The next morning, they arose to find that Lady Tamberline had laid on an exotic breakfast for them. Vanilla beans and ginger roots served in human milk taken from one of the kitchen milk girls. Lady Penmark once again handed the first bite of everything on her plate to the food taster while Lothby watched, his back against the wall, listening to the two women gossiping as if they were lifelong friends. It would have been impossible to tell, listening to them exchanging amusing anecdotes about disappointing lovers and the failed business ventures of their rivals, that they would both have greeted the news that the other had suffered some kind of horrible death with delighted celebration.

     Lothby would also make use of the food taster to sample his breakfast when it was handed to him, an hour or so later. Something that he could carry with him and gulp down a mouthful of whenever he managed to get a spare moment from watching over his mistress. He rarely got to actually sit at a table to eat, and a leather pouch in which to carry a pork pie or a couple of sausages was a standard part of his uniform. Unfortunately, it wasn't unusual for him to slip something in there and then forget about it until it was hard and stale or, worse, covered with green mold. He would eat it anyway, of course. He was too old and had survived too much to be killed by a maggoty drumstick.

     At the other corner of the room, a cellist sat in an ornately decorated wheelchair, drawing the tendons of her arm against the tightly stretched strands of skin between her thighs and shoulders to produce a light, airy music to accompany the meal. Unlike Terpsichore, this instrument didn’t have a name, and whatever name the girl had once been known by had been forgotten, possibly even by the girl herself. She was just an instrument now. Her only purpose was to make music for her owner, and she wasn't good enough at it to be distinguished from the other thousands of other cellist in the kingdom. It was a pleasing melody, though, and raised the atmosphere of the room that would otherwise have been made cold and impersonal by the bare stone walls.

     “What time do you expect your brother to return?” asked Lady Penmark, wiping a drop of milk from the corner of her mouth with a silk napkin.

     “Possibly around midday, if his journey goes without incident,” replied Tamberline. “You will have all afternoon to discuss business with him. Whatever it is that your business concerns.”

     Penmark ignored the dig for information. If the gossip was true, the Born siblings kept few secrets from each other, so she would probably find out from her brother anyway after Penmark had left. She felt little inclination to inform her herself, therefore. Let her wonder. It was a small revenge for the insults of previous visits, but it was something.

     “I shall have to find some way to entertain myself this morning, then. Perhaps I and my men will enjoy a ride through the countryside. Visit these lemon orchards of yours that I've heard so much about.”

 
   “I'm sure you'd love them, but I have a much better idea. Today is the day that I normally take a boat to inspect the pearl beds. I was going to postpone it, so that I could entertain you for the duration your unavoidable delay, but if you came with me it would allow me to keep my normal schedule. You would be doing me a great favour, and I'm sure you would find it entertaining as well.”

 
   “It sounds absolutely delightful,” said Penmark. “I am prone to sea sickness, though, which makes it impossible for me to accept your most gracious invitation. Our lands are away from the coast, as you know, which means that I am unaccustomed to sea travel. Please don't let us keep you from your normal routines, though. I'm sure we are quite capable of entertaining ourselves for a few hours until your brother returns.”

     “Nonsense! I would be failing in my duties as a host. If you are going for a ride, then I shall ride with you and keep you company.”

 
   An hour later, therefore, they were leaving the mansion on horseback. Penmark was riding the animal that the Captain of her escort had used the day before. It was a little too big for her, but it was the fastest of their horses and would carry her out of danger if they were attacked. The rest of her men travelled in a column behind while Lothby rode to one side of her and Tamberline and her principal bodyguard rode on the other, the grikon once again perched on her shoulder. Further back, more of her own men travelled in a column, carrying pennants to inform any common people they might pass exactly who it was who had come among them to temporarily brighten their drab, insignificant lives. She had deliberately brought fewer men than Penmark, in case her guest suspected she were being led to an ambush, but no woman of Tamberline's station would go anywhere without her own men to guard her. It wasn’t just for safety. It was for appearances.

     She had chosen her clothes for appearance as well. Scarlet trimmed with gold, with pearl buttons and a mother of pearl comb in her hair. Penmark was glad that most of the other woman’s body was covered this time. On one previous ride together, the younger woman had gone almost naked, showing off her smooth, young body in mockery of Penmark's older flesh, which had stung the older woman more than she would ever have admitted. Tamberline had a real talent for knowing just how to hurt and Penmark hard been dreading that the younger woman would try something along the same lines this time. To her surprise, though, her host seemed to be on her best behaviour. She seemed to be making a genuine effort to make her guest feel welcome and at home. Did that mean that she was laying the groundwork for something truly epic? she wondered. An insult or a prank that would still be stinging long after she'd returned to Direfell Castle?

     On the other hand, though, maybe she really has changed, Penmark thought as they rode through meadows and woodlands, the sounds of nature all around them. Mockery of the old was something that all young people did, after all. There had been a time when Penmark herself had been in the habit of showing off her youthful curves, wearing even less than Tamberline had then. Showing the whole world that, unlike the common folk, she need have no fear of being molested by the first man she came across. Her immodest dress had been a statement to the whole world of her wealth and power, and she had taken delight in the way that the common men who saw her had been both visibly aroused and visibly afraid of showing it.

