Daja looked down, feeling her cheeks grow warm. She wished she had long, curling lashes like Rizu’s. They made everything she did look flirtatious.
For the next two days, Sandry’s companions amused themselves while Sandry acquainted herself with her ancient family home and its management at the hands of Ambros and his father. After that the group ranged farther afield with Ambros on rides to introduce Sandry to her many acres and those who worked them. They lost Briar for a day when he got to talking with the man in charge of the river tolls and crossings. All it took was the mention of particularly tough, long waterweeds that fouled oars and rudders to sidetrack Briar from his flirtation with Caidy. She pouted for two days and reserved her smiles for Jak, until Briar produced a small bottle of lily-of-the-valley perfume, made so that one drop would leave her smelling hauntingly of the flowers. That gift returned him to her good graces.
Daja, too, enjoyed the rides, partly because they took her to the villages that lay on Sandry’s vast holdings. Those villages had smiths, men and women who were more than happy to talk with, and to trade tips with, another smith. After time spent in the nobles’ glittering company, Daja needed the solidity of the forge and those who worked in them. She always felt excited among the nobles, as if she stood on the brink of some great discovery. It was wonderful, but exhausting. Metal brought her back to earth.
Tris never accompanied them. She was too busy working with Zhegorz, teaching him ways to shut out the things he saw and heard, being more patient with Daja’s jittery friend than Daja believed Tris could ever be. Something she learned on her travels gentled her a bit, Daja thought one night over supper, watching Tris rest a hand on Zhegorz’s shoulder as he stared into the hearth fire. If she doesn’t think anyone’s watching her, she can actually be kind. Tris. Who would have thought it?
Sandry thought she would go mad with Ambros’s dry recounting of grain yields, mule sales, and tax records, but she had to admire his work. In those immense account books she could trace the progress he and his father had made with her holdings. His father had done well, but he had spent as little as possible to maintain buildings and roads and to handle the payments for those who worked the land. He saved every copper in order to send quarterly payments to Sandry’s mother and then to Sandry.
When the writing in the books changed to Ambros’s tiny, spiked handwriting, she saw that he had made loans and collected interest, then used that money to invest in crop management and exports. He had used those profits to make improvements to the estates, increasing production and creating a wider variety of goods to send to market. The problem was the one that she had observed in Emelan, the increase of taxes on the estates.
Sandry was poring over tax records one sunny afternoon a week after their arrival when Tris came to ask her permission to take Gudruny’s children and Zhegorz up into the watchtower. “The guards refuse to let us go without permission from you or Ambros or Ealaga,” she said drily, leaning over Sandry’s shoulder. “What are these?”
“Imperial taxes. You know, maybe the guards won’t believe you,” Sandry remarked, picking up her shoulder wrap. A tiny hope, that perhaps Tris would reopen their connection as Daja had, surged in her heart. Sandry immediately crushed it. Tris was too wary, and too preoccupied with Zhegorz. Her chances were better with Briar for now. “I should go along so they’ll know you have my permission for certain. Where are Ambros and Ealaga, anyway?”
Tris did not reply. Instead, she frowned, running a finger down a column of numbers.
Sandry waited, then nudged the redhead. “Tris? I asked you something, sister dear. Tris?” When this didn’t produce a response, Sandry poked Tris hard.
Tris scowled at her. “They aren’t in the castle, all right?”
Sandry pointed at the book. “What’s so interesting? Don’t say Ambros is witching the sums, because I won’t believe you.”
Tris snorted. “And I’m the Queen of the Battle Islands. No, it’s not Ambros. Don’t you see? There are more entries as you get older—more taxes, and more of them coming directly from the throne. First you were taxed four times a year; then six; then there’s a double tax in this year…He’s as mule-headed as you, your cousin.”
Sandry blinked at Tris. “You should be a prophetess, you’re so cryptic,” she complained. “Just say what it is right out, Tris.”
Tris rolled her eyes. “She was trying to drain his purse for some reason. Probably so he wouldn’t be able to send you this exact sum each year, because that’s the only amount that remains the same. He’s been scrambling, cutting other spending, but that amount remains the same, even during the last three years when he’s had to cut everything else to the bone. And here’s this year. One levy of imperial taxes, when last year there were three already. I’ll bet he never said a word to you, did he?”
He sent me the tax records, so I could see for myself, thought Sandry, ashamed. She knew why this year’s record was so different. She had sent word north via mages that she was coming to Namorn in late spring.
“The instant she knew I was coming, she stopped taking so many taxes out of these lands,” Sandry whispered. “Why didn’t he say anything to me? I just assumed he was coping with it all.”
“It was a point of pride for him.” They turned. Ealaga stood in the doorway. “He felt that you would believe he had mismanaged things, if he could not make your payment. I begged him to let you know the people here were being forced to pay for your absence, but…” She shrugged. “He is yet another Landreg mule.”