I’d never have made it without them.’
‘I thought you’d come straight to me when you arrived.’ Her mother had that familiar lecturing pout. As keen as Savine was to pretend everything was the same.
‘I wanted to get clean first. It seems like months since I was clean.’ She did not feel clean even now. However she scrubbed, the aimless dread still stuck to her like a clammy second skin.
‘We’ve all been so worried.’ Her mother held Savine out at arm’s length so she could look her over. Like an owner examining the damage to a fire-ravaged house. ‘Dear, dear, but you’re so thin.’
‘The food was … not good. Then the food ran out.’ Savine gave a shrill laugh, though nothing was at all funny. ‘We ate vegetable peelings. It’s amazing how quickly you feel lucky to get them. There was a woman in the next house who tried to make soup by boiling the paste off her wallpaper. It … didn’t work.’ She shook herself. ‘Could I get a drink, Mother? I need … a little something.’ She would much rather have been held but, since they were who they were, she could be drunk instead.
‘You know I never turn down a drink before lunch.’ Her mother flicked open the cabinet and began to pour. ‘Lubricates the rough road through to afternoon.’ She handed Savine a glass, and she knocked it off right away and handed it back.
Her mother raised a brow. ‘You do need lubricating.’
‘It was …’ Savine felt tears gathering in her eyes as she tried to put into words what it had been. Crawling through the grinding engines. Running through a city gone insane. Crouching in the stinking darkness. ‘It was …’
‘You’re safe now.’ And her mother pushed another drink towards her.
Savine jerked herself back from the slums of Valbeck. Sipped at her glass though she’d rather have swigged from the decanter. ‘Where’s Father?’
‘Working. I rather think he couldn’t face you.’ Her mother sat with a rustling of skirts, wiped a streak of wine from the outside of her glass and sucked her finger. ‘He can send a hundred prisoners to freeze in Angland without batting an eyelid, but he lets you down and he can scarcely get out of bed. I’m sure he’ll be along presently. To check that you’re well.’ Her mother considered her over the rim of her glass for a long moment. ‘Are you well, Savine?’
‘Of course.’ Splash of the bucket into black water, the stench of burning in her nose. ‘Although …’ Creak of the chain as the body of the mill owner swung from the gib of his own manufactory. ‘It may take …’ The feeling as her sword slid through that man’s body. So little resistance. The look on his face. So surprised. ‘Just a little time …’ The grinding, ripping, screaming as the guard’s arm was dragged into the gears of that machine. ‘To adjust.’
She drained her glass again. Shook herself free of Valbeck again. Forced the smile back onto her face. Again. ‘Mother, I … have some news.’
‘Bigger news than that you’re alive?’
‘In some ways, yes.’ Certainly Queen Terez would think so …
‘Is it bad?’ asked her mother, wincing.
‘No, no. It’s good.’ She thought. ‘It’s very good.’ She hoped. ‘Mother … I’ve received a proposal of marriage.’
‘Another? How many is that now?’
‘This time I’m going to accept.’ What man could suit her better, after all? What man could offer her more?
Her mother’s eyes went very wide. ‘Bloody hell.’ She finished her glass with one long swallow. ‘Are you sure? Given what you’ve been through—’
‘I’m sure.’ It was the one thing she was sure about. ‘What I’ve been through … only made me realise … how sure I am.’ Orso was the one thing that made sense, and the sooner she was back in his arms, the better.
‘But surely I’m not old enough to have a married daughter?’ Savine’s mother snorted up a laugh as she went to the table and pulled the stopper from the decanter. ‘So … who’s the luckiest bastard in the Union?’
‘That’s the thing. It’s … well …’
‘Have you fallen for someone unsuitable, Savine?’ Wine gurgled out into the glass. ‘Marrying down isn’t the worst thing in the world, you know, your father did it—’
‘It’s Crown Prince Orso!’ Her mother’s head jerked up, her glass, for once, forgotten in her hand. Savine had to admit it sounded absurd. The most unlikely part of some unlikely fantasy. She cleared her throat and looked at the floor,