He was masked, of course. They always were. Only a fool would trespass in the Queen Tower without ensuring his anonymity, and if he had gained access to the Privy Chamber, then this cutthroat was certainly no fool.
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?
She had needed a friend. And a stronger drink. So, even though he was Lord Arteloth Beck, and even though she was a stranger to him, they had danced three pavanes and spent the rest of the night beside the apple tree, drinking and talking under the stars. Before Ead knew it, a friendship had blossomed.
Now he was gone, and there was only one explanation. Loth would never have left court of his own accord—certainly not without telling his sister or asking leave from Sabran. The only explanation was that he had been forced.
Both she and Margret had tried to warn him. They had told him that his friendship with Sabran—a friendship struck up in their childhood—would eventually make him a threat to her marriage prospects. That he must be less familiar with her now they were older.
Loth had never listened to reason.
Ead shook herself out of her reverie. As she left the cloisters, she stood aside for a group of retainers in the service of Lady Igrain Crest, the Duchess of Justice. Her livery badge was embroidered on their tabards.
The Sundial Garden drank in the morning light. Its paths were honeyed by the sun, and the roses that trimmed its lawns held a soft blush. It was watched over by the statues of the five Great Queens of the House of Berethnet, which stood on a lintel above the entrance to the nearby Dearn Tower. Sabran usually liked to take walks on days like this, arm in arm with one of her ladies, but today the paths were empty. The queen would be in no mood for a stroll when a corpse had been found so close to her bed.
Ead approached the Queen Tower. The woodvines that snaked up it were thick with purple blossom. She ascended the many stairs within and made her way to the royal apartments.
Twelve Knights of the Body, clad in gold-plated armor and green cloaks for the summer, flanked the doors to the Privy Chamber. Floriated patterns covered the vambraces, while the Berethnet badge took pride of place on their breastplates. They looked up sharply as Ead approached.
“Good morrow,” she said.
The moment of caution waned, and they stood aside for a Lady of the Privy Chamber.
Ead soon found Lady Katryen Withy, niece to the Duke of Fellowship. At four and twenty, she was the youngest and tallest of the three Ladies of the Bedchamber, possessed of smooth brown skin, full lips, and tightly curling hair of such a deep red it was almost black.
“Mistress Duryan,” she said. Like everyone else in the palace, she wore greens and yellows for summer. “Her Majesty is still abed. Did you find the laundress?”
“Yes, my lady.” Ead curtsied. “It seems . . . duties to her family have distracted her.”
“No duty comes above our service to the crown.” Katryen glanced toward the doors. “There has been another intrusion. This time, the knave was far less of a blunderer. Not only did he reach the Great Bedchamber itself—he had a key to it.”
“The Great Bedchamber.” Ead hoped she looked shocked. “Then someone in the Upper Household has betrayed Her Majesty.”
Katryen nodded. “We think he came up the Secret Stair. That would have allowed him to avoid most of the Knights of the Body and get straight into the Privy Chamber. And given that the Secret Stair has been sealed since—” She sighed. “The Serjeant Porter has been dismissed for his laxity. From now on, the door to the Great Bedchamber must never be out of sight.”
Ead nodded. “What would you have us do today?”
“I have a particular task for you. As you know, the Mentish ambassador, Oscarde utt Zeedeur, arrives today. His daughter has been rather slack in her manner of dress of late,” Katryen said, pursing her lips. “Lady Truyde was always neat when she first came to court, but now— why, she had a leaf in her hair at orisons yesterday, and forgot her girdle the day before that.” She took a long look at Ead. “You appear to know how to attire yourself in a manner befitting your position. See to it that Lady Truyde is ready.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Oh, and Ead, do not speak of the intrusion. Her Majesty does not wish to sow unease at court.”
“Of course.”
As she passed the guards a second time, Ead sliced her gaze over the blank slates of their faces.
She had long known that someone in the household was letting cutthroats into the palace. Now that someone had given them a key to reach the Queen of Inys while she slept.
Ead meant to find out who.
The House of Berethnet, like most royal houses, had seen its fair share of premature deaths. Glorian the First had drunk from a poisoned cup of wine. Jillian the Third had ruled for only a year before being stabbed in the heart by one of her own servants. Sabran’s own mother, Rosarian the Fourth, had been slain by a gown laced with basilisk venom. Nobody knew how the garment had entered the Privy Wardrobe, but foul play was suspected.
