“I think she’s gone.” He reached up, twirling a strand of her hair with a finger. “Why do you believe me? Why don’t you think I’m mad?”
“Oh, I do think it,” she assured him, and Cas smiled. “But this past year . . . I wonder if we’ve all gone mad, just a little bit.”
“Lady Analena?” A serving girl had appeared in the doorway. “The queen is asking for you.”
Cas slipped his arm away and stood.
“I’ll be right there,” Lena called back. The girl retreated but remained in sight.
Cas held out a hand and pulled Lena to her feet. “Good night,” he said.
“Good night.” Lena’s hand fell away from his. She offered him his handkerchief back, laughing a little when he said, “No thank you.” He watched her go, navigating around ruined books and forgotten scrolls, until she was out of sight.
In the morning, Clara led them to the food stores. Accessed through an opening in the kitchen floor, they had been overlooked by pillagers, mercifully preserved so that a little girl would be able to feed herself for a year. There was very little left. Upstairs, Cas found the space she had made for herself in the attic. More blankets, a doll, a small painting of a woman in a yellow dress. Lady Danna.
When the train departed, Clara rode with them, an official ward of the court. She brought her doll and her painting and left everything else behind.
23
Cas tossed another branch onto the fire as dusk settled over their camp in the woods. Colorful tents filled the clearing, along with the chatter of many. The smell of roast pig wafted pleasantly from cookfires. When a lady came by holding a small boy’s hand, Cas rose from his crouch and offered a polite greeting.
The boy was about five, Clara’s age, his attention focused on the stick of sugar cane in his hand. At first glance, sugar cane might be mistaken for a piper’s pipe; the size and shape were similar. But this pipe had been chewed nearly flat, sucked dry of every last bit of sweetness.
The woman said with an indulgent look at the child, “I promised him a treat if he was good today. He does not forget a promise.”
She wore a hooded cloak. Beneath it, her face was narrow; deep grooves bracketed her mouth and creased her forehead. She might have been twenty or forty. Time and again, he had seen how the pestilence had left its mark on the living, so that the young appeared old and the old appeared desiccated. Try as he might, he could not recall her name.
“I don’t blame him,” Cas said with a smile. Smiling came easier with each passing day, he had found. The way things do with practice. Like singing in front of others. Or tolerating Bittor. “My father used to bring them home whenever he visited the southern isles. Enough for every child in the keep. We nearly mauled him at the doors when he walked in.”
She reached into her cloak, pulled out a stick of sugar cane, and offered it to Cas. “It’s from my family home in the south. The purest cane in Oliveras.”
“I can’t take your son’s treat, Lady.”
A laugh. “Oh, there’s more where this came from. Please take it.” When Cas held up a hand, refusing, she returned the cane to her cloak with good grace.
What was her name? “My apologies, I don’t remember . . .”
“Lady Noa,” she said, her smile showing no insult was taken. “We met at the keep, though I cannot blame you for not remembering. What a time you’ve had of it, Lord Cassiapeus.”
Cas sighed inwardly. He truly hated that name. He gestured toward the fire and the stool beside it. “Please.”
“Just for a moment.” Lady Noa seated herself while her son flopped down on the grass by her feet. The boy had curly brown hair and round cheeks, red from the cold. Cas wished the same for Clara. Good health and few cares besides a treat freely offered. He could see Clara now, walking hand in hand with Lena toward the cooking tent. Lady Noa brought his attention back to his own fire. “I’ve never been to the mountains before.”
“Do you like it here?”
“It is cold,” Lady Noa confessed, and Cas smiled again. “But beautiful. There are colors here one does not see on the islands.”
A chill wind sent leaves scattering through the clearing. Cas tossed another stick onto the fire. “You’ll only see the flame trees in the mountains.” Here in the woods, they were surrounded by them. “It’s my favorite season, autumn.”
“We don’t have seasons as you do here. We have rain, or we do not have rain. Have you been to the southern islands?”
“Not yet, Lady.”
“Well, when you do, you will stay with us. Our home is open to you, Lord Cassiapeus. Agreed?”
Our home. Cas tried to conjure up an image of Lord Noa and failed. He had been away from court too long. “Agreed.”
“Good.”
Her hood covered much of her hair. Cas had thought it blond at first, rare in a kingdom where black hair was dominant. But it was white. Cas had seen such a thing before: a person’s hair changed in a day, color and life gone from it. He did not have to ask Lady Noa if she had suffered some great loss. The answer was there. On her face, her hair, for all to see. It was only when she reached up to touch her hood self-consciously that he realized he was staring.
Cas bowed. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“There’s no need. My hair was as dark as his, not too long ago.” Lady Noa reached down, smoothed her son’s curls absently. The boy licked his fingers clean. “Loss is a part of life, my lord Cassiapeus, and grief is constant. It is unbearable at first. Then you find you can indeed bear it. Over and over again. As many times as necessary.”
His parents, his friends, his freedom. Looking into the fire, Cas said quietly, “Yes.”
The boy threw the mangled sugar cane into the fire, setting off sparks, and demanded, “More!”
“Of course, darling. Here, have two.” Lady Noa retrieved two canes from her cloak. He snatched them from her without a word of thanks, and Cas felt his eye twitch. “I really shouldn’t indulge him. It’s nearly supper.”
Around them travelers settled in for the evening. Laughter amid crackling fires. A whistling wind. Cas was glad for the warmth of his cloak, the sleeve of which Bittor had mended beautifully. Just then, someone called out in the distance. One voice joined by others. Gradually, their shouts formed a single recognizable word: Luis!
Lady Noa’s head turned at the sound. Her expression changed. All traces of sadness vanished. She rose, her words brisk. “Time to go now, darling.”
The little boy had also turned toward the cries. He stood, sugar cane clutched in each fist. “Mama,” he called, his back to Lady Noa.
Mama? But wasn’t Lady Noa . . . ? Cas looked at the boy. He looked at Lady Noa, who smiled.
She said softly, “I wanted to meet you, my lord of Palmerin. I was curious. And upset, I will admit it. I did not like having to flee your city in such a way. It was undignified.”
Cas held himself very still as she spoke. Lady Noa no longer sounded as though she were from the southern islands. The lilt to her voice had gone. Her accent was of the north, the far north, in the kingdom of Brisa.