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“Better, Cousin. I promise.” Lio reached for the first sheet on top. “No telling what we can find in his documents that we can use against him.”
Kia held a hand out. “If we all start reading now, we may find a way to free the hostages by moon hours.”
Lio and Cassia passed the papers around. Silence fell between them all, punctuated only by Lio’s murmurs as he read sections aloud to Cassia.
Cassia was the first to say it. “They aren’t just documents. They’re his letters.”
“Hisprivateletters,” Mak said in disgust. “To a woman.”
“Look here.” Lyros pointed to a section of the letter he held. “Not just any woman.”
Lio nodded. “His brother’s widow, the mother of his nephew.”
Xandra tossed down the note she had just gone through. “This is it? He hauled this all the way from Cordium…for what?”
“Love,” Cassia said.
She reached into the bottom of the box and pulled out the last of the papers. One by one, she laid them out on the coffee table. One drawing after another, the simple, colorful works of a child.
Lio looked over Cassia’s shoulder at the artwork. “I can’t use this against any man, not even the Dexion.”
Cassia studied a blobby green shape that might be a dog. “I think he actually loves his nephew.”
Lio rubbed his face. “Chrysanthos carried his nephew’s drawings all the way to Orthros with him, along with all the detailed letters the boy’s mother writes describing their daily lives. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
“Chrysanthos, whom I believed heartless.” Cassia shook her head.
Kia stacked a series of papers on the table. “These are inventories and budgets. Based on these figures, Chrysanthos is running a modest estate for them. He’s thought of everything. A spending allowance, salaries for servants, an ample larder, women’s and children’s clothes, even toys and primers for the boy.”
“This is one of his unfinished replies.” Nodora held up an already lengthy letter. “He devotes an entire page to persuading her not to hesitate to summon a healer, and he includes a reference to one of his colleagues in the Order of Akesios.”
Lio stared at the pile of evidence before him. “Whatever else Chrysanthos is, I have to acknowledge he takes good care of the women and children in his life.”
“As long as they aren’t the wrong kind of women or the children of heretics.” Cassia looked away, then frowned at one of the woman’s letters. “Read this part to me again.”
Lio picked it up. “‘Since the day your brother first made it known to me I was his choice and elevated me to the most fortunate woman in the world, I have remained ever sensible of the great distinction conferred upon me, but so too of the great responsibility. Consider me the cherisher of your brother’s secrets, for who would hold them closer than she who carried his dearest one?’”
“His dearest one…” Cassia murmured.
“His child,” Lio said.
“Or his dearest one, as in his dearest secret?” Cassia looked around at everyone. “Does she say anywhere in these letters that she was actually his brother’s wife? Does the word ‘widow’ appear once?”
Everyone returned to their respective piles, looking again at what they had read.
“I don’t believe so,” Lio said at last.
Their friends shook their heads in agreement.
Cassia sat back on their bench, as if wishing for greater distance between her and the letters. “I knew there was something familiar about the way she talks around it…her bold requests disguised in self-deprecating persuasion… I should have acknowledged it sooner. It’s just…a surprise.”
“Do you mean she was his brother’s…” Lio trailed off.
Cassia nodded. “These are the letters of a powerful man’s concubine, fearful for her child’s future. If she were his widow, their child wouldn’t be a secret, and as the mother of a Cordian prince’s son and heir, she would never want for anything.”
“We trust your insight on the matter, Cassia,” said Kia.
“Certainly,” Lio said. “What do you make of it? Why would it concern a powerful man for anyone to know he has a child outside of marriage?”
