After four days of wind and storm, the morning of the fifth day broke over calm seas and a cloudless—if icy—sky.

Immediately, the scavengers went out to comb the shores for whatever the sea had cast up. Heaps of extremely useful kelp was always thrown upon the rocks, of course, but there were other things. Amber, jet, sea coal. And sometimes the sea in her fickle nature elected to toss back things that had gone to the bottom in previous wrecks. By the time Moira went down to breakfast, the keep was practically empty. Everyone who could be spared was out combing the shore, and everyone who could hunt was up in the forest doing so. The cook would make only one hot meal today, as most of his helpers would be elsewhere.

It seemed as good a time as any to send the Countess another message. But what? Moira still had no idea why Massid was here. No marriage had yet been proposed. And yet—

Frustrated, she essentially repeated her previous warning with the addition of the rumor about the storm being “sent,” adding only that Massid was spending all his time in her father’s company. She released the dove with a sense of futility, and carried a basket of eggs down to the cook as her excuse for being up there in the first place.

With nothing much to do, she went into the Great Hall before returning to her rooms, and stood at the window, brooding down at the ocean.

“Pining for a beloved, my lady?” Kedric’s dry voice came from behind her.

“If you know anything at all about the women schooled by the Countess, you know we don’t pine for anything,” she replied, without turning. “And as for a beloved, you would know that we also are aware that our lives are not our own to give.”

“Ah yes, you are well schooled in obedience—” The bitterness in his voice made her turn and regard him with a lifted brow.

“Perhaps, Kedric, you are insufficiently acquainted with the meaning of the phrase noblesse oblige,” she replied, keeping her tone cool, and just on the polite side of sarcastic. “It means that those who are born into a position of power inherit obligations and responsibilities far in excess of the benefits of privilege. It means that we are obligated to protect those who give us their loyalty and service. Sometimes that protection comes at the cost of a life. Sometimes the cost is only freedom. But we owe them that. This is what noblesse oblige means.”

She could not read Kedric’s face, so she continued. “Men,” she said with some bitterness of her own, “think that being willing to lay down their lives is difficult. They have no conception of what it means to be willing to lay down your life as a woman does—not for a moment of sacrifice, but for years, decades of sacrifice. To surrender it in that way so that the people you have sworn to protect are protected.”

“And so, you lie down and let yourself—” Kedric began.

She interrupted him, a cold fury in her voice that she could not entirely repress. “Is that what you think? That this is mere, passive obedience, weak and weak willed? I thought you wiser than your motley, Kedric. It is hard, hard, to subdue the will, to force aside I want for I must. But you mistake me. Even in the most loveless and calculated of marriages, there are children to love and be loved by. I refer to the hardest sacrifice of all, for a woman to steel her will to live alone and unwedded, not because she wishes to, but because, for the sake of her people, she must—to look down the long years ahead and see nothing at the end of them but an empty bed and a lonely singleness.”

He made a little strangling sound, and she sniffed, interpreting his odd expression, she thought, correctly. “What? You thought the Countess remained single because she wished to? Or because she does not care for men? Oh, she mourns the Count her husband, and she truly loved him, but she stays a single widow because it is her cousin the King’s will, so that she can be the stalking horse, be dangled, like a prize at a fair, for all to see but ultimately never be won by any. And she takes no lovers, for she is the King’s cousin, and like Caesar’s wife, she must be above reproach. She knows that, has always known it, and she makes sure her Gr—her ladies know that there is more than one way in which the King may ask for their obedience, and what the cost may be.”

“I—see,” he managed. “That had not occurred to me.”

“And to protect my people, if I thought it would protect them, yes, I would give myself over to be locked away in a seraglio in Jendara,” she added, turning back to the window. “But I do not think it would protect them. I think the opposite, and I think the King would agree.”

“I think he would, too, my lady.” Kedric’s tone was firm again.

Well, there it was. The unspoken message and alliance she had been hoping to hear. Kedric was the King’s man, and he was here to be the King’s eyes and ears. “The trouble is, I do not know how to prevent it,” she said, sadly. “Short of throwing myself into the sea.”

“You are the heir to a sea-keep, my lady, and as such you can wed any of the King’s subjects you choose without his leave,” Kedric said slowly, as if he was thinking aloud. “But by the law of the land and the charter by which a sea-keep is held, you cannot wed someone who is not one of his subjects without his leave.”

And there it was—her escape. Or at least a way to stall for time. Her father would have to pretend that he was sending for the King’s permission. Probably he would forge such a message, but she had been schooled by the Countess, and she had seen and learned how to recognize the King’s hand and seal. She didn’t think there was anyone here with sufficient talent to successfully forge a royal decree.

“That,” she said aloud, “is quite true. And it is exceedingly useful to keep in mind.”

“I am pleased to have given you something useful, my lady,” he replied, as she turned back to look down at the ocean.

A movement along the cliff face caught her eye. It was the work crew, going out to replenish the fuel for the beacon—and that reminded her, suddenly, of the mark she had made on the window of the nursery, a mark which might give her some information, though what use she could make of it, she was not yet sure.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” she said, after a moment—but then, abruptly, added, “unless you would care to accompany me to the old nursery. I think I might have left something there that might interest you.”

He looked at her askance, but nodded. “If you wish, my lady, and you think I may be of service.”

She smiled without humor. “Say, rather, it might be instructive to you to see how a sea-keep child begins its life. We are not sheltered.”

“That,” the minstrel said, raising his eyebrows, “I can truly believe.”

He followed her to the nursery, and did not voice any objections to the chill, stale air as she opened the door. It was dark, as she had expected. As far as she could tell, no one had opened the shutters on the window since she herself had closed them.

She went straight to the window, and opened them—she didn’t fling them open, she moved them quietly, to make as little noise as possible.

“What are you—” Kedric began. She held up a cautioning hand.

“This, you see, is the view every child of the lord of a sea-keep gets from the time it leaves the cradle,” she said, as she leaned down to scrutinize the windowpanes. Finally she resorted to finding the scratch she had made by touch rather than by sight. Somewhat to her surprise, it wasn’t standing out the way she had thought it would. Perhaps too many fantastic tales of lovelorn maidens or tragically imprisoned heroes inscribing poems on the windows of their rooms had given her the mistaken impression that all it would take was a little rubbing with a diamond to leave a visible mark.