In Which Laralita Picks the Wrong Night

June 7, 1178

While Karlspan had been an advocate of pre-bedtime rounds, Roderick had no such established rituals and Laralita had not been inclined to develop such habits on her own. Regardless, tonight was a different story. Her heart had fluttered as the messenger had handed her Searle's letter, but stalled as she'd opened it. His words had been as distant and impersonal as they were when they met face-to-face. He wouldn't have written her at all if not for the death of her brother. He wouldn't write her again unless someone else were to pass, or perhaps not even then; he had left previous letter-writing duties to others, after all. It might have been a different story if she'd been around to tuck him in.

That, plus her brother was dead. Could anyone blame her for making the rounds tonight, really?

"Mother!"

Ramona could, apparently--bug-eyed and slack-jawed as her maid finished braiding her hair for the night. "Didn't you think to knock?"

Laralita sniffed. She'd somehow never managed to stamp out her daughter's brashness, but it was good to know that Ramona was, at least, modest. "Nothing I haven't see before."

"Perhaps, but there's no need for you to see anything now." Ramona yanked on her newly-tied braid as her maid stepped around her. "Anna, part of the neckline is curling under and it's a little itchy."

The servant took the hint--though Laralita thought she saw a hint of an eye roll. "Better, your highness?"

"Much, thank you."

Anna nodded and backed away. Laralita might have preferred it if she'd just curtsied and left, but then again she was only the help and it didn't make much of a difference. She shut the door and strode toward her daughter--Anna's presence notwithstanding. "Did you have a good day?" Was that right? It had sufficed for Conant and Lileina, at any rate.

Ramona shrugged. "I suppose. Can't say I'm sure why you suddenly care, though."

"Yes, well..."

Well what? She hadn't told the others about their uncle just yet, and she hadn't planned on telling Ramona either; it seemed too cruel, sending children to bed with fresh news of a family death, so she'd figured she'd tell them in the morning. Ramona, however, was not a child. She was a young lady, the eldest apart from Ietrin among the children still living here. After fourteen years, she wasn't about to believe that Mother 'just wanted to say goodnight'. "...I figure we'd best make the most of your remaining time here. The Carvalli hold much superstitious stock in holy dates and milestone numbers, after all; Queen Devidra did say she would have her son marry on his twentieth Christmas." And this one would only be his nineteenth--but of course the couple had to meet exactly one year before their wedding day...

"Ah, yes. I'm well aware of that, Mother--Father made sure that Ietrin made sure I knew that much."

Laralita stiffened. Her children with Roderick and her children with Karlspan had little enough in common, but it seemed that Ramona shared Searle's tendency to take every tiny detail and magnify it to grudge-like proportions. Such a tongue would surely not sit well with the formidable Devidra, but if it hadn't been curbed by now...

"Hmm. Perhaps Carvallon is too small a kingdom for both Devidra and yourself."

Ramona laughed. Odd, seeing as she hadn't been joking; Laralita never joked. Still, after everything else that day, it didn't hurt to hear it. "Good thing Prince Adrius is allegedly such a doormat, then."

"King Adrius," Laralita corrected her. "His father died when he was an infant; Devidra took the reigns then and never bothered to give them back." Not that Adrius was all that interested in reclaiming them, so they said. Oh well--not all men could be her Roderick, after all. Perhaps Ramona would prefer having someone so pathetically compliant.

"Then I suppose I'll just have to take them for myself. Granted... I suppose Father and Ietrin would prefer it if I did so on their behalf?"

"That would be the idea behind a political marriage, yes."

Ramona frowned, a stony glaze over her teal eyes. Not sure what to make of it, Laralita straightened her tiara; behind Ramona's back, Anna raised an eyebrow. "Something the matter, your highness?"

"No, thank you--just a little tired." She yawned--rather dramatically--and nodded toward the door. "Goodnight, Mother."

Nodding, Laralita returned the sentiment and headed back toward the corridor. She wasn't quite sure what she had done, but the fact remained that motherhood was still as much of a mystery as it had been when Searle had announced himself as a relentless wave of nausea. It was more than she could bear just then. Perhaps she had not picked the right night for this after all.

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