Fynch bowed. “Majesty, I will see it done.”
He marched back out. Two of the Knights of the Body closed the doors behind him.
“If Yscalin courts war, I will oblige, but we must be ready,” Sabran murmured. “If Raunus is not in a generous mood, it may be my fate to make this marriage to the Chieftain of Askrdal. For Inys.”
Marriage to a man old enough to be her grandsire. Even Katryen, who was practiced in courtesy, creased her nose in distaste. Sabran crossed her arms over her midriff.
“Come.” Ead laid a hand on her back. “Let us take the air while the snow is untouched.”
“Oh, yes.” Katryen rose to the occasion with relish. “We could pick some damsons and blackberries. And do you know, Sabran, Meg said she saw a dear little hedgepig a few days ago. Perhaps we can help the servants to chase the poor things from under the balefires.”
Sabran nodded, but her face was a mask. And Ead knew that, in her mind, she was trapped under a balefire of her own, waiting for an unseen hand to set light to the kindling.
Not long after the announcement, Ead found herself once more in the Privy Chamber, embroidering roses on a baby cap. Since the scent of roses had kept her nightmares at bay, Sabran wanted them on everything her daughter would wear in the first days of her life.
The queen lay on a couch in her padded bedgown. She had shed weight in the days following the ambush in Ascalon, making her belly impossible to miss.
“I feel nothing,” she said. “Why does she not move?”
“That is natural, Majesty.” Roslain was bordering one end of a swaddle blanket. Katryen worked on the other. “You may not feel her quicken for some time.”
Sabran kept exploring the little round in her belly with her fingers.
“I believe,” she said, “that I have a name for my daughter.”
The Chief Gentlewoman looked up so quickly, she must have given herself a cricked neck. The blanket was forgotten as she and Katryen rushed to sit on either side of Sabran. Only Ead remained where she was.
“This is wonderful news, Sab.” Smiling, Katryen laid a hand over hers. “What have you chosen?”
There were six historical names for Berethnet monarchs, Sabran and Jillian being the most popular.
“Sylvan. After Sylvan-by-the-River,” the queen said, “where her lord father died.”
That name was not one of them.
Roslain and Katryen exchanged a worried glance. “Sabran,” Roslain said, “it is not traditional. I do not think your people would take well to it.”
“And am I not their queen?”
“Superstition knows no rulers.”
Sabran looked coldly toward the window. “Kate?”
“I agree, Your Majesty. Let the child not have the shadow of death over her head.”
“And you, Ead?”
Ead wanted to support her. She should have the right to name her own child as she pleased, but the Inysh did not take kindly to change.
“I agree.” She pulled her needle through the cloth. “Sylvan is a beautiful name, Majesty, but it may serve to make your daughter melancholy. Better to name her after one of your royal ancestors.”
At this, Sabran looked exhausted. She turned on to her side and pressed her cheek into the cushion.
“Glorian, then.”
A grand name indeed. Since the death of Glorian Shieldheart, it had never been bestowed on any princess.
Katryen and Roslain both made approving sounds. “Her Royal Highness, Princess Glorian,” Katryen said, with the air of a steward announcing her entrance. “It already suits her. What hope and heart it will give to your subjects.”
Roslain nodded sagely. “It is high time such a magnificent name was resurrected.”
Sabran stared at the ceiling as if it were a bottomless chasm.
Within a day, the news had seeped into the capital. Celebrations were planned for the day the princess was born, and the Order of Sanctarians prophesied the might of Glorian the Fourth, who would lead Inys into a Golden Age.
Ead watched it all with weary detachment. Soon the Prioress would call her home. Part of her longed to be among her sisters, united with them in praise of the Mother. Another part wanted nothing but to remain.
She had to crush it.
There was something Ead had to do before she left. One evening, when the other ladies were occupied and Sabran was resting, she made her way to the Dearn Tower, where Truyde utt Zeedeur remained imprisoned.
The guards were on high alert, but she needed no siden to get into forbidden places. As the clock tower struck eleven, she reached the highest floor.
