Free Son of Avonar by Carol Berg

I began to receive books on law and politics and philosophy, and copious notes in Tennice’s own handwriting. I studied them intensely, so I could discuss them on my next visit. I was determined to deserve his regard.
    Tanager was Martin’s aide and bodyguard and the very opposite of his brother, muscular and rash, exaggerated in every way. No one would plunge into Martin’s enterprises with more enthusiasm. His broad shoulders would bear a donkey’s head for a Long Night farce or bloodstained armor in his lord’s service with equal willingness and enjoyment. Again and again he would lavish his heart and his attentions on a woman, only to plunge into deep depression when she discovered his lack of fortune and abandoned him. The others teased that he should wear his armor in Martin’s drawing rooms, as no one ever came out of the conversational battles more bloodied than Tanager.
    By the autumn that I turned nineteen, I felt more at home at Windham than at Comigor. . . .

Year 29 in the reign of King Gevron
    I arrived in early evening, breathless with the chill wind of the open carriage. Julia met me with a kiss and swept me toward the fire, snatching off my cloak and tossing it to a manservant. “Dear Seri, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m in desperate need of an ally. Your cousin is being an ass again.”
    Martin and a portly noble of similar age were pro-pounding their dismay over the recent visit by one Baroness Lavastre to the Council of Lords. The formidable woman had intruded on the Council’s deliberations, insisting that she be allowed to offer opinion on a property ruling being considered by the body, her husband being away at war and his man of business recently deceased. “It’s true the woman had an excellent grasp of tariffs and the subtleties of trading-company acquisitions,” said Martin, clasping his hands behind his back and shaking his head with such gravity, one might think the woman had suggested Leire surrender a city or two to a wild-haired Isker warlord. “I discussed the matter with her in this very room only last spring. But if we allowed her to speak to the Council, why then next month she would want to vote her husband’s shares!”
    â€œAnd why should she not?” Julia riposted as we joined Tennice, Tanager, and several other younger men who had settled on the couches and chairs near the fire. “A good mind for business with a few fresh ideas could increase everyone’s profits.”
    â€œPerhaps, if women were allowed to speak, some consideration might be given to the smaller shareholds whose masters are younger and thus all away at the war,” I added, not even pausing to give Martin his usual peck on the cheek before joining the fray. “As it is, only those too cowardly or too old to serve are voting. They’re running smaller trading companies into the ground. . . .” It was an old argument, and Martin always started it up again whenever a fellow member of the Council of Lords showed up in his drawing room. Did he believe his own pronouncements? I was sure I had heard him argue exactly the opposite way on earlier occasions when Tennice had brought out the points of law that prohibited women’s voices being heard in the Council chambers.
    We pursued the matter until supper was announced. Almost everyone in the fireside circle had seen his ideas upheld or trounced, and had been called variously a fossil, a libertine, or an anarchist fit only for the mad speakers’ corners near the Royal University in Valleor. Only one observer had stayed quiet throughout the discussion—a slender, dark-haired stranger, who stood leaning on the corner of the tall marble mantelpiece, arms folded across his chest. His blue eyes and high cheekbones gave him a slightly foreign look, though I could not guess his origins. He was clean-shaven, and conservatively dressed in a black doublet, high-collared white