Closer to the Heart Read Free

place.
    He took his leave of all of them, since it was about time for Minda to gather them for supper, and he didn’t want to cut into their last hours with their friends. Wrapping his cloak tightly about himself, he left the converted shop and headed back to the inn where he had left Dallen. With the wind at his back, he wasn’t quite so cold, and it gave him an excuse to walk briskly rather than sauntering as Harkon would have done in better weather.
    Anyone with any sense was inside. This was no weather to linger on the street. Even if you didn’t have much fuel and your walls whistled like a flock of birds with leaks, you were still better being inside than out.
:Think they’ll do all right?:
he asked his Companion, as he let the wind push him back up the way he had come.
    :Barring accident, they’ll do splendidly,:
Dallen replied.
:And all three of them are quick; even if there
is
some sort of mishap, they’re clever enough to think their way out of it again.:
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Council meetings, Amily had decided, must have been specifically designed to occupy as much time as possible for people who had a great deal of free time to spend. The participants seemed to delight in arguing over minutiae. Maybe things would change once better weather started, but right now the members of the King’s Greater Council seemed disinclined to leave their comfortable chairs and the warm Council chamber.
    On the other hand, the fact that they
could
spend entire candlemarks arguing over tiny things like whether the wool from
chirras
should be taxed at the same rate as wool from sheep or from lambs meant that things were . . . safe. Or relatively so.
So. Small blessings.
There was no war, not even rumors of war. Banditry was at a level where the local Guard garrisons could handle it.
    After the near-riots at Midwinter, caused by the feud between the noble Houses of Raeylen and Chendlar, even perpetually disputing highborn families were keeping their quarrels confined to vicious gossip and cutting remarks. Street-brawls and threats of exile by the King had made their due impression on other feuding families, but what had
really
sent shock rippling through the Court was that the son of Lord Kaltar of House Raeylen had very nearly carried out a plot to murder all but one of the members of
both
Houses, marry the Chendlar girl, and inherit the lot. With all that to occupy them, most people were still chewing over the gossip-fodder.
    And there were no more mysterious assassins sent by Karse scattered about the city.
Large blessings.
    â€œPerhaps,” she said gently, although she got their immediate attention when she spoke, “We should be looking at how rare this wool is, compared with mature sheep’s wool or lambswool, and tax it accordingly.”
    She looked around at the circular table—circular, so that every member of the Greater Council could easily look into the faces of every other member, and no one could claim he or she had anything but an equal seat. All the faces that met hers wore relatively contented expressions, cementing her notion that the Councilors were mostly “arguing” for the sake of argument, and being in not-unpleasant company while being served the King’s best wine and manchet breads flavored with rose water. Not a bad way to spend a bitter afternoon.
    â€œBut what if the market becomes depressed by anexcessive tax?” someone demanded, and they were off and running again, but this time at least the argument was getting somewhere instead of being an endless circle.
    She was more than a bit gratified—who wouldn’t be—that now she was taken seriously in the Council meetings. Or seriously enough that when she spoke up, what she said was given due consideration. She’d been afraid that it would take years before she got even a fraction of the respect the Council had given her father.
    Maybe the office of King’s Own