That day passed with an uncanny, almost unnatural peace.
Sarg did, in fact, go out — and came back with a woman’s dress and a portion of roasted veal. The smell was genuinely lovely. Hyderlin, who had adored fine food in every era of her life, lit up at the sight.
“My goodness. Wherever did you find something like this?”
But Hyderlin couldn’t eat that, either.
“Ugh—”
It wasn’t a question of taste. It was a question of what her body was and wasn’t capable of receiving. A body that required no sustenance rejected food as a matter of course.
Hyderlin crouched in the gutter outside and heaved up everything she’d managed to swallow, weeping inwardly all the while.
Of all the miserable things — I can’t even eat. That’s beyond cruel.
To think she’d lost this one pleasure. The thought genuinely grieved her.
Sarg patted her back.
“Are you unwell? Something’s wrong with you.”
Her face had gone pallid enough that his concern was understandable. Hyderlin shook her head.
“Should I fetch a physician?”
“You worry too much. If there’s any wine, pour some of that.”
Sarg brought her wine watered down. That, mercifully, she could keep down.
He treated her like an invalid and deposited her in bed.
“You’ve had no color since I first saw you. Now this.” He studied her, troubled. “Was it the rain yesterday? Was that the problem?”
That was because she was, in effect, a near-corpse.
“I’m not ill.”
“That’s not convincing. Perhaps the rain caught you…”
“It’s only an upset stomach.”
Sarg scratched the back of his head and went out again. When he returned shortly afterward carrying what he called invalid’s food — a vegetable soup — Hyderlin could not quite conceal her dismay.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“I mentioned my wife was unwell. A neighbor offered it.”
His wife.
Hyderlin brought a spoonful to her lips and retched again. Sarg’s expression grew more doctorly by the moment.
“That settles it. A physician—”
“No!”
If a physician examined her and said anything peculiar, she would be the one in trouble. Hyderlin sank back against the pillow and drew the blanket up to her chin.
“I’ll just lie here. Don’t even think about fetching a physician.”
Sarg, who had been half out the door, turned back and stared at her. Then he drew the chair over to the bedside and sat.
And so she was confined to bed for the rest of the day.
She idly rifled through the odds and ends in the box beneath his bed. She stared out at the bleak view beyond the window. Then, eventually, she ran out of things to look at and began watching Sarg.
She watched him coax and soothe little Princess Beronis. She watched the way he smiled in answer to the baby’s smiles. She watched him murmur — her eyes look like Mak’s — and she watched him for a long, long time.
It was, by any measure, a dull and pointless and unproductive stretch of time.
And it passed far too quickly.
Sarg’s manner made it plain that he would not allow himself to sleep until she did. There was nothing for it — Hyderlin closed her eyes and feigned unconsciousness.
When she opened them a little while later, Sarg was asleep in the chair, arms folded across his chest. It looked profoundly uncomfortable.
Hyderlin hoisted his arm over her shoulder and half-dragged him, grunting with the effort, to lay him down on the bed. Sarg stirred but didn’t wake.
“Someone could drive a dagger into your heart and you wouldn’t notice,” she whispered.
She settled into the chair and watched him sleep. She looked at the baby too, curled up and breathing softly as any angel. And then she turned her mind to the question that had occupied her throughout these last several days.
I keep coming back to the same answer. Sarg’s plan is madness.
Coating a silver cup with poison and sending it as a gift to Margarite carried a very high risk of only endangering Margarite herself.
And it would take no time at all before the culprits were traced back to Sarg and Hyderlin.
Hyderlin didn’t particularly mind being caught — but Sarg had a long life ahead of him. That was the problem.
The methods she’d employed as Captain of the Royal Guard were no longer available to her. She lacked the wealth, the time, the manpower she’d once commanded.
But she possessed something the Captain of the Royal Guard had never had.
There’s no particular reason to preserve myself anymore, is there? If it truly comes to it — I can get close enough to run a blade through her myself. Or drag her into a lake and drown with her.
That would mean the end of Hyderlin, too — but it didn’t matter. She was already set to return to bare bones in twelve weeks. Moving that forward by a few days was no great loss.
Watching Sarg in his foolish, guileless sleep, something crystallized inside her.
She could not afford to grow attached to what little of this life remained.
Better to end it quickly.
Hyderlin quietly swept clean the something Sarg had left lodged inside her chest, and crossed to the window.
The rain was still falling.
The rumble of a carriage on the street below pulled Sarg from sleep with a start. He took a moment to register, with some bewilderment, that he was lying in the bed.
Hyderlin was already awake. She stood looking out the window as she gave her report.
“A carriage. Not the sort you’d expect on this street. Extremely ornate. The crest on the door — looks like it’s from the royal household.”
“The king sent someone again?”
Sarg rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood.
The carriage door opened and a single man descended, then entered the building.
“Only one person coming up. Unarmed.”
The sound of footsteps on the stairs grew steadily closer. A knock followed. The two of them exchanged a glance.
Hyderlin stood by the window, the baby held awkwardly in her arms. Sarg threw the door open.
A man in a hat adorned with elaborate feathers stood in the doorway. The blue surcoat he wore bore the royal crest in rich embroidery. He was a man who did not belong anywhere near this street.
He asked, with great courtesy:
“Am I addressing Sir Sarg Gloriosa?”
“You are.”
At Sarg’s confirmation, the messenger bowed with formal elegance and extended a letter sealed with wax.
“Long live His Majesty the King. I serve as his messenger. I have come to deliver a letter on His Majesty’s behalf.”
“You’ve had a long journey.”
Sarg took the letter and gestured with a tilt of his head for the man to leave. The messenger maintained his polished posture.
“I was instructed to remain until I have received a reply, so that the gentleman might not be inconvenienced in sending his response.”