     She had never entirely been able to blame Tamberline for doing the same thing, therefore, but she was nonetheless pleased to see that it was a phase that she seemed to be finally growing out of. Maybe Lord Born had grown weary of her foolish ways and had reprimanded her, threatening her with a reduction of her allowance if she continued to offend his guests and business contacts. Maybe she was simply growing up, maturing, and was beginning to learn the importance of forging alliances and friendships. Or maybe...

      Maybe she’s hiding something, thought Penmark, and this was the possibility she thought most likely. She's up to something. Maybe she and her brother are up to something together, and she’s trying to keep me happy and satisfied so that I don't look too closely. Where is Lord Born? He knew I was coming. He should have been here to greet me. What could be so important as to risk alienating his most powerful rival? His most powerful potential ally against the King? How do I find out?

     “So, which direction did you want to go?” asked Tamberline. “South, perhaps? Towards the hills and Brightling woods? Or perhaps east, along the coast, to see the Mallen islands from the clifftops of Goll. The view should be spectacular in this sunshine. It's such a beautiful day.”

     “I was thinking of going north,” said Penmark. Beside her, Lothby took a sausage from his pouch and took a bite from it while watching their hostess carefully.
 
  “North?” said Tamberline, her brow furrowed with confusion. “There's nothing north of us except a lot of dreary industrial towns. All smoke and soot.”

     “Chatterly is to the north,” said Penmark, deliberately not looking at her. “I was thinking we might bump into your brother. We could ride back to your mansion together.”

     By some strange sixth sense, she could feel the other woman tensing up beside her. “My brother was intending to come home by way of Stillon,” she said. “There is a place he likes to eat at there.”

     “Very well, we shall go north to Stillon.”

     “Stillon, as you are no doubt aware, is a textile town. The whole place reeks of dyes and noxious chemicals. I myself cannot bear to go within a mile of the place.”

     “You don't have to come with us. You can go to inspect your pearl beds, as you wanted.”

     “My Lady, you really don't want to go there. It is a filthy place! I assure you that you will be meeting with my brother no later than this afternoon. There is no need for you to go anywhere near that awful place.”

     “You make he curious,” said Penmark. “I am more eager to see the place than ever.”

     With that, she turned her horse to the north, Lothby keeping by her side, and behind them her riders followed. The grikon gave a hiss, as if sensing its mistress’s annoyance and frustration, but Tamberline said nothing more, simply bringing her horse back alongside those of her guests and keeping up with them as they rode in a tense, awkward silence.

     Stillon was every bit as grim and awful as Tamberline had warned them it would be. A pall of smoke, rising from a thousand chimneys, hung over the place, along with a smell that Penmark could only compare to that of burning rubber. She herself owned many towns like this, but she had never visited them. She had managers to oversee such places and they always bathed and changed clothes before coming to Direfell castle. Penmark stared around in curiosity, therefore, as the dark buildings closed in among them. A door opened as they passed to admit a grimy, sallow looking man wearing what might once have been a smart suit. Whatever colour it once had been was now hidden beneath a layer of encrusted powders and chemicals, though.

 
   He stared in stunned surprise at the aristocrats riding down the street, then hurriedly bowed to them. Behind him, through the open door, Penmark saw dozens of blind, tongueless slaves chained to treadmills, marching endlessly to turn the great, heavy machinery barely visible in the gloom. Most of them had once been soldiers, she knew. Prisoners of war turned into beasts of labour and then sold to work in farms, mines and factories. Beside her, she saw Lothby give a grimace of disgust. Cowards, she saw him thinking. So fond of their lives that even this was preferable to death in battle. It was a sentiment she shared. She wondered whether any of them had ever served in her own armies. If so, she was well rid of them.

     “So,” she said, turning to Tamberline. “Where is this famed eating establishment of which your brother is so fond?”

     The sour look on the other woman's face was all the proof she needed that she’d been caught out in a lie. The very idea that a place like this might have a gourmet restaurant good enough to attract a gentlemen of Lord Born’s stature...  “Why don't we cut the pretence,” Penmark continued. “Lord Born is not here, is he? Neither is he in Chatterly. Where is he, and why is he so reluctant to see me?”

     Tamberline looked extremely uncomfortable, and her bodyguard moved up close beside her as if he thought she might need his protection. She glanced around at the riders she'd brought with her, as if hoping their numbers might have somehow grown. “I was merely following instructions,” she said. “My brother didn't want you to know what he was really doing.”

     “And what was he really doing?”

     “I don't know. We keep few secrets from each other, as you know, but this is something he kept from me. I know it has something to do with the business you wished to discuss with him, though.”

     “What do you know of our business?”

     Tamberline glanced around herself again, as if fearing there were spies within earshot. “That is something else he kept from me. I can only guess.”

     “From what I know of you, I imagine that your guesses are not far from the mark.”

     “Only you can know that, My Lady.”

     Penmark studied her carefully. The business she wished to discuss with Lord Born was of such a delicate nature that the merest hint of it reaching the King would mean ruin for them all. It wasn't something that could be spoken aloud in present company. “You say he will be returning to Malfort mansion this afternoon. Is that the truth or another lie?”

     “That is what he told me, My Lady. I can only tell you what he told me.”

     Penmark nodded thoughtfully. “Then let us return to the mansion and wait for him there,” she said.