After all, he hadn’t invited any other advisers to dinner this evening. Only the town wizard, who clearly had not cast the spells Aefric had found in the Dragonscar.

  What better way to allay suspicion than to invite the wrong wizard to dinner?

  By the time Aefric returned to his room that evening, he was tired and frustrated.

  Dinner hadn’t answered any questions for him. He felt no nearer to determining the mayor’s guilt or innocence in regard to what was happening in the Dragonscar.

  What was more, he found himself concerned over whatever issues the mayor had been trying to hide from him.

  True, those issues might have been minor things. Perhaps small points that would have been embarrassing to the mayor, should his duke learn of them, but otherwise unimportant.

  But Aefric couldn’t dismiss the possibility that those issues might have been large, important things that the duke of Deepwater would need to know.

  And since Aefric only knew of two such issues, he kept finding himself thinking of them over and over again, during course of the evening: the Dragonscar, or the boy Edric.

  Aefric couldn’t raise the issue of the Dragonscar, because he didn’t want to tip anything there himself. He certainly didn’t need to either alert an enemy about what he knew, or — potentially even worse — arouse the interest of a previously ignorant party.

  The last thing Aefric needed was for the mayor to send a scouting expedition into the Dragonscar.

  As for the boy Edric, perhaps Aefric was simply irritated with the mayor, but he kept suspecting the man of either trying to marry a daughter to the boy, or directly trying to steal the boy’s inheritance.

  In fact, no fewer than three times over the course of the meal, Aefric had considered raising the question of Edric and the future of the boy’s lands. Just to get the question out into the open.

  Each time, he had bitten down the desire to do so. Forced himself to delay that question, for one simple reason.

  If Aefric’s suspicions proved to be correct, it was a topic to raise before he left, not a topic to address while he was enjoying the mayor’s hospitality.

  Forcing a confrontation about a legal matter over dinner, well, it was the sort of thing that would give Aefric a reputation as a bad guest.

  And everyone, from Ser Beornric to his seneschals at both Water’s End and Behal, had taken time to make clear to Aefric that proper behavior as both a host and a guest was critical to keeping noble society moving.

  Much as he wanted to raise the issue of Edric, doing so at dinner would have been wrong. No matter how frustrated Aefric felt at the time.

  Ah, well. The most important part of the evening was that Aefric had survived dinner without committing any major gaffes. He’d made it back to his rooms in one piece, and now he could relax. Just sit for a time, looking out over Lake Deepwater and enjoying the momentary quiet.

  Perhaps it was better this way. That he’d stayed here tonight, instead of simply boarding the Calming Influence and sailing back to Water’s End.

  Had he done so, he might never have learned of Edric. And since that was true, surely one more night wouldn’t make a difference in the boy’s future.

  Yes. Aefric could handle the Edric matter in the morning. Take the boy along to Water’s End, and see him properly fostered.

  But then a horrible thought trickled a chill down Aefric’s spine.

  What if all the servants in this house were the children of lers who’d lost their land in the Godswalk Wars?

  How many lers had seen their lands destroyed? How many families, reduced now to one or two heirs who were all but lost to the society that should support them?

  How many such heirs might be right here in Lachedran, in the questionable care of Mayor Brangton?

  Aefric considered letting that question wait until morning. But then he sighed, because he knew that would be a mistake.

  He stood, sighed again, then crossed the sitting room and opened the door into the hall.

  “Ser Arras, Ser Temat,” he said, for those two knights were still standing guard, and would be until close to midnight. “Would you please have a servant bring me Sers Beornric and Yrsa?”

  “Right away, your grace,” Ser Arras said, and went to do just that, while Aefric went back into his sitting room to wait.

  He found a bottle of brandy, and poured small measures into three glasses while he waited, looking out over the lake and musing about the many ways it seemed that people could fall through the cracks of society.

  The knights didn’t keep him waiting long, and once all three were seated and had shared a sip of brandy — apple brandy, which was a disappointment — he told them about Edric.

  “You think the mayor’s making a move for this boy’s lands?” Ser Yrsa asked, and Aefric was pleased to note the informality of her tone. Perhaps she was finally warming to him.

  “I’m not sure if he intends that, or simply to marry the boy to one of his daughters. Either way, I want this Edric coming with us tomorrow. We need to see him properly fostered.”

  “And you’re worried about the other servants now, aren’t you?” Ser Beornric asked, proving once more that the knight knew him well. “Whether or not they’re all in the same situation.”

  “No doubt they all talk to each other,” Aefric said. “So Edric will know if any of the others are in the same position he is. But if I call him to my room at this hour, my intentions might be … misunderstood.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Ser Yrsa said, rising. “I charged the boy with getting my clothes cleaned. I’ll find something to complain about and use it as an excuse to send for him.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Is there anything else, your grace?” Ser Beornric asked, and from the way his gaze moved to Ser Yrsa and back, Aefric suspected he’d interrupted the two of them seeking a very pleasant end to the evening.

  Well, good for them. Most of his knights were sleeping together in some combination or other. No reason to exclude these two.

