The young Baron Fayle hadn't trained in politics and matters of succession the way people like Tulori Leufroy or Liam Dunn had. He'd been lucky that his mother had been able to hire a few tutors who were willing to move to Fayle Barony to school him in the things a nobleman must know, but his training had stopped well short of reading the subtleties of court politics.
Those were lessons he'd been forced to learn the hard way, making friends where he could as he navigated the shifting currents of influence and interests between the barons who were vying for the shrinking opportunities that remained in Lothian March. But it didn't take a skilled politician to understand that something very strange was happening in Lothian right now.
