Lady Vandimion

Lady Vandimion carries herself with the poise of high nobility, crowned by a tall fontange headdress in the style fashionable across Europe at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She is the sole member of the Vandimion household who is never given a personal name.

She reads people with uncommon precision, seeing through her husband, her daughter, and even Serpico with ease, and she quickly senses that the tie between Farnese and her servant is no ordinary one. Aware that she made a poor example as a parent, she nonetheless offers Farnese sincere guidance and confesses pride in the daughter she raised at a distance. She holds the men of her family in low regard, dismissing Federico as a fearful slave to the world's schemes who refuses to listen, and she owns a romantic weakness for steadfast soldiers and for the whiff of the forbidden she detects between Farnese and Serpico. She admits, too, to a touch of envy at how readily Farnese trusts others despite a neglected girlhood.

Absent through most of Farnese's childhood, Lady Vandimion spent those years lost in idle pleasures. She resurfaces at the family estate in Vritannis, interrupting a moment between Farnese and Serpico, and explains she sailed the Southern Islands to escape the winter before arriving in a city bracing for war with the Kushan. Learning of Farnese's betrothal to Magnifico's friend Roderick, she probes her daughter's feelings and reveals that Federico fears Farnese precisely because her unpredictability placed her beyond his manipulation. She agrees to accompany Farnese to a grand ball.

At the ball she confronts a startled Magnifico, warning him that Farnese will not be used as anyone's pawn and that he grows too much like their father did in his youth. Spotting Serpico watching Farnese dance with Roderick, she gathers from his decade of quiet loyalty that he will never leave her daughter's side, and withdraws. After the Black Swordsman Party slays the tiger pishaca, she reflects that Farnese trusts these strangers more than she ever trusted her own kin, recognizes a formidable composure in Federico, and silently wishes her daughter and son well as the group departs.