By now, the smells of food had wafted across from the kitchens; with the Landbride's dawn, fires could be lit, and cookstoves heated. Fresh hot bread, roast meat . . . Esmay sat on a throne piled with late flowers as the feast was carried out to her guests.

When the crowd around her thinned, her cousin Luci came up. "I have your accounting," she said.

"The herd has done well."

"Good," Esmay said. She sipped from the mug someone had handed her, and felt dizzy from the fumes alone. "Could you get me some water? This is too strong."

Luci laughed. "They want to follow the old ways into the bedding of the Landbride, do they? I'll bring you water." She darted off, and was back soon, this time with a handsome young man at her heels.

"Thanks," Esmay said, taking the jug of cool water.

When the long ceremony was over, Esmay's stepmother led her to the suite her great-grandmother had occupied. "I hope you will stay awhile," she said. "This is your home . . . we can redecorate the rooms-"

"But my room's upstairs," Esmay said.

"Not unless you wish it. Of course, if you insist . . . but this has always been . . . it's the oldest part of the house . . ."

She was trying to be tactful, and helpful; Esmay knew that, just as she knew that she was too tired, after all this, to discuss anything calmly. What did it matter, after all, where she slept?

"I think I'll lie down awhile," she said instead.

"Of course," her stepmother said. "Let me help you with these things."

Her stepmother had hardly touched her, as near as she could remember-it felt strange indeed to have help from her. Would she have helped, years ago, if Esmay had let her? A disturbing question, which she might reconsider after a long nap. She was in fact a deft maid, quick with the fastenings, and she knew exactly when to turn away, the outer garments folded carefully in her arms, and leave Esmay alone.

Esmay woke in late afternoon to the chill light of an overcast sky-clouds had moved in. Nothing looked right . . . and then she remembered. She was not upstairs, not in her own bed, but in great- grandmother's. Except it was her own now, in a way that the bed upstairs had not been . . . hers not by custom, or assignment, but by tradition and law. Everything was hers now . . . this bed, the embroidered panel on the wall with THE EYES OF GOD ARE ALWAYS OPEN on it (her great- grandmother had done the needlework herself, as a young girl), the chairs . . . and the walls around them, and the fields around the walls, from the distant marshy seacoast to the mountain forests. Fruit trees, olive trees, nut trees, gardens and ploughland, every flower in the field, every wild creature in the woods. Only the livestock might belong to others-but it was she who would grant grazing rights, or refuse them, which land could be put to plough, and what would be pasture.

She pushed the covers aside, and sat up. Her stepmother-or someone-had laid out more normal clothes. Not anything she'd brought, but new-soft black wool trousers, and a multicolored pullover top. Esmay found the adjoining bath unit, and took a shower, then dressed in the new clothes.

In the hall, Luci was talking quietly to Sanni and Berthold. Sanni looked at her, a long considering look. "You slept well?" she asked. Esmay had the feeling that the question meant more than it said.

"Yes," she said. "And now I'm hungry again."

"A few minutes only," Sanni said, and turned toward the kitchen.

"Welcome home," Berthold said. He looked slightly wary.

"Thank you," Esmay said. She was trying to remember if her new status changed anything but the land titles . . . was she supposed to change the terms of address for Berthold and Sanni, for instance?

Her father came out of the library wing. "Ah-Esmay. I hope you're rested now. I don't know how long you can stay, but there's a great deal to be done."

"Not until after eating," Sanni said, reappearing. "We're ready now." Esmay realized they had been waiting for her.

The meal made clearer than any explanations how her status had changed. She sat at the head of the table, where her great-grandmother had sat on the rare occasions she joined the family at table .

. . which deposed Papa Stefan from his position as her representative. She had not imagined he

could look so small, hunched over his plate halfway down the table. She ate slowly, watching and listening, trying to feel out the hidden currents of emotion.

Her stepmother and her aunt Sanni, for instance, were eyeing each other like two cats over a plate of fish. In what way were they rivals? Her father and Berthold, though studiously polite, seemed both particularly tense. Of the youngsters, only Luci was at the table-the young ones, she supposed, had been fed informally earlier.

"Have you decided whom to name as your heir?" her stepmother asked. Sanni shot her a look that should have had gray goosefeather fletching, it was so sharp.

