Are we talking about duty now?

"Ya raised a goat fucker," the goat owner accused.

"If I remember well, he grew up in ya house. Twas you turned him into a goat fucker," the goat fucker's father countered.

"Twas ya tainted blood you fu—"

"Watch your language in the presence of her ladyship," Aidan Sritanbhurg, one of Willy's maternal cousins, warned. Willy himself was nowhere to be seen. Raina shifted uncomfortably in her seat and waved for the two petitioners to proceed.

"Yes, m'lord, m'lady," the goat owner said. He wagged a finger at his brother. "His brute son defiled me goat. Good goat, never did nothin' to no one. Gives me a litter every year. I caught the filthy half-breed's son humping it with me own eyes. Now he refuses to pay for me loss."

"You still 'ave the goat, don't ya?" his brother asked.

"I don't want a goat that's been defiled by ya half-breed bastard," the goat owner spat. "I want me a new goat. Ya take the soiled goat."

"And where is this… goat rapist?" Raina asked.

"He ran away, m'lady," the father answered.

"Why don't you settle this among yourselves?" Raina suggested. "You two are brothers, no?"

"Half brothers, m'lady," the goat owner clarified. "His whore mother stole me father from me mother."

"Do not call me mother a whore," the goat fucker's father hissed.

"I am sorry, Hamyr. Ya mother was no whore," the goat owner apologized. "Whores get paid. Poppea spread those half-breed legs for free."

Hamyr hissed and lunged at his half-brother, knocking him to the ground, and landing two punches before the guardsmen separated them. "I told ya, m'lady," the goat owner said once he was back on his feet. "Tis the pig worshipper blood from his mother. Turns them into rabid animals and goat fuckers."

Raina was at an impasse. Things would be so much simpler if they had the actual goat fucker. But he was in the wind. Custom dictated that a criminal's family pay compensation to the victim in such cases but these men were brothers.

The goat fucker was also living with his childless uncle— who was considering adopting him as a son— when he was caught in amorous congress with a goat.

This muddled up the issue even further. No formal adoption had been made but the goat fucker was sixteen and had lived in his uncle's household for five years. Both his father and uncle disowned him now and each accused the other of being the actual father.

The goat owner demanded compensation but the goat fucker's father refused to pay, claiming it was his brother's poor parenting that had turned his son into a goat fucker. The law books said nothing about how to settle such a case but both men expected Raina to dispense justice.

"How do you think we should rule," Raina asked Aidan Sritanbhurg, the most bookish of her husband's cousins.

"Hard to say, my lady," Aidan said. "Neither party is unreservedly at fault. Perhaps it's best to not render a ruling at all."

"But that is what the goat fucker's father wants. Not rendering a ruling would be ruling in his favor," Horax Lanfuss, headman of the nearby village, advised.

Raina sat in the middle of a jury of five. The other four were evenly divided but in the end, only her opinion mattered. All her fellow jurors agreed that there was no way to render a just verdict. Then Raina got a spark of an idea. "Where is this goat?" she asked.

"Outside his house, m'lady," the goat owner said while pointing at his brother. "He refuses to take it."

"Why don't you bring it here and I will give you an equivalent goat from my herds?" Raina suggested.

"I will, m'lady," the man said with a bow. "Thank ya very much, m'lady."

"That is very generous of you, m'lady," the goat fucker's father concurred. Raina waved the two men away and after one last round of bows, they left, still eyeing each other murderously.

"Who's next?" Raina asked.

"Two farmers. Neighbors," Aidan Sritanbhurg answered. "One accuses the other of moving the border stakes in the night."

So Raina listened to a land dispute, then another, and another. By the time the petitions ended just after noon, she was tired and irritable. "Listening to bickering farmers is every bit a part of lordship as everything else," Nylarn Lamanbhurg always said.

It wasn't a chore Raina enjoyed but twice a month, she dragged herself to the great hall of First Fork and adjudicated grazing disputes, border disputes, inheritance disputes, and the occasional theft. Four down, ten thousand to go, Raina thought glumly.

Her husband was yet to show up at a single one of these sessions. Raina found him in the dining hall, enjoying a hearty lunch with his rowdy men.

You wouldn't know he was their lord from the way they clapped him on the back and laughed freely around him. They were all sweating despite the freezing winter chill outside. Fresh off another mock battle, Raina thought as she walked towards Willy's table.

"Leave us," Raina said, seating herself opposite Willy.

The men left after a flurry of bows and "my ladys." Only Caedmyr XIII remained. Willy clapped him on one shoulder. "A peasant stole some water from his neighbor's well and I didn't go to punish him," Willy said. "My lady wife wants to berate me about it. Do you want to listen in?"

The boy king scrunched up his face in disgust. "Ew!" He scrambled away to the nearest table with his lunch platter. Young Caedmyr sneakily tried to steal a tankard of ale but Willy slapped his hand away to a pained smile from the boy and chuckles from the men.

Then Willy turned his gaze to Raina, playful smile in place. "You look ravishing, my dear," he said. "Dispensing justice suits you."

