Chapter 60
The orphanage opening had not been a joyous thing.
Such institutions were not, Angharad learned, paid for by the Lord Rector or the local ruling lord but by whoever cared to offer coin to them. It was a very disorganized method, which she thought was sure to allow some of the orphaned to slip through the cracks. No wonder crime had such a grip on the capital, with these ‘basileias’ sprouting everywhere. Failure below could always be traced back to failure above.
At least it had proved an opportunity to speak with Lord Menander Drakos, something that had risen high in her priorities. The sooner this infernal forge business had an answer, the sooner she could begin climbing out of the pit. The older lord was just as eager for a private talk and it proved remarkably easy to get from him an invitation to the manse Lord Gule had mentioned.
The reason why could be summed up in two words: Song Ren.
Song’s heroics were the talk of the entire city, deservedly. She was said to have slain so many assassins her dress turned red and taken a shot for the Lord Rector that nearly killed her. Angharad knew the truth of the story, of course, having been told by a mellow Song the afternoon’s genuine events. A mellowness Angharad had deduced was not unrelated to the love bites the Tianxi should raise her collar higher to fully hide.
Scandalous, if not exactly unexpected. No woman spent as much time talking about someone as Song had about Lord Rector Palliades without having some sort of interest in them. It had been either sex or murder, and murder would have been messy.
Either way, for lack of the proper lineage Menander Drakos had not been one of the lords attending the Landing Day feast. He was thus keen to learn the details of what took place and knew that Angharad, as a watchwoman, would be able to provide them. The consequence of that was that she found herself received in the Drakos manse early in the afternoon of her thirtieth day on Asphodel instead of needing to wait until the regular dinner that Lord Gule had mentioned to her.
A pretext was even arranged for it, given how the ploy with the inheritance rumors would only go so far in erasing the taint on her reputation her visit to the country had left. Lord Menander was one of the patrons for the orphanage, which made him one of the men to speak with should one seek to arrange a charitable donation.
Song had even been willing to loosen the purse strings for it, though rather than out of philanthropic instinct it was because reclaimed brigade funds not spent directly on cabalists were often repaid in full by the bureaucrats of the Conclave. It would make no difference to the children.