Now the cutthroats were back for the last scion of the House of Berethnet. They inched closer to the queen with every attempt on her life. One had given himself away when he knocked over a bust. Another had been spotted as she stole into the Horn Gallery, and another still had screamed hateful things at the doors of the Queen Tower until the guards had reached him. No connection had been found between the would-be murderers, but Ead was sure they shared the one master. Someone who knew the palace well. Someone who could have stolen the key, made a copy, and put it back in the space of a day. Someone who knew how to open the Secret Stair, which had been locked since the death of Queen Rosarian.
If Ead were one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, a trusted intimate, protecting Sabran would be easier. She had waited for a chance at the position since her arrival in Inys, but she was beginning to accept that it would never be. An untitled convert was not a suitable candidate.
Ead found Truyde in the Coffer Chamber, where the maids of honor slept. Twelve beds sat cheek by jowl. Their quarters were more spacious here than they were at any of the other palaces, but uncomfortable for girls who had been born into noble families.
The youngest maids of honor were fooling about with pillows, laughing, but they stopped at once when Ead entered. The maid she sought was still abed.
Lady Truyde, Marchioness of Zeedeur, was a serious young woman, milk-pale and freckled, with eyes like bone black. She had been sent to Inys at fifteen, two years ago, to learn courtly ways until she inherited the Duchy of Zeedeur from her father. There was a watchfulness about her that put Ead in mind of a sparrow. She could often be found in the Reading Room, halfway up ladders or leafing through books with crumbling pages.
“Lady Truyde,” Ead said, and curtsied.
“What is it?” the girl answered, sounding bored. Her accent was still thick as curds.
“Lady Katryen has asked me to help you dress,” Ead said. “If it please you.”
“I am seventeen years old, Mistress Duryan, and possessed of sufficient wit to dress myself.”
There was an intake of breath from the other maids.
“I’m afraid Lady Katryen thinks otherwise,” Ead said evenly.
“Lady Katryen is mistaken.”
More gasps. Ead wondered that there was any air left in the room.
“Ladies,” she said to the girls, “find a servant and ask for the washbasin to be filled, if you please.”
They went. Not with curtsies. She outranked them in the household, but they were noble-born.
Truyde gazed at the leadlight for a few moments before rising. She deposited herself on to the stool beside the washbasin.
“Forgive me, Mistress Duryan,” she said. “I am ill-humored today. Sleep has eluded me of late.” She folded her hands in her lap. “If Lady Katryen wishes it, you may help me dress.”
She did look tired. Ead went to warm some linen beside the fire. Once a servant had brought water, she stood behind Truyde and gathered her abundant curls. Cascading to her waist, they were the true red of madder. Such hair was common in the Free State of Mentendon, which lay across the Swan Strait, but unusual in Inys.
Truyde washed her face. Ead scrubbed her hair with creamgrail, then rinsed it clean and combed out every tangle. Throughout it all, the girl said nothing.
“Are you well, my lady?”
“Quite well.” Truyde twisted the ring on her thumb, revealing the green stain beneath. “Only . . . irritated with the other maids and their gossip. Tell me, Mistress Duryan, have you heard anything of Master Triam Sulyard, who was squire to Sir Marke Birchen?”
Ead patted Truyde’s hair with the fire-warmed linen. “Not a great deal,” she said. “Only that he left court in the winter without permission, and that he had gambling debts. Why?”
“The other girls talk ceaselessly of his absence, inventing wild stories. I hoped to silence them.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you.”
Truyde looked up from under auburn lashes. “You were a maid of honor once.”
“Yes.” Ead wrung out the linen. “For four years, after Ambassador uq-Ispad brought me to court.”
“And then you were promoted. Perhaps Queen Sabran will make me a Lady of the Privy Chamber one day, too,” Truyde mused. “Then I would not have to sleep in this cage.”
“All the world is a cage in a young girl’s eyes.” Ead laid a hand on her shoulder. “I will fetch your gown.”
Truyde went to sit beside the fire and finger-comb her hair. Ead left her to dry.
Outside the room, Lady Oliva Marchyn, Mother of the Maids, was rousing her charges with that crumhorn of a voice. When she saw Ead, she said stiffly, “Mistress Duryan.”
She enunciated the name as if it were an affliction. Ead expected that from certain members of the court. After all, she was a Southerner, born outside of Virtudom, and that made the Inysh suspicious.
