In the Great Bedchamber beyond, Sabran lay sound asleep. With her hair unbound and her lashes dark against her cheeks, the Queen of Inys would be a picture of repose. Tonight it was Roslain Crest who slept beside her.
Both were unaware that a shadow bent on slaughter moved closer by the moment.
When Sabran retired, the key to her most private space was left in the possession of one of her Ladies of the Bedchamber. Katryen Withy had it now, and she was in the Horn Gallery. The royal apartments were guarded by the Knights of the Body, but the door to the Great Bedchamber was not always watched. After all, there was only one key.
No risk of intrusion.
In the Privy Chamber—the last rampart between the royal bed and the outside world—the cutthroat looked over his shoulder. Sir Gules Heath had returned to his post outside, unaware of the threat that had stolen in while he was elsewhere. Unaware of Ead, concealed in the rafters, watching the cutthroat touch the door that would lead him to the queen. In silence, the intruder removed a key from his cloak and slid it into the lock.
It turned.
For a long time, he was still. Waiting for his chance.
This one was far more careful than the others. When Heath gave way to one of his coughing fits, the intruder cracked open the door to the Great Bedchamber. With the other hand, he unsheathed a blade. The same make of blade the others had used.
When he moved, so did Ead. She dropped in silence from the beam above him.
Her bare feet lit upon the marble. As the cutthroat stepped into the Great Bedchamber, dagger aloft, she covered his mouth and drove her blade between his ribs.
The cutthroat bucked. Ead held fast, careful not to let a drop of blood spill on to her. When the body stilled, she lowered it to the floor and lifted his silk-lined visard, the same as all the others had worn.
The face beneath was all too young, not quite out of boyhood. Eyes like pondwater stared at the ceiling.
He was nobody she recognized. Ead kissed his brow and left him on the marble floor.
Almost the moment she moved back into the shadows, she heard a shout for help.
Daybreak found her in the palace grounds. Her hair was held in a web of gold thread, studded with emerald.
Every morning she kept the same routine. To be predictable was to be safe. First she went to the Master of the Posts, who confirmed he had no letters for her. Then she went to the gates and gazed out at the city of Ascalon, and she imagined that one day she might walk through it, and keep walking until she reached a port and a ship that would take her home to Lasia. Sometimes she would glimpse someone she knew out there, and they would exchange the smallest of nods. Finally, she would go to the Banqueting House to break her fast with Margret, and then, at eight, her duties would begin.
Her first today was to trace the Royal Laundress. Ead soon found the woman behind the Great Kitchen, in a recess draped with ivy. A stable hand seemed to be counting the freckles on her neckline with his tongue.
“Good morrow to you both,” Ead said.
The pair sprang apart with gasps. Wild-eyed, the stable hand bolted like one of his horses.
“Mistress Duryan!” The laundress smoothed down her skirts and bobbed a curtsy, flushed to the roots of her hair. “Oh, please don’t tell anyone, mistress, or I shall be ruined.”
“You need not curtsy. I am not a lady.” Ead smiled. “I thought it prudent to remind you that you must attend on Her Majesty every day. You have been lax of late.”
“Oh, Mistress Duryan, I confess my mind has been elsewhere, but I have been so anxious.” The laundress wrung her callused hands. “The servants have been whispering, mistress. They say a wyverling snatched some livestock from the Lakes not two days ago. A wyverling! Is it not frightening that the servants of the Nameless One are waking?”
“Why, you have hit upon the very reason you must be prudent in your work. Those servants of the Nameless One wish Her Majesty gone, for her death would bring their master back into this world,” Ead said. “That is why your role is vital, goodwife. You must not fail to check her sheets each day for poison, and to keep her bedding fresh and sweet.”
“Of course, yes. I promise I shall be more attentive to my duties.”
“Oh, but you must not promise me. You must promise the Saint.” Ead tilted her head toward the Royal Sanctuary. “Go to him now. Perhaps you could also ask forgiveness for your … indiscretion. Go with your lover and pray for clemency. Make haste!”
As the laundress rushed away, Ead smothered a smile. It was almost too easy to fluster the Inysh.
The smile soon faded. A wyverling had dared to steal livestock from humans. Though Draconic creatures had been stirring from their long slumbers for years, sightings had remained uncommon—yet the last few months had seen several. It boded ill that the beasts were growing bold enough to hunt in settled areas.
Keeping to the shade, Ead took the long way to the royal apartments. She skirted the Royal Library, stepped around one of the white peacocks that roamed the grounds, and entered the cloisters.
Ascalon Palace—a climbing triumph of pale limestone—was the largest and oldest of the residences of the House of Berethnet, rulers of the Queendom of Inys. The damage wreaked upon it in the Grief of Ages, when the Draconic Army had mounted its year-long war against humankind, had long since been erased. Each window was fitted with stained glass in all colors of the rainbow. Its grounds were home to a Sanctuary of Virtues, gardens with shaded lawns, and the immense Royal Library with its marble-faced clock tower. It was the only place Sabran would hold court during the summer.
An apple tree stood in the middle of the courtyard. Ead stopped at the sight of it, chest aching.
Five days since Loth had disappeared from the palace in the dead of night, along with Lord Kitston Glade. Nobody knew where they had gone, or why they had left court without permission. Sabran had worn her disquiet like a cloak, but Ead had kept hers quiet and close.
She recalled the smell of woodsmoke at her first Feast of Fellowship, where she had first made the acquaintance of Lord Arteloth Beck. Every autumn, the court would come together to exchange gifts and rejoice in their unity in Virtudom. It was the first time they had seen one another in person, but Loth had told her later that he had long been curious about the new maid of honor. He had heard whispers of an eighteen-year-old Southerner, neither noble nor peasant, freshly converted to the Virtues of Knighthood. Many courtiers had seen the Ambassador to the Ersyr present her to the queen.
I bring no jewels or gold to celebrate the New Year, Your Majesty. Instead, I bring you a lady for your Upper Household, Chassar had said. Loyalty is the greatest gift of all.
The queen herself had only been twenty. A lady-in-waiting of no noble blood or title was a peculiar gift, but courtesy forced her to accept.
It was called the Feast of Fellowship, but fellowship only went so far. Nobody had approached Ead for a dance that night—nobody but Loth. Broad-shouldered, a head taller than she was, with deep black skin and a warm northern inflection. Everyone at court had known his name. Heir to Goldenbirch—the birthplace of the Saint—and close friend to Queen Sabran.
Mistress Duryan, he had said, bowing, if you would do me the honor of a dance so I can escape from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s rather dull conversation, I would be in your debt. In return, I will fetch a flagon of the finest wine in Ascalon, and half will be yours. What say you?