Raina met his playful gaze with a stormy one. "I do not like you mocking me," she hissed.

"When have I ever mocked you, my dear?" Willy asked. "You have the sweetest of smiles."

Raina wasn't smiling. "You're doing it right now."

"Forgive me," Willy said while rotating his hand in front of him and bowing so hard his forehead smacked the table. Some men at a nearby table broke into laughter, only quieting down when Raina turned her murderous gaze onto them.

"Is everything a game to you?" Raina asked.

"Only chariot races. And wrestling matches. And mock battles. And real battles. And hunts. And everything else... Yes."

Raina glared at her husband. In, out. In, out. In, out, a familiar voice in her head ordered.

Raina obeyed. She took deep slow breaths with her eyes closed and felt her anger dissipate. It reignited again when her husband spoke up, "If you're trying to seduce me, my dear, you have succeeded. Watching those hills on your chest rise and fall makes my blood boil."

Raina looked down at her heaving breasts and suppressed a scream. The more she watched them, the more she realized how this looked to him. It looked like she was wiggling her breasts in his face. And when she looked at him, his eyes were on her chest.

Raina relaxed her breathing and tried keeping as still as possible. "Did your father teach you to stare at women's breasts?" she asked.

Willy shook his head and favored her with a roguish smile. "Oh no. I learned that all on my own. But I was staring at your good heart. The breasts just got in the way."

I will have to find another alternative, Raina thought as she resisted the urge to take deep breaths while her anger mounted again.

Melilla cut the tension when she set a lunch platter in front of Raina. Creamy mushroom soup, fragrant and steamy, with fresh bread, some cheese, and roast goat. It was the same thing Willy was eating.

The scent of the food went from the platter, straight up Raina's nose, and then into her head. It chased away all the anger. Raina's mouth watered and she remembered just how hungry she was.

She gave Melilla a questioning look. The handmaiden stretched out all the fingers of her right hand in front of her at waist level, the all-clear signal. The precaution wasn't really necessary. Raina was as safe as she could be.

All the Lamanbhurg men had been sent home two months ago. First Fork was garrisoned exclusively by Karkbhurg men and Raina had hand-picked all the other servants herself. But the paranoia was hard to dismiss. Someone out there wanted her dead and Raina had resolved to never relax her vigilance.

Raina dug into the mushroom soup first. She took a spoonful and swallowed, closing her eyes as she felt the delicate flavors dance around her mouth and tickle her throat. She opened her eyes to meet Willy's questioning look. "Are you sure you don't want me to kiss you?" he asked.

You will not provoke me! You will not provoke me! You will not provoke me! Raina chanted quietly and took another spoonful of mushroom soup. "No," she said as calmly as she could.

"What brought you here then? The pleasure of my company?"

"Not that either."

"What then?"

"You should take more interest in the minutiae of governance."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Show up to a judgment session at least. You can't spend all your days hunting and drinking and fighting."

"I can and I have," Willy said. "Spearing a boar is infinitely more fun than listening to some farmer moan about his neighbor's cow grazing on his crop. What am I supposed to do about it? Pull the wheat out of the cow's belly?"

"It is your duty as the lord of this castle—"

"Are we talking about duty now?" Willy interrupted. "You have a duty to produce a son. A son who will take the Lamanbhurg and become lord after your father is gone. Do you want to get started on that?"

Raina kept quiet. She had made a bad argument and she knew it. She had a teacher of rhetoric once, a short bearded Reendeni. He had warned her to be wary of such logical traps but she had been too busy fantasizing about kisses with Robyr to pay much attention.

"If you can neglect the duties you don't like, so can I," Willy said.

Raina felt a chill. She didn't know if it came from outside or within. Mercifully, Willy didn't press. "I know what a lord's duties are," he said. "But I have never been interested in a couple of them. I'm a ninth-born son. I was never born to rule and I have never liked it. I would choose battle over a trial any day. That's why I sent for Aidan. He likes that stuff. He once spent three days arguing with a priest over the nature of the gods. Isn't he helping you with your trials and tax collection and whatever?"

"He is," Raina admitted.

"Then what are you complaining about?"

Raina went quiet again. She couldn't deny Aidan Sritanbhurg had been invaluable. She had never met a man who loved bureaucracy as much as Aidan.

He could spend all day reviewing accounts and digging up dusty legal treatises. Raina had never seen Willy read anything that wasn't a blacksmith's stamp on a sword.

Raina avoided her husband's eyes and focused on her food. She broke the bread, dipped it into the mushroom soup, and chewed it slowly, trying to ignore the awkward silence hanging between her and Willy. She tried some of the roast goat but the meat was a little too tough for her liking.

"I hear we're getting a new goat," Willy broke the silence.

"Where did you hear that?"

"It wasn't supposed to be a secret, was it?"

"No," Raina said.

"What do you plan to do with it?"

"Butcher it for meat."

"I don't want to eat a goat that's had some peasant's penis stuffed inside it," Willy grumbled. "You won't find any man who would."

