Free Deeds of Honor by Elizabeth Moon

it—but otherwise soups were "that mess" to the Verrakaien.
    The Duke left the kitchen then. The children's supper went upstairs; the Duke sent word the captain was back, and she would be glad of a meal when it was ready. Farin sent it in, and the dishes came back later, empty, the bowls wiped dry. Well. Whatever that meant.
    The next morning, the new Duke appeared while Farin was just starting breakfast, and asked for hot water. She wanted to bathe, she said, but she chose the servants' bath over those upstairs. What a strange person! Of course, she had been a soldier, and away from the family. Perhaps that—Farin was still mulling over the possible reasons for the woman's strange behavior when she came back into the kitchen in clean clothes, the dirty ones in her arms. She looked not much different—relaxed perhaps—so Farin dared to tell her what to do with the dirty clothes, and guide her to possible choices for the day's meals. The Duke accepted the suggestions, and after breakfast stopped by the kitchen to say it had been a good meal, and thank them.
    A change indeed. If only she could trust it. The morning ran quietly enough; extra hands in the kitchen did make lighter work, and fewer ladies to feed meant stores were not disappearing as fast. The mood in her kitchen had lifted; the three women were sharing stories of their families; the younglings were listening.
    Then the horror began. Cries and bustle from far up in the house, where the children were. Farin moved to the kitchen door, then to the foot of the back stairs, listening. Then down the stairs came the new Duke, carrying the limp body of a small girl bleeding from nose and mouth. Her captain and one of the soldiers followed, each with a child.
    The look on the new Duke's face told the story, as Farin had thought. The children angered her, and she had struck them down.
Child-killer
. She was a child-killer, and nothing could be worse than that. Too many children had died in this house, in the years Farin had been there. And now more children, three in one day....
    "Where—?" Her voice caught in her throat as the Duke looked at her.
    "Leave us," the Duke said. Farin backed away, then turned and hurried back into the kitchen. She said nothing to the others. Knowing what she had seen could only endanger them. One of the nurserymaids ran in and whispered that the sickly boy had come to the crisis that morning, and might not live. Then she hurried away. Farin bit her lip. It was not the sickly boy she'd seen carried out, and if the nurserymaids said nothing about those children...she shook her head.
    At midday she had one of the older women take the pastry she'd made earlier to the dining room, and then find the Duke. She did not want to see the Duke again, at least not this day. The Duke ate, the woman told her, then hurried away upstairs, and the captain said it was because she worried about the child.
    Which made no sense. Why would she kill the likeliest children—for all three, Farin knew, had been healthy and active—and spend time on the sickly one who would probably die? Soon after that, she heard the nurserymaids in the passage again, leading a file of children toward the front of the house.
    Later in the afternoon, the Duke came in, leading the sickly boy, who, the Duke said, was hungry.
    "Beef broth and dry bread," Farin said. "That's best for young'ns been sick." She quickly warmed a pan of broth and sliced bread, then set them before the boy as he perched on a stool. He began eating at once. Farin stepped away from the table, watching the Duke and trying to read her expression. She
looked
concerned, but what was she really thinking? "Had the crisis this morning, I heard," she said, when the Duke said nothing. "'S fever's gone so fast—is that real, or—?"
    "I believe it to be real," the Duke said. "Falk's grace, I call it."
    Farin stiffened. Falk? The servant prince? "Falk! None of the—I've never heard my lords and my ladies talk of Falk's