Chapter 9: GIFTS ARE DEBTS

DIANA’S POV

Marriage to the Dragon Warlord had introduced an unexpected danger.

Provisioning.

Three wool dresses lay across the bed. Two winter coats occupied the chairs. Boots stood along the wall in pairs like soldiers awaiting inspection. There were enough clothes in the room to carry Diana through several winters, assuming Blackharrow eventually allowed spring.

She raised her slate.

NO MORE.

Raigoro looked at the clothing covering nearly every available surface.

"The station has limited choices."

Diana looked at him, then at the room again.

Limited, apparently, meant something different in Blackharrow.

"You require more than one dress."

Alma’s shoulders moved beside the hearth.

Diana ignored her and pointed firmly to the slate.

Raigoro glanced toward the seamstress.

"Find what fits her properly. Return whatever does not."

Then he left.

Alma waited until the door closed.

Her shoulders began shaking.

Diana turned toward her.

"I am sorry," Alma said.

She clearly was not.

Diana pointed at the clothing.

"He thinks you hate it."

Diana gave her a long stare.

"Yes. I noticed."

Alma picked up one of the gloves. The leather was soft, lined with wool, and stitched carefully enough for a royal wardrobe.

Diana took the glove from her.

The price tag still hung from the wrist.

She showed it to Alma.

Alma read the amount.

Her amusement faded.

"That is more than my father earned in half a year."

Diana returned the glove to the table.

No one in Valence had spent that kind of money on her without eventually explaining what it purchased.

Odran had provided rooms, food, tutors, servants, and guards when Diana was young. Years later, every one of those things had appeared in his reasons for why she owed him obedience.

Maerissa preferred smaller gifts and quieter debts: a ribbon, a book, a better tray at dinner. The request usually arrived later.

Raigoro had found her unprepared for the mountains and bought clothing.

Diana would see what he asked for later.

The seamstress approached with a measuring cord.

"Your Grace, may I?"

Diana nodded.

The woman measured her shoulders, then her arms and waist. When one sleeve sat badly, the seamstress marked the cloth and adjusted it.

Diana watched the chalk line move across the cuff.

Selena’s wedding gown had been pulled and pinned until Diana’s body could carry it beneath a veil.

The Northern seamstress simply changed the dress.

"Try this one."

She held up the plainest garment in the room.

It was dark brown wool with no embroidery, fur trim, or decorative buttons.

Diana pointed to it immediately.

Alma closed her eyes.

Diana looked at her.

"That one is almost certainly the cheapest."

Exactly.

The seamstress glanced between them.

"It is warm enough for the lower roads."

Good.

Diana touched the sleeve.

Raigoro returned before the seamstress could begin fitting it.

A station officer followed him with a report. Raigoro signed the page, returned it, then noticed the dress in Diana’s hands.

"No."

Diana set the dress down. So much for being allowed to choose.

Raigoro picked up the sleeve and rubbed the wool between his fingers.

"This is too thin."

The seamstress nodded.

"For the lower valleys, Your Grace. I would not use it above the second pass."

Raigoro checked the hem.

"And the stitching?"

"Southern machine work. It loosens after repeated wetting."

He returned the dress to the bed and indicated the heavier charcoal dress beside the deep blue coat.

"That one."

The charcoal wool was thicker. Its seams were reinforced, and the lining continued through the sleeves.

Diana looked at him.

"The color is irrelevant," Raigoro said.

She had not objected to the color.

"The coat will hold heat. The boots beside it are treated against water."

Diana looked down at the boots.

They were made of thick leather, with reinforced soles and wool lining.

He had rejected the brown dress because it would fail on the road.

Annoyingly, that made sense.

Diana wrote:

I CAN WEAR THE BROWN ONE.

"I know."

She waited.

Raigoro looked toward the dark window.

"You can also freeze in it."

The seamstress became interested in winding her measuring cord.

Raigoro pointed toward the charcoal dress.

"Wear the other."

Diana erased her answer.

Further resistance might produce another coat.

The fitting took less than an hour.

The seamstress shortened the charcoal dress and adjusted the shoulders. She changed the cuffs according to Diana’s wrists rather than any measurement carried north from Selena’s dressmakers.

When the work was finished, Diana raised one arm.

The sleeve ended where it should.

She raised the other.

The waist did not pull when she moved. No hidden pins pressed into her ribs.

The seamstress circled her.

"Turn."