That made dismissing him impossible. Without a word, Sarg broke the seal. The wax gave way cleanly.
To my dear Sir Sarg Gloriosa,
It has been too long. I am sorry that the pressures of public and private affairs have prevented me from reaching out to you sooner.
Word has reached me through the knights that you have married and are raising a child. It relieves my heart to know that you have found your footing after so many years adrift following my sister’s death. I find myself genuinely curious about the woman who has anchored you so.
Margarite has been quite lonely of late. I believe she simply lacks someone she can open her heart to. If she had someone near her own age — someone she might share her troubles with — perhaps her spirits would begin to mend.
With that in mind, Gloriosa — if you find yourself able, would you not bring your wife and daughter to Margarite’s birthday banquet? You will be welcomed without reservation. You are, after all, as family to Margarite.
She will be glad to see your face after so long. And she will be all the more delighted to meet your wife and child.
I, too, find that I miss you. And as it happens, there is something I have been meaning to share with you — something about my late sister. It is not the sort of matter that can be put into a letter, so I am afraid the details must wait. I hope you will forgive me.
Please send your reply by way of the messenger.
I look forward to hearing hopeful news.
Your friend, Chesa Bisretio Saint-Lotsa
Sarg’s brow creased as he read the letter through. He passed it to Hyderlin. While she read, he spoke with the messenger.
“My apologies for the inconvenience of coming all this way. Please convey my gratitude to His Majesty for the invitation. I regret that the circumstances don’t allow for a written reply — I hope this verbal response will be acceptable.”
At that moment, Hyderlin finished the letter and snapped:
“Wait. This isn’t something you can decide so easily.”
“What is there to deliberate?”
Hyderlin considered the letter a trap.
The lie Sarg had told the king’s knights — about the nature of his relationship with “Hys” and the child — was thin. The knights had been swept along by the mood of the moment, but the king, hearing it all secondhand, was a different matter entirely. He would have developed doubts about the supposed child of Sarg and “Hys.” The invitation was proof of that.
Accepting Chesa’s invitation, then, was not an option.
And it meant abandoning the plan to attend Margarite’s birthday banquet and approach Chesa there.
But none of that could be said in front of the messenger.
“You’d be walking into former colleagues. That puts you at risk. And I’m not comfortable putting myself before people of that standing, either.”
She tried to signal him with her eyes, but Sarg only produced a stream of placid non-answers.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll manage it on my end. He’s taken the trouble to write in his own hand — refusing the invitation would be its own discourtesy.”
“Sarg—”
The messenger, who had remained in the doorway watching them both, spoke gently:
“It seems Lady Gloriosa is quite accomplished.”
Lady Gloriosa — that was apparently what he was calling Hyderlin. There had been nothing remotely accomplished in what she’d just said, so perhaps this was a sophisticated form of irony.
“To think Sir Gloriosa had found a lady fluent in the Court Tongue of Larrochelle. It seems you have indeed been keeping distinguished company.”
Hyderlin felt a slow, tired sigh gather somewhere behind her ribs.
The letter she’d read without a second thought — so familiar was the text to her eyes — had not been written in the script common to the people of Lotsa. It was the court language of Larrochelle, favored by royalty and nobility as a display of refinement.
Ordinary people struggled simply to read it. For those who lived in this part of the slums, where even basic literacy was rare, it might as well have been in cipher.
She shifted her gaze to the baby in her arms and answered with a measured calm.
“I spent a very long time working in close service to people of high rank.”
The messenger smiled pleasantly.
“Then I shall inform His Majesty that the two of you have accepted his invitation. A carriage will be sent four days before the banquet — that is, the Tuesday of the week after next — so please do not trouble yourselves with the journey to the palace.”
Hyderlin blinked.
“Four days before? Not the day of?”
“Yes. His Majesty wishes to ensure that the young couple and the child are received with every comfort. All that is needed for attendance at the banquet will be prepared on our end — please come without worry.”
It was true that a Sarg based in the far outskirts of Lotsa, and a Hyderlin possessed of nothing but the clothes on her back, would hardly be in a position to prepare properly for a royal banquet. Chesa’s consideration was, in its way, generous — but she could not entirely suppress a flicker of irritation.
She smoothed the feeling away and answered graciously.
“We are only grateful for His Majesty’s generosity. We will be there. Thank you for making the journey to such a humble address. Mind the roads — they’re rough.”
The messenger bent one knee in formal court fashion and departed.
The two of them moved to the window. The ostentatious carriage, wholly out of place on this street, trundled away with a rattle.
Hyderlin laid the baby on the bed. She looked at the child — oblivious to everything, doing nothing but rolling her eyes about — and said, tiredly:
“It’s a trap. He’s worked out that Princess Beronis is here.”
“I know.”
Sarg shrugged one shoulder. Hyderlin felt a sharp spike of irritation.
“You know that perfectly well and you still accepted?”
“We needed to approach him at some point regardless. We can’t afford to keep our heads down and hope for the best.”
“There’s a difference between approaching him and walking into the palace carrying the princess like a piece of bait into a lion’s den.”
“Then take the princess and get clear of here yourself. Yes — that would be far better, actually.”
His obstinacy lit a full fire of anger in her. Hyderlin exhaled sharply.
“You’re no longer under the Order’s protection. You do understand that? What do you think Chesa is capable of doing to you in his own palace?”
The dark eyes fixed on him carried a cold, cutting clarity. She kept her voice very low.
“Do you want to end up in the palace dungeons being asked where you’ve hidden the princess? Do you want to experience firsthand everything the king’s interrogators have spent their careers perfecting? If not — forget this wretched invitation. Pack your things. We run, and we find another way.”
“No.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Chesa said he has something to tell me about that woman. I have to go and hear it.”
