Morning brought Duke Cedric Vaunt into Highmere like a change in weather.
He arrived with twelve riders, a banner of deep green and gold, and a smile that had been practiced in mirrors until it could pass for warmth. He was in his forties, handsome in the way expensive upkeep allows, with a trimmed beard and eyes that inventoried rooms. Bram watched from a shadowed gallery while Elowen received him in the outer court, the crimson wyvern a living mountain behind a line of spears that looked ceremonial and were not.
"Your Grace," Vaunt said, bowing just enough. "I hear the beast has quieted. Convenient. My binders are ready."
"The beast quieted itself," Elowen answered. "Your binders may observe. They may not approach until Mistress Yarrow gives leave."
Vaunt's gaze flicked toward the galleries, toward servants, toward anything that might be a secret wearing a face. "There is talk of a common boy in the yard yesterday."
"There is always talk," Elowen said. "Talk is free. Binding is not."
Bram stepped back before those inventorying eyes could climb the stairs. His heart hammered. He returned to the guest room and found Captain Morr waiting outside with a breakfast tray and an expression carefully emptied of opinion.
"Eat," Morr said. "Hungry men make poor decisions."
"Did you see it kneel?" Bram asked.
Morr's pause was answer enough. "I saw a creature rest. What I write in my report is rest." He set the tray down. "My mother was a washerwoman. I know what courts do with inconvenient truths. If you are what some of us fear you are, do not make the soldiers choose between you and their pay in public. Most of us have children."
It was not a threat. It was a map of a man's limits, offered with dignity. Bram nodded. "I won't ask anyone to die for a name I didn't ask for."
Morr almost smiled. "That already makes you stranger than half the nobility."
---
Elowen summoned Bram at midday to the vault below the old chapel—a place of cold air, locked cabinets, and the smell of parchment that had outlived its authors. She had changed from the fur cloak into a simpler black gown, as if shedding spectacle might make the truth lighter. It did not.