me to take it to you. He said he will see you soon.’
‘How did he seem?’ asked the Protector Lady, taking the message and clutching it in her hands. ‘Was . . . was he sad?’
‘No, Lady!’ cried the child in surprise. ‘Of course not! Sad! How silly! He was just . . . Papa! Busy. Smiling. Just Papa!’
The Protector Lady opened the message and scanned its contents. ‘It is from Alberon,’ she cried. ‘Oh, it is a boy! Born last month!’ She looked up at the Protector Lord and quoted from the letter. ‘He says the child is a fine, bawling manling. I cannot wait until I have done overseeing the new fleet and can get around to buying him a horse . . .’ She read on in silence and her smile faltered. ‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘Oh.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘The babe is to be called Oliver.’
There was a small moment of quiet. Then the Protector Lord said dryly, ‘An unusual enough choice.’ The lady met his eye.
Isaac frowned. The Protector Lord’s bitter expression was as difficult to understand as the lady’s tears.
‘Ain’t Jonathon afraid what people might think?’ said the lord. ‘Naming his new boy after the man what almost brought his kingdom down?’
‘Christopher,’ whispered the Protector Lady. ‘Don’t. You know someone had to take the blame. Better someone already beyond pain than those left alive.’
The Protector Lord tutted and turned to look out at the city. Behind Isaac, Coriolanus suddenly rose to his feet, muttered something about ‘the fickle fortunes of man’, and slunk away. The Protector Lady watched his stiff progress through the slats of sunlight and shade until he had moved out of sight behind the timbers, then she sat looking down at her hands, her face grave. The silence became itchy and uncomfortable.
Isaac squirmed. ‘Papa . . . Papa seems most pleased to have a new brother,’ he ventured.
The lady took a deep breath and sniffed. ‘Aye!’ she said. She shook herself, then waved the letter cheerfully in his face. ‘And you have a new uncle, little pud! How wonderful for you! Certainly the Royal Prince Alberon is delighted . . . he says you shall both have to take the little chap fishing whenever you get around to visiting your grandfather’s kingdom!’
‘I should very much like that!’
The Protector Lady dragged Isaac onto her knee and tickled him until he shrieked.
‘And what of Queen Marguerite?’ asked the Protector Lord quietly.
The lady subsided against the scaffold bars, the little boy cradled fondly in her arms. ‘Gone back home already,’ she said. ‘She took but two weeks’ rest after the birth, then headed North to finish her campaign against the Haun. Apparently she and Jonathon have decided this child shall be a Southland prince, by dint of his being firstborn.’
Christopher sighed, shook his head, then spread his hands and laughed. ‘Why not!’ he said. ‘It’s as good a way to choose as any, I guess.’
‘I doubt Jonathon will regret his darling wife’s absence,’ said the lady dryly. ‘One could hardly call their union a love match.’ She rose to her feet, lifting Isaac on her strong shoulders. ‘Speaking of which, a certain husband of mine promised coffee and manchet once his students had gone! Perhaps there’s something wrong with my nose, but I don’t smell coffee! Where’s my manchet, little man?’ She pretended to root in Isaac’s coat. ‘Have you hid it? Have you? Is it in your britches?’
Isaac squirmed and shrieked and wriggled. Finally the lady thrust him from her with a weary sigh. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘you will just have to cook this piglet. It’s all I can find to eat, I’m afraid.’
The Protector Lord swung the little boy onto his back with an order to hold tight, then launched himself over the edge. Isaac grinned at the lady’s faint, ‘Jesu!’ He glanced up to see her looking over the scaffolding, shaking her head at them as they descended the ladder. She was all lit up against the very bright blue of the sky, her untidy red hair ruffled and streaming out like ribbons on the hot breeze. As he watched her, she leaned her elbows on the scaffold bar, laced her work-hardened hands and gazed out across the huge and troubled magnificence of the city. Her face fell into that grave kind of watchfulness so familiar to him, and he regarded her with all the love possible in his small and happy heart.