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“What is the quarrel?” Wistala asked.
Rainfall looked out the library skylight—still cobwebbed and dusty, the Widow Lessup hadn’t climbed a ladder in the library yet—and blinked.
“She’s convinced herself she loves Hammar.”
“A man who stuck her in a cold attic?”
“Apparently she blossomed up there like a solstice succulent shut in the Yule dark. Hammar is young and wild. Nature and instinct took its course.”
“So they are mat—married?” Wistala asked.
“They can’t be, not under Hypatian law, because of her age. But sadly, she’s not too young to bear his child.” Rainfall’s fingers tightened on the glass stem, and it broke.
Her host blotted up the wine and his own blood with blotting paper. “And the last of the thirty are gone. Oh, what shall I do, Tala? I’ve suspected he wanted to add Mossbell to his lands, but to resort to this?”
“Wait, this is about land?” Wistala said.
‘“I’ve no doubt of it. With the land—soon to be prosperous again now that the troll is gone—goes responsibility for the road and bridge. He should like to make all who cross pay a toll.”
“How does he stand to get the land?”
“He won’t have any difficulty getting me declared an invalid, with the judge in his pocket. It would devolve to Lada, save that she is not of age to run an estate. Lada’s child would naturally inherit—I’m pierced from my own quiver, insisting Eyen to confirm his parentage with the priests and courts. And she’s only too happy to name Hammar as the father. He would become master of Mossbell.”
Wistala’s head hurt from trying to follow the convoluted circumstances. “I’m not sure I follow the law, but in all your talk of courts and powers—I thought it was to ensure justice and fairness. This strikes me as quite the opposite.”
Rainfall admired the glass one more time before discarding it.
“The law and fairness often dance together, but they are not married,” he said. “Lately I’ve grown too fond of engineering, for one can trust calculation and breaking strengths. No thane may change the weight of a stone, no matter how much he wishes. But! I am still master of Mossbell. Perhaps I shall sell it to the dwarves and move south.”
He sniffed the air. “But I’m keeping you from your dinner.”
She wasn’t hungry; perhaps Rainfall’s upset and sour mood had transferred itself to her by something like mind-speech.
Mossbell’s problems were like a tar pit, the more she struggled to help her host, the worse his plight became!
She went out to the stable barn and found Stog licking at the remains of his evening grain. Jalu-Coke’s kittens, all ears and tails, were chasing each other about on clumsy paws. This was the sort of law she understood: the mice ate Stog’s grain, and the cats ate the mice.
“Does the master need me?” Stog asked her.
“Oh, no,” Wistala said. “I wanted to think. The house was closing in on me. You’re looking well.”
“Good grain and clean water,” Stog said. “I am lucky. It is a blessing to know how lucky one is.”
“What happened that night we parted? Did the men find you?”
“Not the way you think,” Stog said, shifting on his hooves. Wistala nipped his bristly tail—the donkey in him showed most at the mane and tail.
“Tell me. I need a diversion. Treks and tracks, I shan’t be mad.”
“Silly, really. I took my chance to get back to the Dragonblade.”
Wistala was so astonished, she couldn’t speak.
“What?” she finally said.
“You hate me now,” Stog said. “But I’ve been wanting to tell you since our return. I’m grateful to you, unlike these fool kittens, I know what you’ve done for me. Let’s have honesty between us.”
“Was he such a fine master as all that?”