  “No, that’s all for tonight. See you both at breakfast.”

  They said their goodnights then, and left.

  Aefric considered finishing his brandy, but he really didn’t want the taste of apple. Not after all the apples he’d eaten over the last aett.

  He sat on the couch and sighed, looking out over the lake. Toying with his glass, while he considered the fact that he already had the apple taste of the brandy on his tongue and its scent in his nose, so there really was little to be gained by not finishing the glass.

  Except that doing so would strengthen the taste and smell of the apple brandy. Which would have been very good brandy under other circumstances. If only Aefric were not so very tired of apples…

  He was jarred from his musings by a gentle knock on his door.

  Aefric sighed, and his shoulders drooped. He felt, in that moment, as though he’d been away from home for half a year, instead of just under an aett.

  He should have seen this coming. He really should have. All the signs were there.

  The mayor, with his aspirations to nobility. Emboldened by Aefric’s regrettable choice to kiss the man’s hand, as though he were a noble.

  Add to that the fact that Mayor Brangton had to have heard by now that the old practice of leaba was seeing a resurgence, and Aefric knew exactly who had to be at his door.

  Well, not exactly. But he had no doubt that it was one of the two young women who’d prepared his bath. Coming to offer him leaba.

  Leaba. Once considered part of hospitality among the nobles of Armyr. It was the practice of offering a visiting noble — a titled noble, knights, lers, and others were not included — a bed mate for pleasure. A volunteer, traditionally a commoner, usually from among the servants.

  It had to be offered freely and accepted freely. To coerce someone into participating — on either end — was to commit a grievous wrong.

  Aefric didn’t particularly want the company tonight. True, he’d felt a flicker of envy when he realized that his two knight counselors had company this evening when he did not.

  Still, he had so very many things on his mind. And whoever was standing on the other side of that door, she wouldn’t be a woman Aefric could discuss these matters with.

  She wouldn’t be Maev, or Byrhta.

  She would be a near stranger, here only for the bliss moment. Both his and her own.

  Were Aefric in the house of a proper noble tonight — one of his barons, perhaps — he could refuse the offer and know that the refusal would be taken the right way.

  But for all his aspirations, Mayor Brangton was not a noble. Which was why he wouldn’t know how to properly foster the child of a ler, like poor Edric. And why Aefric couldn’t count on the man reacting properly, should he refuse the offer of leaba.

  Not exactly coercion, but not exactly free acceptance either.

  Leave it to Mayor Brangton to find a way to put Aefric in an ethical gray area.

  The soft knock came again.

  Ah well. The one thing Aefric could count on, was that the woman coming to offer him leaba would be attractive. Certainly those two sisters who’d been preparing his bath had been most appealing, when he allowed himself to stop and consider them.

  He finished off his apple brandy, then called to his knights on the other side of the door.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened enough for Ser Arras to lean in and speak.

  “You have a visitor, your grace.”

  “Let me guess,” Aefric said. “One of the serving women who prepared my bath?”

  “No, your grace. The mayor’s wife wishes to see you.”

  Aefric considered jumping out the window and flying straight back to Water’s End. He could send a rika in the morning. Tell Sers Yrsa and Beornric to bring with them that chest from the ducal bedroom here, along with the boy Edric, and any other lost ler children they might find.

  Aefric was a duke, after all. Surely such a thing would just be written off as eccentric behavior. Not a grave insult or anything…

  He couldn’t do it though. Even if such thoughts weren’t more than just a fleeting fancy. Even if he really, really wanted to escape his current situation the old way. The adventurer’s way.

  He couldn’t do it because, right now, Lachedran was too strategically important to what was going on in the Dragonscar. And Aefric needed to maintain good relations here until he both decided what he was going to do about the Dragonscar, and was ready to act.

  So he had to deal with the very real fact of a late night visit.

  From the mayor’s own wife.

  Oh, Aefric had known that the man craved nobility, but this. This went well above simple aspiration. Beyond even an improper offer of leaba.

  This…

  One thing Aefric was still getting used to here in Armyr. Among the nobility, sex for pleasure was not only permitted, it was encouraged, whenever there was mutual desire. Even outside of marriage, so long as one or both participants drank the nysta tea, to prevent unwanted conception.

  The way it had been explained to Aefric, lust and jealousy had once caused major conflicts, even wars, among the nobles in the early days of Armyr. Problems that had been mitigated, once those nobles were free to share pleasure with any other nobles they found attractive.

  As Aefric understood it, the practice had even spread to the common folk, in the trendier of towns and cities.

  Socially, the only restriction was that nobles lay with nobles and common folk lay with common folk, with the only sanctioned exception being the practice of leaba.

  The mayor, for all his dreams of nobility, was of the common folk. And Aefric was a noble. It would be a breach of etiquette for the mayor’s wife to come to Aefric to share a night of pleasure.

  Technically, Aefric supposed, Leca could offer leaba, because she was a commoner. But such an offer still shouldn’t, properly speaking, come in this household, because the mayor was not a noble.

  Frankly, her coming to him this way felt as though she were being prostituted by her husband, in exchange for Aefric’s political goodwill.

