>>5232564“I’m a little ssurprissed to hear you sspeak sso glowingly of Lady Vaz,” you admit, swishing your drink. It is by now half-depleted, the other half fertilizing a withered plant by one window.
Lord Yosef looks at you sharply, eyebrows high up his forehead.
“I mean no offence,” you hastily add. “It’sss jussst… She sseemed quite upsset and hossstile, as I caught her departure.”
“She’s passionate,” Lord Yosef chuckles, “like her father. Less like her mother, her brother. But I understand it. She thinks I’m going senile, seeing shadowy patterns where there are none. But, if we did not KNOW the truth, would we ourselves believe it? Especially when the official and unofficial ‘explanations’ are so… carefully-tailored? So TIDY? No, no, I understand why she resents being suddenly cut out of such a high-level meeting by her crotchety, conspiracy-theorist father. Gods Above know I resented my own father for far lighter offences.”
“We all must sstruggle with our parentss’ legaciesss…” you acknowledge.
“And our children’s future!” he says, raising a toast. You mirror it, though you only feign to drink; it strikes you, in a moment of perverse amusement, that refraining from drink may be best for your own child’s development.
A moment of silence, almost of understanding, passes between you and your unwitting ancestor.
“If I may asssk,” you hazard, “why ssend your halfling cook, and not your manservant?”
Lord Yosef takes a moment to savour his dragonwine, swishing it about and then gulping it.
“It was agreed upon,” he eventually says, “that I would send her in the event that the danger which we foresaw might come to pass… Did indeed, come to pass.”
He smirks slightly, chuckling a dark, almost sad chuckle. Callaghan, standing at his side, looks to him nervously at the laugh, resting a hand on his old employer’s back as it turns to coughing. Despite this outburst, Yosef shrugs him away.
“And what ISSS thiss calamity, which you foresaw and sso fear?” you ask.
“Why, Miss Rosgard, come now,” Lord Yosef says dryly. “You should know. It’s you.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You think you already know what I’m here to warn the two of you about, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that!” Lord Yosef says. “My imagination is… Well, overactive, if you ask Miriam, of course, but I don’t claim to be any predictor of fortunes!”
“Then… What iss it that you’re anticipating?” you press, confused. “What iss it that you and he feared, which hass now come to passs.”