pages apart and studied the one that had previously been obscured. “Look! These were to be wedding gifts for Rayan. ‘A sword made by Brisa’s finest bladesmith. A miniature of the princess Jehan. A jeweled dagger. One hundred—’?” She stopped.
“What?” Cas leaned closer. “One hundred what?”
Wordlessly, she handed him the sheet. He angled it toward the firelight. Sword, miniature, dagger. And then, One hundred gold coins to commemorate the wedding between King Rayan of Oliveras and Princess Jehan of Brisa and to celebrate the newfound peace between the two kingdoms. One side of the coin is stamped with the royal emblem of Oliveras, the bull and the pomegranate flower. The other side is an image of the Oliveran god Zacarias, god of new beginnings. These coins were commissioned by the princess Jehan, with the guidance of her father the king’s master goldsmith.
Cas raised his head. He pictured Queen Jehan, only hours ago, examining the coin.
I have never seen it before.
Lena’s words were quiet, barely heard over the crackle of fire.
“I don’t understand. Why did she lie to us?”
15
In the small hours of the morning, Cas sat in his chamber by the fire, boots propped on the table, waiting up for Ventillas like a nursemaid.
He needed his brother’s counsel. There was no reason Ventillas would have seen the coin before. But Queen Jehan had recognized it, had commissioned it, and said otherwise.
“Why would she say such a thing,” Cas had asked Lena, “when she knows you can disprove it so easily? You have your grandfather’s inventory.” Almost immediately, he remembered. “They don’t know you have it.”
“No.” Lena had paled considerably. “I meant to tell them after I’d finished here. Once I knew what it said.”
They spoke in lowered voices, though the undercook had finished her task and slipped away, the lynx padding after her. Only the boy remained. He had scooted closer, sitting on the floor by the parchment. He gave Cas a hopeful smile, like a pet that just wanted to play. Up close, Cas could see it clearly. The boy looked like Cook. He had her eyes.