Even at his young age, the next Baron of Castlehaven knew his mother was a tall, strong, proud woman. If he hadn’t understood such concepts, he would have had to make an educated guess from what other people around him said. If they were obligated to say so, because she was the Baroness, he couldn’t tell.

He caught a spider in the library. It was as big as the palm of his hand and couldn’t possibly be native. It had crawled over the shelving and landed on a book that had been close to where he had been playing. After staring at it for some time, he reached over and plucked it off of the spine and stared at it.

“What do you have there, young lord?”

He showed Tumelo his catch. As usual, the chamberlain wasn’t frightened, merely quietly annoyed.

“Put that down.”

“I want to show Ma’mer.”

“She will tell you the same.” Tumelo didn’t stop him from going to find her. He looked out the window as he walked by one that opened out low enough to the ground for him to see through it and downward in passing. Even more people coming from elsewhere. He ran to the Baroness.