CHAPTER 5
It was late after the servants’ dinners, and after the Duke and some of the officers had retired to their quarters, that some of the employees sat around the large kitchen fire. Una was fixing figures in her ledger; Hue sat to the other corner so he could regularly gaze up at her, her angled features dancing in the candlelight. Hue was shining a section of old armor that had rusted almost through. Georgie stuffed an impossibly elaborate pipe with good tobacco and smoked it leisurely on a stool. Gani was at the counter, re-bottling her spices and cursing the poorly written labels under her breath. Then there was Peytra. She had decided that, like the others, she wished to look a little productive if possible. She’d brought a small slab of wood to keep her busy, and thus she whitt
