out of retirement. Both had pretended not to recognize him, either from a misplaced sense that Blackguards shouldn’t acknowledge anyone—sometimes the young were overzealous—or they’d believed that he and the Mighty had abandoned the Blackguard, and were shunning him.
Tana and one of the old Blackguards went outside the door. That still left Grinwoody here, which irked Kip. He’d never liked the wizened old legalist from the first moments they’d met. And if Andross seemed healthier than ever, Grinwoody had sunk further in on himself, curling up in his age like a dead spider.
“Tell me everything,” Andross ordered.
“ ‘Us,’ ” Karris corrected.
Andross rolled his eyes. “Well, no one’s thrown you out, daughter, so you’re certainly permitted to listen in.”
She smiled pleasantly while her knuckles went white on the arm of her chair. “How have you been, Kip?” she asked. “You do look so well. Married life appears to be agreeing with you.”
“More than ‘agreeing.’ Tisis is an unalloyed blessing. The best thing in my life.”
“Oh, I’m so happy to hear that!” Karris said. And if she started a new conversation to irk Andross, now she seemed truly involved in it. “It is so hard to find the right partner in this life, and seeing that you’ve done so brings me greater joy than you can know.”
“Are you very much done?” Andross asked.
“Indeed!” Kip said as if answering Andross, but then said, “. . . High Lady White. And I’ve felt for some time now, grandfather, that I needed to thank you in person.”
“What?” Andross asked.
“I’d not have married Tisis if not for you. You proved your wisdom and insight are beyond my comprehension. I was . . . quite dismissive of Tisis at first and would never have courted her. I wouldn’t have guessed what an ideal partner and powerful ally she would be for me. You showed your superior insight and wisdom, and truly blessed me by arranging it.”
Andross scowled, as if uncertain if Kip was mocking him or giving him a real compliment—which he actually was. If you wanted to compliment Andross Guile, Kip guessed, you should do it early in a conversation, before he did something to infuriate you—which he surely would. “Why are you talking about this now? Is she pregnant yet?”
“No,” Kip said. And there it was. He was already mad.
“Then lay off the camp followers and get to plowing your own field, boy. You need lessons? A long, fatherly talk?”
Though he’d thought that his time in Blood Forest would have cured him of any shyness, Kip felt himself flushing hot.
Grinwoody spoke to Andross, none too quietly. “Perhaps the young lord suffers from a malady of the intimate sort? Spilling his seed before he reaches the fields? Softness rather than steel in the plow? I could suggest a physicker who might help.”
“I’m sure you’re quite expert in maladies of the intimate sort, calun,” Kip said to Grinwoody. “But I’ve been quite satisfied in those matters, as has my wife, thank you.”
“Faking, surely, but it’s good she wishes you to feel competent,” Andross said.
“It’s your fault, you know,” Karris said.
“Excuse me?” Andross asked.
“Gavin told me all about your books of genealogy, how the family looked at marriages like the horse breeders you all once were. He said it was the trade-off your family had made for its huge drafting potential and many other gifts—that your line had never had many children. And Felia had what, one sister? with very happily married and active parents, too, Gavin said.”
Andross said, “Oh, I know the Guiles’ lack of fecundity well enough, thank you. It was the reason I was willing to make such deep compromises in the areas of talent, intelligence, strength, and charisma when I decided to marry one of my sons to a White Oak. Along with their stubborn foolishness, your family had a history of breeding like rabbits. Unfortunately, it seems the last trait in you was trumped by all the former ones, as you wasted your childbearing years with your intransigence.”
Karris was silenced, her mouth open.
Grinwoody smirked triumphantly, lickspittle that he was.
“But enough,” Andross said. “A wise man provides himself a quiver full of arrows, but the warrior who finds himself down to two defectives doesn’t simply give up fighting, does he?”
“ ‘Two defectives’?” Kip said, accidentally speaking out loud. Andross seemed glad to have landed a blow. But Kip continued, “Two? So Zymun’s finally been showing you his true colors, huh? Has he been raping the servants?”
He saw the sickened, guilty look on Karris’s face