"Not now," her father said.

"No," Esmay said. "I haven't-it's all too new. I will need to consider carefully." She would need to look at the family tree; she had no idea who might be eligible. It might even be Luci. That wouldn't be so bad.

"The paperwork starts tomorrow," her father said. "All the judicial red tape."

"How long does that last?" Esmay asked.

He shrugged. "Who knows? It's not something we've done for a long time, and since then some of the laws have changed. It's no longer enough for the family to swear agreement to the whole change; it has to be done piece by piece."

It sounded far worse than Administrative Procedures. If the whole family had to pledge peaceful acquiescence to the change in ownership of each field, each woodland patch . . .

"At least, much of it can be done by proxy, now. My guess is that it will take hours, if not days-and all to do over again when you abdicate." He sounded more tired than resentful; Esmay considered that he had probably taken on most of the family responsibility on her behalf since her great-grandmother died.

"If she abdicates," Papa Stefan put in. "She should stay, marry well, and be the Landbride we need. She's been a hero to the world-she has proved herself-but they cannot need one young hero as badly as we need her here. She could retire now."

Her father gave her a look, and a tiny lift of the shoulders. He knew what her career meant to her, as he knew what his meant to him-but there was much he didn't know, as well, and at the moment, Esmay could almost see the wisdom of leaving Fleet before they forced her out.

"It may not be me that you need, Papa Stefan, but someone who has lived here all along, who knows more-"

"You can learn," he said, his spirits rising as he had someone to argue with. "You were never stupid, just stubborn. And why should you serve the Familias Regnant? We have not even a Seat in their Grand Council. They do not respect us. They will use you up, and discard you at the end, whenever you displease them, or they tire of you."

That was too near the mark; Esmay wondered if some word of her disgrace had leaked through the newsnets. But Berthold jumped in.

"Nonsense, Papa. Young officers of her quality are rarer than diamonds at the seashore. They won't let her go easily. Look what she's already done."

"Finished eating, is what she's done," her stepmother said. "Dessert, anyone?"

Esmay was glad enough to have the subject turned, and accepted a bowl of spiced custard gratefully.

Next morning, the legal formalities began. Her father had brought an entire court to the house: judge, advocates, recording clerks and all. First, although Esmay had openly accepted her heritage

in the ceremony, she must now swear that she had done so and sign the Roll, her signature beneath her great-grandmother's, where anyone could compare its slightly awkward simplicity to the lovely old-fashioned elegance of her great-grandmother's writing. But three lines above, someone had signed in awkward childish letters that looked even worse.

Once she was sworn in as heir, the true Landbride, the real work began. Every Landsteward, including Papa Stefan and her father, had to submit an accounting of the management of each division of the Landbride's Gift. Esmay learned things about the family estancia she had never known, because in her great-grandmother's long tenure as Landbride, changes had been made before Esmay was born which had now to be explained. From the trivial (the decision to move the chicken yard from one place to another, to accommodate a covered passage to the laundry) to the major (the sale of almost a third of the cattle lands to finance artillery and ammunition for her father's brigade in the Uprising, and its eventual repurchase), the last 70 years of history were laid out in detail.

Esmay would have stipulated that the accounts were correct, if she could, but the judge would have none of it. "You were away, Sera. You cannot know, and although these are your family, and you are naturally reluctant to consider them capable of the least infidelity or dishonesty, it is my duty to protect both you and the Landbride Gift itself. These accounts must be scrutinized carefully; that is why we brought along the accountants from the Registry."

And how long would that take? She did not want to spend days sitting here watching accountants pore over old records.

"Meanwhile, Sera, as long as a representative of your family is here to answer any questions, we need not detain you."

That was a relief. Esmay escaped, only to be captured by Luci, who had in mind a lengthy discussion of the herd she managed for Esmay. From one accountant to another-but Luci was so eager to explain what she'd been doing, that Esmay did not resist as she was led through the kitchens, out the back of the house, and into the stable offices.

"You hadn't said what direction you wanted to take," Luci said. "So I decided to sell the bottom ten percent at the regional sales, not under your name. Your reproductive rates are above the family average, but not much-"