“Lady Oliva,” she said calmly. “Lady Katryen sent me to help dress Lady Truyde. May I have her gown?”
“Hm. Follow me.” Oliva led her down another corridor. A spring of gray hair had escaped her coif. “I wish that girl would eat. She’ll wither away like a blossom in winter.”
“How long has she had no appetite?”
“Since the Feast of Early Spring.” Oliva tossed her a disdainful glance. “Make her look well. Her father will be angry if he thinks the child is being underfed.”
“She is not sick?”
“I know the signs of sickness, mistress.”
Ead smiled a little. “Lovesickness, then?”
Oliva pursed her lips. “She is a maid of honor. And I will have no gossip in the Coffer Chamber.”
“Your pardon, my lady. It was a jest.”
“You are Queen Sabran’s lady-in-waiting, not her fool.”
With a sniff, Oliva took the gown from the press and handed it over. Ead curtsied and retreated.
Her very soul abhorred that woman. The four years she had spent as a maid of honor had been the most miserable of her life. Even after her public conversion to the Six Virtues, still her loyalty to the House of Berethnet had been questioned.
She remembered lying on her hard bed in the Coffer Chamber, footsore, listening to the other girls titter about her Southern accent and speculate on the sort of heresy she must have practiced in the Ersyr. Oliva had never said a word to stop them. In her heart, Ead had known that it would pass, but it had hurt her pride to be ridiculed. When a vacancy had opened in the Privy Chamber, the Mother of the Maids had been only too happy to be rid of her. Ead had gone from dancing for the queen to emptying her washbasins and tidying the royal apartments. She had her own room and a better wage now.
In the Coffer Chamber, Truyde was in a fresh shift. Ead helped her into a corset and a summer petticoat, then a black silk gown with puffed sleeves and a lace partlet. A brooch showing the shield of her patron, the Knight of Courage, gleamed over her heart. All children of Virtudom chose their patron knight when they reached the age of twelve.
Ead wore one, too. A sheaf of wheat for generosity. She had received hers at her conversion.
“Mistress,” Truyde said, “the other maids of honor say you are a heretic.”
“I say my orisons at sanctuary,” Ead said, “unlike some of those maids of honor.”
Truyde watched her face. “Is Ead Duryan really your name?” she asked suddenly. “It does not sound Ersyri to my ear.”
Ead picked up a coil of gold ribbon. “Do you speak Ersyri, then, my lady?”
“No, but I have read histories of the country.”
“Reading,” Ead said lightly. “A dangerous pastime.”
Truyde looked up at her, sharp-eyed. “You mock me.”
“By no means. There is great power in stories.”
“All stories grow from a seed of truth,” Truyde said. “They are knowledge after figuration.”
“Then I trust you will use your knowledge for good.” Ead skimmed her fingers through the red curls. “Since you ask—no, it is not my real name.”
“I thought not. What is your real name?”
Ead eased back two locks of hair and braided them with the ribbon. “Nobody here has ever heard it.”
Truyde raised her eyebrows. “Not even Her Majesty?”
“No.” Ead turned the girl to face her. “The Mother of the Maids is concerned for your health. Are you quite sure you are well?” Truyde hesitated. Ead placed a sisterly hand on her arm. “You know a secret of mine. We are bound by a vow of silence. Are you with child, is that it?”
Truyde stiffened. “I am not.”
“Then what is it?”
“It is none of your concern. I have had a delicate stomach, that’s all, since—”
“Since Master Sulyard left.”
Truyde looked as if she had struck her.
“He left in the spring,” Ead said. “Lady Oliva says that you have had little appetite since then.”
“You presume too much, Mistress Duryan. Far too much.” Truyde pulled away from her, nostrils flared. “I am Truyde utt Zeedeur, blood of the Vatten, Marchioness of Zeedeur. The mere idea that I would stoop to rutting with some low-born squire—” She turned her back. “Get out of my sight, or I will tell Lady Oliva that you are spreading lies about a maid of honor.”
Ead smiled briefly and retreated. She had been at court for too long to be rankled by a child.
Oliva watched her leave the corridor. As she stepped into the sunlight, Ead breathed in the smell of fresh-cut grass.
One thing was clear. Truyde utt Zeedeur had been secretly intimate with Triam Sulyard—and Ead made it her business to know the secrets of the court. If the Mother willed it, she would know this one, too.
