The argument near the stables turned out to be Aldric and one of the younger grooms arguing about whose fault it was that a water bucket had been knocked over. Aldric was seventeen, built like he had been designed specifically to move heavy things, and completely incapable of admitting fault in any situation. The groom, a boy of maybe fourteen named Pip, was standing his ground with the particular stubbornness of someone who knew he was right and was furious about it.
Noctis watched from the courtyard entrance for a moment, decided it would resolve itself, and kept walking.
Aldric noticed him and called out. "Noctis. Tell Pip that he left the bucket in the middle of the path."
"I didn't leave it anywhere, I put it down for two seconds," Pip said, not looking away from Aldric.
"Clean it up and figure it out between yourselves," Noctis said without stopping. "And Aldric, you're on the wrong side of the pitch if we're playing at midday. Come find me when you're done."
Aldric made a noise that was somewhere between agreement and complaint. Noctis took it as agreement and moved on.
The main hall was quieter than the courtyard. Most of the household staff had already finished the early morning work and spread out to their various tasks. He passed Maren in the corridor near the kitchen, a woman in her late thirties who had been managing the household's linen and general supplies since before Noctis was born. She had a stack of folded cloth under one arm and the look of someone running through a list in her head.
"The courier left," she said as he passed, because she always seemed to know everything before anyone told her.
"He did," Noctis said.
"Lord Vane won't be happy."
"He'll manage."
Maren gave him a look that suggested she had opinions on the matter but was choosing not to share them, which was more or less her default state. She moved on. He moved on.
He found his mother in the solar, which was where she spent most mornings. Elara Valerius Azor was not a woman who sat still easily, and the solar suited her because it had good light and a writing table and enough space to pace if the mood took her. Right now she was reading something, seated near the window with a cup of tea that had probably gone cold.
She looked up when he came in. "You sent the letter."
"Just now."
She set the paper down and studied him for a moment with the particular attention that had always made him feel like she was reading something slightly past his face. "Cassian Vane is a reasonable man. He'll understand the intention."
"That's what I'm counting on."
"You know there will be talk."
"There's always talk."
Elara looked at him a moment longer, then picked her tea back up. "Three years is not a long time, Noctis."
"I know."
She did not push further. She rarely did when he had already made a decision. He appreciated that about her more than he had ever found a way to say. He grabbed an apple from the bowl on the side table, told her he would be outside most of the morning, and left her to her reading.
* * *
By midday the pitch was occupied.
The pitch was a generous term for what was really just a flat stretch of ground behind the eastern wall, worn down to bare dirt in the middle from regular use and marked at each end by two posts that Noctis had persuaded a carpenter to put in two summers ago. It was not pretty. It worked.
Aldric had shown up as promised, along with Finn, who was nineteen and worked in the granary and had the kind of relentless energy that made him either very useful or very annoying depending on the situation. Behind them came Sera, sixteen, the daughter of one of the groundskeepers, who had started joining the games about a year ago and had gotten good enough that nobody questioned it anymore. Then Pip, still looking mildly irritated from the morning, and two younger boys named Corin and Dex who were thirteen and treated the whole thing with the seriousness of a military campaign.
They split into two sides without much discussion. They had done this enough times that the teams more or less sorted themselves.
"Same rules," Noctis said, mostly for the benefit of Corin and Dex, who had a habit of conveniently forgetting whichever rules were currently inconvenient to them. "No hands unless you're keeping goal. No elbowing. If someone goes down and it was intentional, possession switches. Questions?"
"What counts as intentional?" Dex asked.
"You'll know it when you see it."
Dex looked like he wanted to argue. Corin grabbed his arm and they took their positions.
The game was good. Better than most, actually. Finn was fast when he wanted to be and had figured out over the past months that passing was more useful than trying to take on three people at once, which had made him significantly harder to deal with. Sera had always had good instincts and used them quietly, staying wide, waiting for the gaps. Aldric played like a wall given legs and questionable decision-making skills, which meant his team spent half their energy working around him and the other half being grateful he was there.
Noctis played the way he always did, which was to say with about sixty percent effort and a decent enough read of where everyone was that he could usually be in the right place without doing anything particularly impressive. He had never been the best player on whatever field he was on, in either life. That was fine. The point was the game.
Corin scored first, somehow, with a shot that had no business going in and bounced in off the inside of the post. He celebrated like he had won a war. Noctis let him have it.
They were level at two goals each and well into the second half of the game when Pip made a run down the left side, cut inside, and put the ball through to Noctis at the edge of the area. Noctis took one touch, looked up, saw Finn charging in from the right, and laid it off for him instead. Finn buried it.
"Yes!" Finn shouted, pointing at Noctis like he was owed something for the assist.
"Don't celebrate yet, we're playing to four," Aldric said from somewhere behind them, breathing harder than he would probably admit.
"You're just annoyed because your team is losing," Sera said.
"My team is not losing, we're behind by one, that's different."
Noctis was still catching his breath and half listening to them argue when he heard his name. Not from the pitch. From the edge of it.
He turned. One of the younger house servants, a girl of about twelve named Willa, was standing at the edge of the dirt with her hands clasped in front of her and the slightly anxious look of someone who had been told to deliver a message and was not sure how it would be received.
"My lord," she said. "Lady Elara is asking for you. She says it's important."
The game had drifted to a stop behind him. He could feel it without looking, the way the energy shifted when something changed. He glanced back at the pitch once. Finn had the ball under his foot. Aldric was watching him.
His mother did not use the word important lightly.
"We'll finish another time," he said to no one in particular, and followed Willa back toward the house.