Dressed in naught but a soiled petticoat, the Marchioness of Zeedeur was a shadow of the beauty she had been. Her curls were twisted and heavy with grease, and her cheekbones strained against her skin. A chain snaked between her ankle and the wall.
“Mistress Duryan.” Her gaze was as intense as ever. “Have you come to crow over me?”
She had wept when she saw her prince lying dead. It seemed her grief had cooled.
“That would not be courteous,” Ead said. “And only the Knight of Justice can judge you.”
“You know no Saint, heretic.”
“Rich words, traitor.” Ead took in the piss-soaked straw. “You do not look afraid.”
“Why should I be afraid?”
“You are responsible for the death of the prince consort. That is high treason.”
“You will find I am protected here, as a Mentish citizen,” Truyde said. “The High Princess will try me in Brygstad, but I am confident I will not be executed. I am so young, after all.”
Her lips were split. Ead took a wineskin from her bodice, and Truyde, after a moment, drank.
“I came to ask,” Ead said, “what you thought you would achieve.”
Truyde swallowed the ale. “You know.” She wiped her mouth. “I will not tell you again.”
“You wanted Sabran to fear for her life. You wanted her to feel as if there were too many battles for her to fight alone. You imagined that this would cause her to seek help from the East,” Ead said. “Was it also you who let the cutthroats into Ascalon Palace?”
“Cutthroats?”
As a maid of honor, she would not have been told.
“Has someone tried to kill her before?” Truyde pressed.
Ead nodded. “Do you know the identity of this Cupbearer the shooter invoked?”
“No. As I told the Night Hawk.” Truyde looked away. “He says he will have the name from me, one way or another.”
Ead found that she believed in her ignorance. Whatever her faults, the girl did appear to want to protect Inys.
“The Nameless One will rise, as his servants have,” Truyde said. “Whether there is a queen in Inys or a sun in the sky, he will rise.” The chain had rubbed her ankle bloody. “You are a sorceress. A heretic. Do you believe the House of Berethnet is all that binds the beast?”
Ead stoppered the wineskin and sat.
“I am not a sorceress,” she said. “I am a mage. A practitioner of what you might call magic.”
“Magic is not real.”
“It is,” Ead said, “and its name is siden. I used it to protect Sabran from Fyredel. Perhaps that will confirm to you that we are on the same side, even if our methods differ. And even if you are a dangerous fanatic whose folly killed a prince.”
“I never meant for him to die. It was all a masque. Wrong-headed outsiders poisoned it.” Truyde paused to cough pitifully. “Still, Prince Aubrecht’s death does open a new avenue for an Eastern alliance. Sabran could marry an Eastern noble—the Unceasing Emperor of the Twelve Lakes, perhaps. Give her hand and claim an army to kill every wyrm.”
Ead huffed a laugh. “She would sooner swallow poison than share a bed with a wyrm-lover.”
“Wait until the Nameless One shows himself in Inys. Wait until her people see that the House of Berethnet is built on a lie. Some of them must already believe it,” Truyde raised her eyebrows. “They have seen a High Western. They see that Yscalin is emboldened. Sigoso knows the truth.”
Ead held out the wineskin again.
“You have risked a great deal for this … belief of yours,” she said as Truyde swallowed. “There must be more to it than mere suspicion. Tell me what planted the seed.”
Truyde withdrew, and for a long time, Ead thought she would not answer.
“I tell you this,” she finally said, “only because I know no one will listen to a traitor. Perhaps it will plant a seed in you as well.” She curled an arm around her knees. “You are from Rumelabar. I trust you have heard of the ancient skystone tablet that was unearthed in its mines.”
“I know of it,” Ead said. “An object of alchemical interest.”
“I first read about it in the library of Niclays Roos, the dearest friend of my grandsire. When he was banished, he entrusted most of his books to me,” Truyde said. “The Tablet of Rumelabar speaks of a balance between fire and starlight. Nobody has ever been able to interpret it. Alchemists and scholars have theorized that the balance is symbolic of the worldly and the mystic, of anger and temperance, of humanity and divinity—but I think the words should be taken literally.”