:Quite, beloved.: Yfandes' mind-voice was yellow and effervescent with amusement. :Does he do that to you every time we come?:

Vanyel rubbed her forehead between her eyes and she closed them with pleasure. :Just about. Normally he doesn't follow me into the stable, but I get it when he hears from the stablehands what I did with you. Watch out for that so - called “Shin'a'in stallion;” I think he's sometimes allowed to run loose in this field. He might try and bully you; he might decide you’re one of his mares and give you a little excitement.:

She bared her front teeth delicately. :I'd rather like to see him try anything on me. I could use a good fight.:

He nearly choked. :Now, love, you 'II scare him impotent, and how will I explain that to Meke?:

:Cleverly, of course. Go on with you; I'm fine and your father is fretting.:

“All right, Father, she says she's comfortable,” he said aloud, forcing himself not to grin. “Let's go.”

“Are you sure she should be left like that? What if she gets out?”

“Father,” Vanyel sighed, sending the gods a silent plea for patience, “I want her to be able to come and go as she pleases.”

“But - “

Vanyel wondered if his father ever really heard anything he said. “She's not, “he repeated for the hundredth time, “a horse. “

Vanyel was in time for dinner, a pleasure he would just as soon have done without. But once bathed, settled into the best guest room, and dressed in clean clothing - not uniform, he wasn't on duty now, not even technically - his good sense prevailed over his reluctance. When the summons for dinner came, he followed the page and took his place at the high table. Withen tried to put him at his right, between himself and Vanyel's mother. Vanyel managed to convince him to let him take the usual seat guests took, on the end, displacing Radevel, who didn't look at all unhappy to be sitting down at the low table.

Sitting at the end he was spared having to make conversation with two people at once. His seat - mate proved to be Mekeal's thin, little red-haired wife Roshya, who took all the burden of conversation from him. She chattered nonstop, sparrowlike, without ever seeming to pause for breath. All he had to do was nod and make vague noises of agreement or disagreement from time to time, and he actually didn't mind; Roshya's gossip was cheerful and never malicious - if she had a fault it was that she seemed to assume he must know every highborn and family member for leagues around. After all, she did.

The dark, high-ceilinged hall seemed far more cramped than Vanyel remembered - until he counted heads, and realized that there were twice the number of folk dining than there had been when he was fifteen. He blinked, but the number didn't change. The low table had been lengthened, and a second table set at right angles to it at the other end, making an “H” shape with the high table.

And the high table had been lengthened, too; when Van had been sent to Haven and his aunt Savil, only Withen, Treesa, Jervis, Father Leren, and any guests they might have had been seated there-which had then included Vanyel's Aunt Serina and her Healer. Now, besides the original four, the table included the unmarried children, all three married sons, and their wives.

Great good gods, this isn't a family, it's a tribe!

The only one missing since his last visit seemed to be his youngest sister Charis; it looked like the only ones still home were the boys. After a moment of thought it seemed to him that he recalled getting word of Charis' wedding to somebody-o  other just after Elspeth's death. Did I send a present? I must've, or I'd have heard about it five breaths after being greeted. That's right - I remember now - I sent that hideously pious tapestry of the Lady of Fertility. Aunt Savil took care of Meke and Roshya for me, and I sent Deleran those awful silver-and-crystal candlesticks...

But gods, did I do anything about Raster and whatever-her-name-is? That was just seven or eight months ago, I was so tangled up in the Border-fight - I don't remember -

He continued to fret about that until Roshya's dropped comment about the “delightful bedcurtains, Kaster and Ria were so pleased,” told him that if he hadn't, Savil must have sent something in his name. At that point he relaxed a little. From Roshya's chatter, Vanyel learned that she and Mekeal had six children thus far; Deleran and his wife had two, and Raster's rather plump new bride -

Looks ready to spawn at any moment. Lord and Lady, they certainly didn't waste any time.

It made his head swim to think about it. Forst Reach was hardly a small holding, but it must be near to bursting at the seams.

He must have looked as if he were marginally interested in the new bride. Roshya waved her beringed hands in an artful imitation of Treesa, and launched into a dissertation on Lady Ria that was partly fact and mostly fancy - Vanyel was in a position to know. She'd been one of the young women his mother had thrown into his path the last time he'd been home. She looked content enough now with Kaster, which was something of a relief to his conscience.

He looked back down at the low table in one of Roshya's infrequent pauses for breath.

No wonder she's thin. She never stops talking to eat.

Radevel was the only face he recognized down there, although a good half the youngsters had the Ashkevron build and look. Radevel was stolidly munching his way through a heaping plateful of bread and roast when he caught Vanyel looking at him, and gave the Herald a shrug of the shoulders aimed at the mob of children, then a slow and quite deliberate wink.

Vanyel stifled a laugh. So Father is still fostering dozens of cousins, and Radevel is still stuck here. Poor Rad; what is he, fifth son ? Nowhere else to go, I guess. I bet Father's put him in charge of the younglings. Good choice. He 'II keep them moderately in line. Better him than Jervis.

He looked back up in time to catch crag - faced Jervis, the Forst Reach armsmaster, giving him an ugly glare. He met the glare impassively, but with an inward feeling of foreboding. He's going to try something, I feel it in my bones. Great, that means I'll get to play cat-and-mouse with him through the whole visit. He looked away when the armsmaster's eyes fell, only to find that saturnine Father Leren was giving him a look of ice and calculation, too, from beneath hooded lids. Delightful, so I have both of them to deal with. Just what I needed. What a wonderful friendly visit this is going to be.

He continued to make the appropriate noises at Roshya, and ignored the further stares of Jervis and Leren.

Mekeal had become so like Withen that Vanyel had to blink, seeing them together. Broad shoulders, brown beards trimmed identically, brown hair held back in identical tails with identical silver rings, dark brown eyes as open and readable as a dog's-dissimilar clothing was about all that differentiated them. That, and a few wrinkles in Withen's face, a few gray streaks in his hair and beard. Meke was perhaps a touch less muscular; not surprising since Withen's muscles had been built up in actual fighting during his career as a guard officer, and Meke had never seen any righting outside of an occasional skirmish with bandits. But otherwise - Withen did not look his age; with all the silver in his hair and the stress-lines around his eyes, Vanyel could be taken for older than his father.

Treesa, on the other hand, had not aged gracefully. She was still affecting the light, diaphanous gowns and pale colors appropriate to a young girl. Even if he had not been aware of the various cosmetic artifices employed by the ladies of Randale's Court, Vanyel would have known the coloring of her hair and cheeks to be false.

She's holding onto youth with teeth and nails, and it's still getting away from her, he thought sadly. Poor Mother. All she ever had to make her feel like she had some worth was being pretty and me, and she's losing both. Every year I become more of a stranger to her; every year her looks fade a little more. He glanced over at Roshya, who seemed to be doing her best to imitate Lady Treesa, and was relieved to see a gleam of lively good humor in her green eyes, and to hear a little of that sense of humor reflected in what she was saying. Treesa would likely become a bitter, unpleasant old woman on her own - but not with Roshya around.