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When the long afternoon of lessons were done and my tutor finally released ht live far from any cities or polite society on the Plains, but my mother insisted that all of us observe the proprieties appropriate to my father’s station Both er offspring, they had never expected to hold titles the had left them with a keen awareness of what my father’s elevation to lordship required of them Only later would I appreciate all the courtesy and manners that my mother had instilled in me, for those lessons enabled me to move more easily at the Academy than did athered in the sitting room untilrooer sister Yaril while Rosse, my elder brother, held a chair for est at nine years old andfor all of us Then , and the servants began to bring in the food

Our fa hiainst the Plainspeople For this reason, we had no dynasty of family servants My mother was afraid of Plainspeople and hters as servants in our household, so unlike many of the new nobility, we had no servants frorounds employment to the creahters This meant that most of the male servants in our household were elderly or crippled in some way that had left them unfit for military service My mother would have preferred to hire servants from the cities in the west, but in thisthat he felt a duty to provide for his ood fortune, for without the’s notice So my mother bowed her head to his will and did her best to school the She had taken it upon herself, in a few instances, to advertise in the western cities for suitable husbands frohters, and in this e had acquired two young men who could properly wait a table, a valet for ed to contain hout most of the meal My father spoke to ravely at his words She asked his perladies He replied that he would think about it, but I saw hi atreater sophistication in herin turn hoe had employed our day Rosse, my elder brother and the heir, had ridden doith our steward to visit the Bejawi settlement at the far north end of Widevale The reratory people lived there at my father’s sufferance When ers had been ht in the Plains wars Now the children were young men and women, and my father wished to be sure they had useful tasks to occupy them and content the of young warriors who had become discontented with settled ways My father had no desire to see a siifted the Bejaith a soats, and Rosse was pleased to report that the ani both occupation and sustenance for the former hunters

Elisi, my elder sister, was next She had un an ee hoop She had also sent a letter to the Kassler sisters at Riverbend, inviting the a picnic,of her sixteenth birthday My father agreed that it sounded like a most pleasant holiday for Yaril and her and their friends

Then it was my turn I spoke of my studies with my tutor and of ht, I er and cautiously added that I was very curious as to what could pro in the air, and I saw both Rosse andfor an answer

My father took a sip of his wine "There is an outbreak of disease in the east, at one of the farthest outposts Gettys is at the foothills of the Barrier Mountains The er asks for reinforcements to replace the victiuards to bury the dead and patrol the cemetery"