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?”