‘Your Grace –’ Lucien catches my wrists in his hands, casting me a look full of warning – ‘you’re tired after the journey. You should rest.’ He presses a finger to his lips, then walks softly back towards the door, his feet making no sound on the thick carpet, and flings it wide. The servant who brought us up here is crouched on the other side; shock sends him sprawling backwards onto the floor. Lucien kicks him. ‘Go and fetch the Protector’s waiting woman. Then get out of here.’
‘Yes, my lord. My apologies –’
Lucien slams the door on the man’s grovelling and returns to where I’m still standing. ‘Next lesson: this place is full of spies.’ He stands close, leaning in towards me, his voice low, almost a whisper. ‘I don’t know if that idiot is working for someone, or whether he was just hoping for any information he could sell, but it doesn’t matter. Most of the lower servants, the housemaids and so on, can’t read, and they’re not allowed to learn, but they can still listen. You have to watch your tongue at all times, even if you think you’re alone. And always remember the first thing I taught you.’
‘Trust no one.’ Either here or at home, seemingly. ‘Who would have told him I was flightless, Lucien?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’
No more do I. Some guest who attended my father’s Last Flight, perhaps? But I was in deep mourning – no one would have expected me to fly. Someone who lives at Merl, then? I twist my hands together, running through names in my head.
‘Your Grace, you passed the king’s test: you should let my father worry about whose words provoked it. I’ll write to him before this evening’s banquet. But in truth, rumours of all kinds – plots, potential invasion, rebellion – have grown rife in the last couple of years. The king is ruled by fear. The kind of fear that leaves no room for right judgement. Or mercy.’
There are sofas and chairs scattered about the room, all gilded wood and rose-pink satin. I realise how badly my legs are shaking and sink down onto the nearest pile of cushions. ‘But what he made me do … Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I didn’t want to scare you.’ He sighs and sits down next to me. ‘Though perhaps I should have done, if it would have kept you at home. The king seems to take delight in suffering; there are stories about what he does in private to flightless women –’ He breaks off as I press a hand to my mouth, my stomach churning. ‘They may be nothing more than stories. But I wish the king was more like your father. It’s hard to believe they were brothers.’
‘It’s impossible. My father was a good man, a kind man, and the king …’ Bile rises in my throat as I picture my uncle, sprawling on the throne of Solanum, defiling it with his cruelty and greed. As I imagine him wearing the Crown of Talons, degrading that ancient symbol of our people by his unworthiness. I push the image away and think of my father instead, and pretend that he is here next to me, protecting me. Make-believe; but it gives me a little strength. ‘And what about my marriage?’
‘I doubt he’s going to try to rush you into anything; the longer he can keep all the potential suitors dangling, the more favours he’ll be able to extract. And remember, you’re of age. He can’t make you marry anyone.’
In theory. In practice, who knows what kind of pressure my uncle might seek to apply? I sink my head into my hands, digging my nails into my scalp and screwing my eyes shut. In that instant, the chance that I can do some good here – that I can somehow avenge my mother, or make amends for my father’s long, lonely years of grief – seems so remote as to be ridiculous. ‘What am I to do?’
I feel Lucien shift position next to me, but he doesn’t attempt to answer my question.
There’s a knock at the door and Letya walks in, followed by housemaids carrying pails of steaming, scented water. ‘Time for a bath, Your Grace. You need to rest and change before the feast.’ She turns to Lucien, her hands on her hips. ‘Your servant is waiting for you, my lord. In your usual room, he says.’
Lucien accepts his dismissal without argument. He stands and bows to me. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of hours, Your Grace.’ And then he is gone, and Letya – her hands protected by fine leather gloves – is unbuttoning my dress, humming one of our favourite childhood songs under her breath.
A warm bath in front of a large fire soothes my muscles, although it can’t calm my mind. My bedroom is as enormous and grand as my sitting room. Too grand, after the faded comfort of my rooms at Merl. But the view from my windows is breathtaking: they open onto a sheer drop, where the castle is perched above the top of a fjord. Rising up from the centre of the fjord, some distance away, is a tall tower built of the same glittering stone as the castle. And in the other direction are mountains, crowded together like a mouthful of sharpened teeth. White-water streams rush down their sides, and I can see the blue-green edge of a glacier cradled in between the highest snow-capped peaks. Shape-shifters don’t feel the cold particularly, but I notice that Letya has on a new dress of thick lavender wool. As I wait for my hair to dry, she selects a gown for me to wear to the banquet: flowing green silk, high to the throat, caught in at the waist with a band of gold embroidery that is repeated along the hem. Sleeveless, as is the fashion for evening. The train sweeps behind me as I walk, and Letya reminds me that it will need to be pinned up if there is dancing. She plaits my hair and twists it, clipping it at the nape of my neck. Once I’ve hung my mother’s emerald earrings from my earlobes she walks around me, her head tilted.
‘You’ll do. Just try to look less terrified. Remember who you are.’
She’s right, as usual.
‘Where’s my sword belt?’
‘Noblewomen don’t carry weapons. And it will spoil the line of the dress.’
But I’m not just a noblewoman. I’m a Protector; I’m entitled to wear a sword. ‘Trust me: it will help me – and everyone else – remember who I am.’
Letya smiles. ‘True. And at least it’s gold. It won’t look completely out of place.’
I fasten the belt around my hips and place my mother’s sword into the scabbard, as Letya fusses with the fall of my skirts. Finally she surveys me again and nods approvingly.
‘I wish I could stay here and have supper with you.’ I stretch out my hand, careful not to touch her, just in case. ‘I feel so … exposed.’
‘Come, it’s just a banquet. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’ She grins suddenly, deepening her voice. ‘Unless it’s the Dancing Demon …’
I laugh, remembering how Letya and I convinced my somewhat gullible nursemaid that Lord Lancelin’s apartment was haunted by a demonic presence from the underworld. He was less than amused when he found her ‘cleansing’ his favourite possessions by throwing them on the fire. ‘We got into so much trouble. But at least we were together; if only you could come to the feast too.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll have my supper in my own room and spend the evening sewing and reading, which will suit me very well.’
There’s a knock at the door. Letya passes me my walking stick (we’ve agreed that it would be as well for me to keep using it, at least for a few more days), then opens the door to admit Lucien. He’s dressed in a sleeveless grey silk tunic and trousers and has the gold chain of the House of Anserys around his neck. The clothes suit him; the grey brings out the hints of deep blue in his hair and eyes, and the style of the tunic shows off the muscles in his arms. ‘Are you ready? The first bell has been rung.’