"How many goats have you eaten in your life?" Raina asked.

"Many. Possibly hundreds."

"And how sure are you that some goat herd never took one of the many goats you have eaten behind a bush and stuffed his… manhood inside it?"

Willy tore a strip of meat off a rack of goat ribs and chewed slowly. "You're ruining my appetite," he said after he had swallowed. Then he tore another strip off the ribs with his teeth.

"You're still eating," Raina observed.

"That's because I'm hungry. Don't ruin my hunger too."

"I cannot ruin your hunger," Raina argued. "Only your imagination can."

Willy flashed her a cryptic smile. "Then it's a good thing I wasn't blessed with much of an imagination."

"It's your duty, my lady," Melilla said.

"Won't that be disloyal to Robyr?" Raina asked.

"He is dead. There is nothing disloyal about it. He is not torturing himself in the afterlife and neither should you. How long do you plan to mourn him?"

"I don't know," Raina admitted.

Melilla took the bouquet of blue winter roses Willy had dropped off and sniffed them, closing her eyes as she inhaled the scent.

"So you plan to be frigid to your husband forever?" the handmaiden asked. "You would ignore a living man trying to make you happy and obsess over a dead one who never will?"

"It's hard," Raina said. "You don't understand. I still love Robyr. Willy killed Robyr. I cannot reconcile the two."

"Why did you love Robyr?" Melilla asked. "Did the gods deliver him to your lap or did your father choose him for you?"

"Father did," Raina whispered.

"And if His Lordship had picked another man instead of Sir Robyr from the get-go. Say Sir Willarn, would you have loved him?"

"I don't know. Maybe," Raina admitted.

"You should know. You may not love him but you have no choice. He doesn't mistreat you, which is a good start. Marriages have been built on less. You should at least try to be friendly to him. Show him some affection and bind him to you. If your father dies before you have a son, do you know what happens?"

Raina didn't know what would happen but she could guess. By custom, a man only had full control over property he acquired by his own personal efforts. He was only a custodian of whatever he inherited and it was taboo to sell or give away inherited land.

In Raina's case, the only thing she was unreservedly entitled to inherit from her father was his gold and any livestock in excess of whatever number Lord Nylarn himself had inherited.

The inheritance of everything else: land, castles, titles, armies, and oaths of fealty wasn't Nylarn Lamanbhurg's to decide because he had inherited those from his father, who had inherited them from his father, all the way back to the first Lamanbhurg.

Nylarn Lamanbhurg had actually lost some of his lands to royal fines and Reendeni conquest so any claim Raina had to whatever her father had acquired on top of his inheritance was contestable.

The rest was even more contestable. As her father's closest male relative and a great-grandson of a Lord Lamanbhurg, Laman's claim would have been stronger than Raina's if his grandfather had not been disinherited. That was the only fact that put Raina in contention in the first place.

Even with the stain of disinheritance, a good portion of Lord Nylarn's bannermen preferred Laman to Raina. Some of Laman's supporters disliked the idea of being led by a woman. Others just hated her father.

There were ways around this, of course. A lord who wanted to block distant or unwanted relatives from inheriting could adopt a son and make him his heir. In Lord Nylarn's case, he was waiting for Raina to give birth to a son so he could adopt the boy. This was the surest way to block Laman from contesting the succession.

If that didn't happen, the situation would get complicated pretty fast. A lord's bannermen might still prefer a woman if the closest male relative was too far removed from the main line or too unpopular but this wasn't a handicap Laman suffered from. In the case of popular claimants with comparable legitimacy like Raina and Laman, swords settled the issue far more often than not.

Lord Nylarn had sought to wed Raina, first to Robyr Malbhurg, and then to Willarn Karkbhurg, to ensure that Raina had strong supporters to deter Laman from challenging her succession.

"My lady?" Melilla called, interrupting Raina's worrying. "You should try mending fences with your husband. For the sake of your future security, if not for duty. I don't think Sir Laman would be generous to you or those of us who have served your father if he were to ascend to the lordship."

Raina looked up. "My father's bannermen will back me against Laman," she asserted.

"Are you sure of that?"

"I am," Raina said. She wasn't. Laman's father had rebelled against her father years ago. He had failed but many had backed him after he promised them tax cuts and marriages and land.

Raina shuddered to think of how much support Laman could gather if he rebelled against a girl. She knew it wasn't a coincidence that he had kept all his three sisters unwed and unbetrothed despite them coming of age. He was waiting for the right grooms and everybody knew it.

"Even if they don't," Raina told Melilla, "Willy will back me. The Karkbhurgs have a larger army than any of them and they can bring both the chancellor and the king to my side. No one would dream of siding with Laman."

"Why would Sir Willarn back you?" the handmaiden asked. "What reasons have you given him to support you? Would you support you if you were him?"

"Shut up, Melilla," Raina hissed.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Melilla apologized.

Raina turned to face the wall, fuming. But she knew Melilla was right. Would I back me if I were Willy?