House couldn’t produce itself, and once a year for new staff. She and Gavin had stolen a glimpse of Staff Day once, the lines of ten-year-olds in worn city clothes trying not to be frightened. Darid had been one of those children once. She wondered if the Seneschal had.
There was only one other way through the Wall to the city: the Safe Passage, a twisting maze of switchbacks and locked doors, deliberately built to be confusing if you didn’t know the way. Twice a year, when the Seneschal led the four of them, flanked fore and aft by House Guards, to the Lord’s Balcony for Elban’s speech, they had to pause every few yards so the Seneschal could unlock and relock the doors. The floor was covered in woven mats of oiled rushes to waterproof them, and their stench permeated the air. Every month, as Lady-to-be of the City, Elly had to oversee the replacement and oiling of the rushes while the Seneschal stood, keys in hand, and watched, wordless as stone.
He seemed just as stony now as Judah waited. She had spent too much of her life sitting in this chair; too many long, agonizing minutes staring out this window and biting back her words. Just being here made her tongue ache. Usually his summonses heralded some unpleasant new change in her life, like being banned from the library or expected to attend state dinners. She wondered what it would be today. His pen scratched. The window did not close tightly enough to block out the creak of cart wheels, the shuffle of feet on cobblestone, the muffled voices of the courtyard staff. Life being lived. She sat. She waited.
Finally, he closed the ledger, put down his pen and looked at her. “Are you well?”
Judah shrugged.
He waited a moment, and when she still said nothing, leaned back in his chair. “So much for the pleasantries. We’ll get to it, shall we? I was reminded this morning of a conversation I’ve been meaning to have with you. I’ve been putting it off, because it’s not a particularly pleasant conversation.”
In the study, when Judah was eight, the Seneschal had held a hot coal to her foot, over and over again, until Gavin could bite back the pain, and not cry. “I didn’t know you had a preference for pleasant conversations,” Judah said.
“I don’t have a preference for unpleasant ones. At the Wilmerian dinner, you were seated next to a courtier. Firo of Cerrington.”
“I sat where I was put.”
“You were not put there with the expectation that you would be seen leaving the hall with him.”
“I didn’t leave the hall with him. Find one person who saw me leave the hall with him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said patiently. “It is believed that you were seen leaving the hall with him. That’s enough. Did he speak to you?”
“He may have complimented my dress.” Even if it is Lady Eleanor’s winter solstice gown from two years past, it’s been remade well, he’d said. It wasn’t true. The dress had been remade terribly. They always were.
“Your position here is—strange,” the Seneschal said. “You have privileges, but no rank; a soft life, but no status. Your only purpose is to stay alive and healthy so that Lord Gavin stays alive and healthy.”
“You say all of this like it’s new to me.”
He nodded. “We haven’t given up, you know. We’re still hunting for the midwife who brought you here. And one of the reasons Lord Elban is so interested in the Nali is that there are aspects of their culture that we would consider unnatural.”
“Unnatural, like me?” Judah said.
“Well, you’re not Nali, if that’s what you’re thinking. But the bond that keeps you here is unnatural, yes. The hope is that we can use Nali knowledge to understand how to break that bond.”
“I’m not sure that would be to my benefit.”
“Your concern isn’t entirely unfounded. But Lord Gavin is very attached to you, as is Lady Eleanor. The closer they come to power, the more that matters.”
“Elly gets power? She’ll be delighted to hear it. We were all under the impression that she had nothing to do but oil the rushes and breed.”
The Seneschal’s eyebrows lifted, which was as close as he ever came to emotion. “And here we are. Arrived at the point.”
“Which is?”
“No lovers,” he said. “Not for you. Not ever.”
Unexpectedly, she found herself wanting to laugh. “What?”
“Women die in childbirth, and in pregnancy, and trying to end pregnancy. Lovers driven mad by jealousy lash