Diana did.

"Again."

She turned back.

The woman nodded.

"That belongs to you now."

Diana looked down at the sleeves.

The seamstress had already turned away to gather her pins. She had said the words as though there were nothing unusual in them.

Diana could not remember the last time someone had given her something and meant yours without also meaning until we decide otherwise.

After the seamstress left, Alma folded rejected clothing for the merchants.

Then she discovered that three pairs of gloves had somehow survived Raigoro’s instruction to return whatever Diana did not need.

"Princess."

Diana was fastening the new boots.

She looked up.

Alma held the gloves where she could see them.

"I believe we have found another problem."

Diana waited.

"Every time you refuse one thing, your husband appears to buy two more."

Diana looked at the gloves.

Alma’s mouth twitched.

"It may be safer to stop before he purchases the settlement."

Diana reached toward the nearest pillow.

Alma moved out of range.

The pillow remained on the bed.

Throwing it would only reward her.

Diana returned to the boots.

They fit.

That was becoming inconvenient too.

When she left the room later, Raigoro stood in the corridor with Daric.

He looked at the coat, then at the boots.

"Can you walk comfortably?"

Diana nodded.

"The upper road is colder."

She nodded again.

His attention moved to her gloves.

Diana had chosen the least expensive pair.

She raised the slate before he could speak.

THEY ARE FINE.

"Fine is not the same as suitable."

Diana pressed harder with the chalk.

THEY ARE SUITABLE.

Daric studied the rafters.

Raigoro reached toward one glove.

Diana pulled her hand back.

His hand stopped at once.

Raigoro turned to the station steward.

"Will those hold through the upper passes?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Good."

Diana lowered the slate.

Then raised it again.

WHAT DO I OWE YOU FOR THESE?

Raigoro stopped.

His gaze moved from the slate to her coat, then to the boots.

"For what?"

Diana gestured toward herself. The coat. The gloves. The boots. The clothing filling the room.

Raigoro looked at the slate again.

"Nothing."

Diana did not lower it.

Raigoro read the question again, this time more carefully.

"They are winter clothes, not a contract."

She kept watching him.

"No favor. No repayment. No condition."

Diana’s fingers tightened around the slate.

Raigoro glanced at the boots.

"You are not signing another covenant for those either."

Daric became intensely interested in the opposite wall.

Raigoro walked away.

Diana watched him go.

Alma wisely said nothing.

The following day belonged mostly to Eren.

By noon he had asked twice when they were leaving, once whether he could ride a horse instead of the medical wagon, and once whether the healer truly needed to inspect the wound again.

Diana sat nearby while Alma folded clean linen.

Eren caught Diana watching.

"Are you bored, Your Grace?"

Diana wrote:

TERRIBLY.

Eren grinned.

She added:

YOU HAVE COMPLAINED ONLY FOUR TIMES THIS HOUR.

His grin disappeared.

Alma turned away before he could see her laughing.

By evening, frost had formed along the guest-room windows. Even in the charcoal dress, new coat, and lined boots, Diana could feel the cold through the stone.

Her old traveling clothes would have been useless here.

That was irritating.

At dawn, the healer finally cleared Eren to continue in the medical wagon.

The merchants reclaimed what Diana had refused. Everything she kept fit into two modest trunks provided by the station.

Two trunks.

She had entered Blackharrow with none.

Selena’s gold cloak remained beneath the carriage seat.

Alma noticed it before closing the door.

"So that stays?"

Diana nodded.

The convoy left after sunrise on the fourth day since Diana had left Valence.

For most of the morning, the road climbed between dark pines. Snow covered the shaded ground, then gradually spread across the road itself as they gained height.

By afternoon, servants were knocking ice from the wagon steps during every halt.

At a mountain relay post, Raigoro spoke with two scouts beside a map board.

One pointed north.

Even from the carriage, Diana could see the white mass of mountains behind him.

Alma returned carrying hot water.

"What happened?"

Diana nodded toward the scouts.

A few minutes later, Daric rode along the convoy giving orders.

"We shorten tomorrow’s midday halt. Storm front is moving toward White Pass."

One driver looked toward the mountains.

"How long?"

"Two days if the wind holds."

"And if it doesn’t?"

Daric glanced north.

"Then we meet it sooner."

The convoy moved again.

By sunset, snow had covered the wheel tracks behind them.

White Pass waited somewhere beyond the next line of mountains.