I think quickly. ‘A theatre, he said. Though I may have misremembered the street name.’
My cousin shrugs. ‘You must have done. There are a couple of theatres in Upper Farne that I suppose your father might have visited. Though I can’t imagine our father going with him …’ He pauses, considering. ‘You could ask Lord Hawkin. He’s lived here his whole life. And he loves to talk.’
I set my cup down on a little silver table nearby and catch sight of the dirt on my skirts. ‘I should change. Thank you. Both of you.’
Odette returns my smile. ‘I’m glad Aron found you. And I’ve noticed you don’t have your walking stick with you any more.’
Perhaps I discarded my prop too soon. ‘My ankle is much stronger now.’
‘So would you come flying with me? I know you said you don’t care for it, but perhaps if we went together?’
Is this a trap? But Odette looks excited more than anything else, and I wonder whether she’s lonely, despite having her brother here. ‘My back.’ I touch the bare skin at the top of my shoulders. ‘It’s the scar tissue, you see. I mean, I can transform, of course. But it hurts. I prefer not to.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ The excitement has gone, replaced by pity.
Aron sits forward in his chair, as if he’s actually interested in what I’ve just said; his usual demeanour is one of boredom, or contemptuous judgement, or both. ‘Too bad, sister. She’ll have to come riding with me instead. If Rookwood allows her, that is.’
Lucien. It’s impossible he won’t find out about my ‘escapade’. I take leave of my cousins, wondering exactly how angry he is going to be …
The answer is – not surprisingly – very angry indeed.
‘I really cannot understand it, Your Grace. We are not in Atratys. This is not Merl Castle. And we’ve only been here two weeks. Two weeks! I can’t believe you would put yourself in such danger.’ Lucien was waiting for me upon my return from Odette’s apartments. Now he is pacing up and down my sitting room, casting furious glances in my direction. The glances are a substitute for words; I have shamelessly refused to dismiss Letya – I know very well that Lucien won’t say everything he really wants to say in front of her – so my clerk is having to control his tongue. Clearly, he’s struggling. ‘And you tell me you just went for a walk, and got lost?’
He doesn’t believe me. But I stick to my story. ‘Exactly. Perhaps, my lord, if you had allowed me a single moment of leisure in the last two weeks, I would not have been driven to such an extremity.’ I lift my chin and give him back glare for glare.
‘Well.’ He scowls. ‘Perhaps, Your Grace, you should have mentioned your concerns to me before deciding to sneak out of the castle.’
‘Or perhaps,’ Leyta observes, ‘you should have thought a bit more of my lady’s comfort before filling all her time up with meetings.’
Lucien flushes. But though he clearly heard Letya’s words he seems determined not to acknowledge her, and looks only at me. ‘You could have been killed. What would have become of Atratys? Would you betray your mother’s legacy so lightly? And what of the flightless that did die this afternoon, all because you wanted to take a walk?’
His words – and the disappointment in his eyes – sting me. I can’t tell whether I’m angrier at myself or at him. ‘You forget yourself, Lord Rookwood. Whether you like it or not, I am Atratys’s Protector.’
He opens his mouth, and I can almost see his retort forming: Then perhaps, Your Grace, it is time you behaved like it. But the words remain unspoken. He bows and leaves the room.
Letya draws breath. ‘Well –’
But I interrupt her before she can give vent to what I suspect will be some fairly astringent criticism of Lucien. She sits in silence while I explain the real purpose of my visit to Lower Farne, only pressing her lips together and shaking her head slightly when I tell her how close I came to disaster. She’s still silent when I finish.
I wait.
‘Well,’ she says eventually, ‘I suspect there’s no point in me scolding you. But Lord Lucien is right, you know. You want to find out why your mother was killed. All well and good. But you’re Protector now. Surely she would say that was more important?’
She would. But I can’t be the Protector – I can’t look to the future of Atratys – until I’m able to let go of the past. Not really. And to do that, I need the truth about my mother’s murder.
The truth, and maybe something more.
As I see again in my mind the red-headed man dying in front of me, Letya sighs and plucks at the skirt of my dress. ‘It’s ruined, I think.’ Neither of us mentions the fact that some of the stains are blood.
Lucien’s anger does not abate. He speaks to me as little as possible over the next few days, although he seems to take a grim pleasure in telling me of the rumours that are now spreading: either I went to Lower Farne to stir up the flightless population to rebellion, or I went because I am in fact flightless myself (my ‘burning’ of the servant on the day of my arrival apparently being part of a pre-conceived conspiracy). I notice enough sideways glances and whispered conversations to realise that my clerk is not just trying to scare me. I’m still busy; when I ask Lucien to arrange a meeting with Lord Hawkin, he tells me my diary is full for the next three weeks, and that Hawkin has in any case been away from court for the last month or more. Still, my feelings towards Lucien are softened when I discover that he has rearranged things so that I can have my afternoons to myself, though he does not give me any opportunity to thank him.
In my free time I start riding again, with Letya or with Aron. Despite the fact that he came to my rescue, my cousin still seems determined to try to make me squirm. He tells me about his childhood, and about the countryside around the Citadel, but he spends just as many hours describing the progress of the men competing to be my husband, or speculating on whether his father will find some other way of getting his hands on Atratys. Still, whenever he invites me to ride, I accept. Partly out of pity, I suppose. But also because, of all the people in the court, he is in some ways the one most like me, though I conceal my injuries and he cannot. The one thing we never discuss is flying.
When I’m alone, I try to work out what I should do next. Letya has not been able to find out for me when Lord Hawkin is due to return, and there’s no other obvious line of enquiry for me to pursue. I consider and reluctantly discard the idea of asking Lord Lancelin to write officially to his counterpart in Olorys to seek information. I’m still turning the problem over in my head when I go to the great hall one afternoon, just over a week since Aron had to come and rescue me. In honour of the arrival of a new ambassador from Ryska, the queen has invited a famous troupe of ballet dancers from Frianland to visit the court and give a performance, and we are all assembled to watch. For once, seating is not dictated by rank; at the queen’s request, this gathering is informal, and I can’t help wondering what other changes she might introduce to the court if she were allowed. Chairs and tables and sofas have been scattered about the room. The queen sits with Odette and the ambassador, a small woman with deep-purple hair and violet-tinged skin. I end up in a little group, with Lady Nyssa on one side of me and a courtier I’ve not met before on the other – an elderly man, his sparse grey locks more feather now than hair. I have no idea where Lucien is. We watch the first half of the ballet in silence. But at the interval, when Nyssa goes to take refreshment, the man turns to me.