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None of Lord Ottonor’s blood relatives are here today, only people he has elevated through sponsorship Besides my father there are three othersleeves of a bureaucrat, and one dour eable children

Ae of the awning, where they can get the first look at any visitors coirl joins them; I don’t know her nae watch the game

MyAll the other Commoners here are masked servants, none of ould ever sit down in the company of Patrons, because they would be whipped

I don’t want to talk to Amaya and her friends so I find a place to stand at the far end of the balcony The only thing I really care about is what is going on down on the court The green-belted adversary is stuck at the rope bridge in Traps My father sees me With a stern nod he indicates the platter in his hand, so I hurry over and return it to the table

My movement catches Lord Ottonor’s eye "A shairl is so pretty"

I busymy face averted

My father says, "Jessairl, my lord Obedience must always be valued above beauty in a woh when obedience goes hand in hand with beauty, the world shtly, does it not?" He nods at my mother, who her

She is enant belly shouldclumsily No ribbons confine her hair, which she wears in its natural cloud She hten her complexion, nor does she need to Men have written poelamour of her eyes She looks up with a kind shters are beautiful, Lord Ottonor, both the tho look like Esladas and the tho look like me" Her silk-soft voice is as exquisite as her face and rather than scolding hi with him

I don’t kno she does it I don’t think she knows I think she just is that way, like a butterfly whose bright wings capture the eye sihters, Esladas!" Lord Ottonor drones on "I’m surprised you kept them all, since they will just be a burden to you when you have to pay to marry them off If you can marry them off" He pops a shrimp in his mouth as he considers the vast swell of my mother’s belly "Perhaps this one will be a son"

My father says, "If the oracles favor us, it will be a son"

Mytray to the City of the Dead once a week in the manner of a proper Patron woman, she herself never consults the oracles, not as Father and all Patrons do