  Easy to imagine. The strong personality of the mayor browbeating the weaker personality of his young wife into coming to Aefric and … submitting herself.

  With that in mind, Aefric shouldn’t even let the poor woman into his room.

  And yet…

  And yet Aefric knew that sending her away would be taken as an insult. Possibly by Leca. Definitely by Brangton. And avoiding that kind of insult was what had led to him staying here in Lachedran for the night in the first place.

  Plus, sending her away might even get her punished. Depending on the kind of man the mayor was.

  That was speculation, though.

  Really, it all came down to this question.

  Could Aefric do something personally distasteful, just for his own political … convenience?

  What precedent would he be establishing? That his good graces could be bought with sexual favors?

  Or was he overthinking this? Was this part of the gray area of Armyrian sexuality that he just didn’t understand yet? Or worse, was this part of some new trend he hadn’t heard about yet?

  Should Aefric expect to have wives and daughters flung into his bed, anytime he accepted hospitality from some mayor or city councilor or even a major merchant family?

  There had to be a limit somewhere, didn’t there?

  There had to be some—

  “Your grace?” Ser Arras prompted, from the doorway.

  Aefric forced a deep breath. Tried to relax muscles that had grown quite tense in the last minute or so.

  He could at least allow her in. Converse with her for a time. Have a drink. Accept her company. Then, perhaps, he could find a graceful way to avoid accepting … anything else.

  “Excuse me,” Aefric said with a forced smile, certain that Leca would hear his words as well. “I was just so surprised by my good fortune that I thought I was dreaming. Please. Do send her in at once.”

  That smile locked in place, Aefric stood and faced the door as Leca entered.

  Her smile was so bright and sincere that Aefric felt his spirits lift, despite himself.

  She actually looked … happy to be here?

  Well, at least that alleviated one of his concerns.

  She wore a soft, dark green woolen cloak, held closed with one hand. Her pale blonde hair was down, loose and bouncing as she padded across the carpeting of rushes with quick steps, while Ser Arras closed the door behind her.

  Before Aefric could utter the inane greeting that was the only thing he could think of, she sank to her knees on the carpet before him, head bowed.

  “There’s no need for that,” Aefric said, puzzled, but she didn’t look up while she spoke.

  “I must thank your grace for receiving me,” she said softly. “No doubt your grace believes I should not have come. That because my husband is of common stock, I must be as well.”

  Aefric wasn’t sure what he expected to happen when she came in, but this was not it.

  “I … take it you’re not?” Aefric asked, curious now.

  “No, your grace,” she said, looking up and smiling with both her full lips and her soft brown eyes. She no longer held the cloak tightly closed, and he could see that beneath it she wore only a sheer white chemise.

  “My full name is Karaleca Ol’Nara. My brother Morgard and I are the surviving children of Ler Boury Ol’Nara.”

  Well. This did put things in a different perspective. If she was a noble, her coming to him tonight wasn’t a violation of etiquette. And there certainly could be no question of her willingness.

  No, from the look in her eye, Aefric could not doubt that this woman was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she wanted to do.

  In fact, her gaze held enough heat to set Aefric’s blood racing.

  Aefric forced himself to think. To consider her lineage, and what it meant, through a long, slow breath. Put this information in the context of everything else he’d learned since arriving in Lachedran.

  For her part, Leca waited patiently, holding his gaze with hers.

  “Let me guess,” Aefric said. “Your lands were on the other side of the Deepwater, and destroyed during the Godswalk Wars.”

  “Yes, your grace,” Leca said, sounding impressed. “On the northeastern shores of the Deepwater, in fact.” A wistful look came over her for a moment. “Wonderful area for freshwater clams and mussels.”

  “Even so,” Aefric said. “Your husband, as you said, is of common stock. Does he not object to … your being here tonight?”

  Leca cocked a pale eyebrow in an expression that showed both more intelligence and more playfulness than Aefric had noted from her at dinner.

  “I suspect that my husband would not appreciate my exercising my noble privilege with many. But in your case, he would not object. He is … most eager to make a good impression on his duke.” Her smile quirked attractively. “Though he did make sure I drank my nysta tea, before coming here.”

  Well, there went the last objection Aefric could make. And he had to admit. The woman was really quite pretty.

  And he couldn’t leave her kneeling like that all night.

  “In that case” — Aefric reached down to take her hand — “come join me on the couch.”

  Aefric had not really wanted company that night in Lachedran. He’d wanted time to himself. To savor the peace and quiet, and to consider everything he’d learned on this trip. Both in the Dragonscar, and here in Lachedran.

  Still. If he had to have company tonight — and if that company could not be Maev or Byrhta — he could do far worse than Leca. Not only was she quite pretty, with a shapely figure only barely hidden by her thin chemise, but she’d already demonstrated more intelligence and personality than she’d shown at dinner.

  Her company might prove more interesting than he expected.

  It didn’t hurt that she was clearly eager to be here with him.

  In fact, the moment Aefric invited Leca to join him on the couch that night, her smile brightened enough to guide passing ships to shore.