The Death of Chaos by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Finest know you're headed somewhere, and Ferrel hasn't come back, and Krystal's taken over the Finest. And you're asking about Justen.” Tamra snorted. “It doesn't take much in the way of brains.”
       “Soon.” I bowed to the inevitable. “Since you know so much, what else can you tell me?”
       Tamra brushed her hair back off her forehead. “I can't tell you that much. I can tell you that if Justen were here, he'd be telling you to take your book-The Basis of Order. Read it. You won't survive forever on dumb luck and your staff work, even if it is getting better.”
       “Thank you.” I bowed, and my ribs ached, reminding me that I wouldn't survive long at all on staff work by itself. “You're also improving.”
       “I've been practicing against the Finest. You have to get faster when you're working against blades. Krystal's a good instructor. Has she been working with you?”
       “Only a little.”
       “It shows. You ought to do it more often.”
       “When?”
       Tamra gave me a quick smile. “I know how you two spend your free time.”
       “There hasn't been that much.”
       Her smile got wider, and I wanted to crack her, but I walked across the yard and set the staff in the rack inside the shop door.
       In the end, after Tamra rode off, pleased with herself, I did have to go back to the chairs. With the break, the work seemed easier, and I even got the fifth chair back bent and clamped in place, and went back to the demon-damned grooved spokes that I had begun to wish I'd never designed. Elaboration, even of a good design, can be a definite pain, and I just didn't have the experience of Uncle Sardit or Perlot. That hurt, because I spent more time on some things than was definitely wise.
       The clinking of the harness and the faint creaking of the cart wheels told me when Rissa returned.
       She looked in on me. “How many for dinner?”
       “I'd guess on six or seven. Three of us, and three or four guards.” I shrugged.
       “You... Never do I know who is coming for dinner.”
       “Neither do I, and it's at least partly my house.”
       “Fantesa, she says she could never cook in such a place. Are there three or fifteen?” Rissa put both her hands on her narrow hips. “Or in the morning, I think I will feed three, and ten hungry people sit down in the evening. Or it is the other way around.” She lifted her shoulders. “In the market, they all look at me and laugh. And Brene, she cackles like her chickens. We should have chickens.”
       “What can I say?” I shrugged again, ignoring the reference to the chickens I didn't want. “My consort is an important woman.”
       “This house...” But she said it with a smile before she retreated to the kitchen-or to the small room behind it that was hers. I went back to the spoke-shafts, and got two more rough-finished before it started to get dark.
       Right after sunset, I pulled out my striker and went into the yard. Three tries convinced me that the big lantern wasn't going to light. I took it down and checked the wick. It needed trimming, but it was also dry, and that meant lugging it out to the shed where I kept the oils, a good fifty cubits behind the shed and off to the side of the stable. If lightning or something happened, like loose chaos, I didn't want the shop or the house burning with the shed. Rissa grumbled about that, and so did I when it was cold or raining or snowing-though that was comparatively infrequent in Kyphros-and I had to get finish oil or varnishes. Luckily, it wasn't that cold or rainy around Kyphrien, but I suppose I would have done the same thing if I had a place in Spidlar or Sligo.
       I had just replaced and lit the big lantern when I heard, and sensed, horses. So I waited out in the yard for Krystal and the Finest. Even in the saddle of the big black she looked tired, but she smiled. I offered her a hand down. She took it, which told me how tired she was.