A hundred questions trembled on Genevieve’s lips, but Melanie laid a finger upon them. “Come, now. We will be late for breakfast.”
She waited while Genevieve stepped into her sandals and put on the soft robe, belting it around her. They went out into a long, cool hallway that led toward the murmur of voices, an occasional muffled clatter of crockery, the smell of food. At the end of the corridor a dozen or so people occupied a low, long room, lit only by wide, shallow arches that gave upon a shaded atrium. The trees there were wider than they were tall, their branches filtering the sun through wine-red leaves to spread a rose-silver shade upon the paving stones. Those in the room glanced at Melanie and Genevieve, then returned to their food with studied uninterest. Two, however, a man and a woman, rose from their table and approached them.
“This is Joncaster,” Melanie said. “And his sister, Enid. Enid and I were the two who . . . welcomed you last night. Go with them and eat a good breakfast. Do it quickly, for you have a long day ahead.”
Joncaster, with light hair and skin freckled by the sun, went off to get her a plate. When he brought it, Genevieve was unsurprised to see more of the fruit she had been served the night before, along with a mug of tea, a wedge of soft cheese, and a small loaf of bread, still warm from the oven.
“Fuel?” Genevieve murmured. “For the oven?”
“Solar,” said Joncaster in a crisp, not quite friendly voice. “We’ve been refining the ovens for generations. They are now very efficient.”
“You will want news of your child,” said Enid, returning to her own meal. “We have none except that he is safely away from the Shah and the Prince.” She gave Genevieve a long looking-over, her face stern. “Is your father of their persuasion? Do we count him as one of them, or as a possible friend?”
Genevieve knotted her brow at this. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t know what persuasion you mean, or whether he is part of it. I’ve been at school since my mother died. I saw him seldom. Since leaving school, I seem to have irritated him most of the time . . .”
“How old is he?” demanded Joncaster.
“Sixty years,” she said. “His birthday is not far off, when he will be sixty-one.”
“He has no wife?”
“Not since my mother died.”
“And she died of … ?” His eyebrows were raised, his lips curled in distaste.
Genevieve murmured, “Complications of childbirth, so the physicians said.”
His face hardened. “You know that for a fact? You were there?”
Genevieve felt her face flame at this, half remembered grief, half anger at this continued questioning. “I was there. I was eleven. I saw her the day she died. I saw her in her coffin.”
Joncaster frowned. “And your father has never been to Mahahm before . . . ?”
His sister interrupted. “It makes no never mind, Joncee. Many of the Prince’s allies have never come to Mahahm, which doesn’t prevent their receiving Mahahm’s gift back on Haven. Her father could be one of them without ever having seen Mahahm!”
“Hush,” said Melanie from behind them. “Whatever he is, Genevieve can’t presume to speak for him. She can only speak for herself, and today we will give her a reason for doing so. For now, let her eat.”
Irritated past endurance, Genevieve cried, “Do you know where my husband is? Does anyone know?”
A silence fell, almost as though those in the room had drawn breath together, and Melanie turned into that silence, saying, “Her husband is Aufors Leys. A Colonel in the Lord Paramount’s armies, but a commoner.”
“A commoner?” said her companions, both together.
Joncaster turned back to Genevieve with an almost friendly expression, “How did you manage that?”
“More important, why did you manage that?” demanded Enid, retaining her skeptical air.
Talking about Aufors was easier than answering their questions, so she talked . . . no, she spouted about Aufors, between sips of tea and bites of bread and cheese: how they met, why she ran away, why she returned, why she finally consented to marry him. She edited all of it, telling about her oath to her mother, but leaving out any reference to talking fish with or without human-seeming spokesmen, telling about Stephanie’s book, but leaving out the exercises her mother had taught her. When she had finished, Joncaster seemed satisfied, and even Enid’s expression had softened.