"I talked to your parents a lot, too," Stef said. "I hope you don't mind." He tried to muster up a hint of mischief. "Treesa and I have a lot in common; she says I'm more fun to have as company than any of her ladies. I helped her get herself settled in when they got here, you know."
"I didn't know," Vanyel replied with a kind of absent-minded chagrin. "I just saw Father taking to the job of Councillor like a hound to the chase, and I guess I just assumed Mother would be all right."
She wasn't all right; she got here and found out that she was in the same position Savil said you were in when you first came here - a provincial noble from the backwater, twenty years behind the fashions, with no knowledge of current gossip or protocol, Stef thought. She saw less of you than before. She was terribly lonely, and if there had been a way to get home, she'd have taken it.
"I thought she was fine. It just seemed like after the first couple of weeks, she was as happy as Father," Van continued, peering through the curtain of snow at the road ahead. "Every time I'd see her she was the center of attention, surrounded by others." He paused for a moment, then said, "Was that your doing?"
"Some of it," Stef admitted. "I coached her, and I introduced her to Countess Bryerly and Lady Gellwin. You probably hadn't noticed, but there isn't much 'court' at Court with Randi so sick and Shavri's time taken up with it. The real Court, the social part, has pretty much moved out of the Crown section of the Palace and into the nobles' suites. And those are the two that really run it. Countess Bryerly is distantly related to the Brendewhins, so that made everything fine. Lady Gellwin took Treesa under her wing as a kind of protege, put her in charge of a lot of the younger girls once she found out that your mother did a lot of fostering."
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[01]
"I talked to your parents a lot, too," Stef said. "I hope you don't mind." He tried to muster up a hint of mischief. "Treesa and I have a lot in common; she says I'm more fun to have as company than any of her ladies. I helped her get herself settled in when they got here, you know."
"I didn't know," Vanyel replied with a kind of absent-minded chagrin. "I just saw Father taking to the job of Councillor like a hound to the chase, and I guess I just assumed Mother would be all right."
She wasn't all right; she got here and found out that she was in the same position Savil said you were in when you first came here - a provincial noble from the backwater, twenty years behind the fashions, with no knowledge of current gossip or protocol, Stef thought. She saw less of you than before. She was terribly lonely, and if there had been a way to get home, she'd have taken it.
"I thought she was fine. It just seemed like after the first couple of weeks, she was as happy as Father," Van continued, peering through the curtain of snow at the road ahead. "Every time I'd see her she was the center of attention, surrounded by others." He paused for a moment, then said, "Was that your doing?"
"Some of it," Stef admitted. "I coached her, and I introduced her to Countess Bryerly and Lady Gellwin. You probably hadn't noticed, but there isn't much 'court' at Court with Randi so sick and Shavri's time taken up with it. The real Court, the social part, has pretty much moved out of the Crown section of the Palace and into the nobles' suites. And those are the two that really run it. Countess Bryerly is distantly related to the Brendewhins, so that made everything fine. Lady Gellwin took Treesa under her wing as a kind of protege, put her in charge of a lot of the younger girls once she found out that your mother did a lot of fostering."