Beatriss traveled through the Flatlands with Tarah and Samuel to see how her villagers were faring. They were scattered across the kingdom, some as far away as the Rock village, quarrying stone, or the River villages, gutting fish. Most expressed sadness when they heard she would be moving into the palace with Vestie. “Always thought we’d be able to return to you,” they said. “We may have work here, but we don’t have a home, Lady Beatriss.”

As they passed the road that led to the village of Fenton, she saw a crowd. The Queen’s Guard was there as well, and among them Trevanion sat astride his horse. Beatriss remembered Isaboe’s words the day the queen visited and they had traveled back to the palace together. That she was not to expect Trevanion to reveal his feelings of the past. “They’re not like us women, Beatriss. For all their strength and might, any talk of the past pains them, and if you’re waiting for him to speak words you want to hear, then make the decision to live without him now. For you may never hear them.”

“What do you think is happening there?” she asked Samuel.

“Why, the palace is auctioning the village, Lady Beatriss,” Samuel said gently. “Did you not know? The surviving Fenton villagers will all receive ten pieces of gold to resettle elsewhere or stay if they wish. The queen says it’s what Lord Selric would have wanted.”

“The queen and Finnikin mentioned as much. What are the villagers saying?”

Tarah made a rude sound. “Those of Lord Freychinet’s village are saying they wished he was dead in a ditch someplace in Charyn and they had ten apiece.”

“Doubt anyone will stay in Fenton, though,” Samuel said. “Not if Lord Nettice buys.”

Beatriss shuddered at the thought.

“Let’s stop awhile,” she said quietly. “I see dear friends.”

She approached Abian and August, who kept their distance from the other lords and ladies. Abian hugged her tightly.

“Sad day,” August said. “If they waited until spring, I’d have the money from the crop. Selric would have hated any of that lot getting hold of his land and people.”

Beatriss knew from Abian that August felt he had let his neighbor down. She squeezed his arm. “You’ve taken on more of his villagers than you can afford to, August. He would have been grateful.”

They watched Lord Nettice and his cronies, who were laughing among themselves. Already they were thumping Nettice’s back with congratulations, as though he already owned Fenton.

“What I don’t understand is where he got his gold from,” Lady Abian said, bitterness in her voice.

“He made his money shamelessly under the impostor king’s rule,” Beatriss said quietly.

Her eyes met Genova’s. She was huddled with her husband, Makli, and the survivors of Fenton. As was the case with Sennington, the village of Fenton once boasted sixty-four people and was now down to twenty-eight. Most had died in the Charyn plague. What was ten pieces of gold worth to them when they were still grieving the loss of neighbors?

A moment later, Trevanion approached and dismounted. Beatriss felt her face warming up under the intensity of his stare.

“Honestly, Trevanion, can’t you arrest them for their smugness?” August said.

Abian’s fury could hardly be contained. “If any of their wives come near me to boast the purchase, you’re going to have to bail me out of the palace dungeon tonight, Augie, because I don’t know what I’ll do to them.”

Trevanion laughed. He looked at Beatriss. “Would you like me to arrest Lord Nettice for purely existing, Beatriss?”

Beatriss’s stomach churned at the mention of his name. She was unable to join in the jest, and all too soon Trevanion’s smile was gone and he was off to oversee the growing crowd.

It was all a farce, really. The poor Fenton lot had pooled together their promised amount, deciding that perhaps they would try to buy it together, but Lord Nettice doubled the amount the moment it began and it was humiliating to watch. Humiliating. Beatriss stared at the man, the word thundering inside her head. Humiliating. Humiliating. Her anger grew. She felt its rage, but there was no longer shame in it.

What had her fellow Lumaterans said about her during those early years of the impostor king’s cruel reign? That she gave them courage. That each time his men ruined her land, Beatriss the Bold refused to stop planting.

“Four hundred pieces of gold,” she shouted. It was what the priest-king had promised her for Sennington.

There was a stunned silence around her. August and Abian stared at her as if she had lost her senses. It wasn’t that they doubted she had money, but to buy a village? Beatriss looked across at where Lord Nettice stood with his wife alongside Lord Freychinet and their acquaintances.

“Five hundred,” Lord Nettice said, and her heart dropped.

Every person standing on the field stared back at her, but Beatriss knew she could not match the price. The auctioneer waited.

“Five hundred and ten, Lady Beatriss?” the auctioneer called out, searching for her through the crowd. “Perhaps another go?”

“End this,” Lord Nettice shouted at the man, but the auctioneer refused to be rushed.

Suddenly Makli and Genova were there beside Beatriss, as were the rest of the Fenton villagers.

“End this,” they heard Lord Nettice shout again.

“Lady Beatriss,” the auctioneer called out, his voice anxious. “Another bid, perhaps.”

“We have two hundred and eighty coins between us,” Genova said. “Use it, Lady Beatriss. Use it all. If he wins the bid, Fenton is lost to us. The pride of Lord Selric and his beloved girls are lost to us.”

Beatriss caught Makli’s eye and she saw sorrow there and before she could stop herself, she pushed through the crowd and reached the front, her stare fixed on Lord Nettice.

“I bid six hundred and eighty pieces of gold!” she said. “Do you have the nerve to outbid me, Lord Nettice?”

“Nerve?” Lord Freychinet laughed, looking at his friend. “What has nerve to do with it? I’ll lend you the rest, Nettice.”

Lord Nettice hesitated, and Beatriss dared the coward to be the first to look away. For it would not be her. Never again would she look away from this man. She stepped closer, until she was almost nose to nose with him.

“I defy you to outbid me,” she said. “I defy you.”

There was a hush from the crowd, filled with confusion and anticipation and hope.

“Sold to Lady Beatriss for six hundred and eighty pieces of gold,” the auctioneer shouted, his words slicing through the silence.

“What?” There was outrage from Lord Freychinet and their companions.

“Too fast,” Lord Freychinet shouted at the man. “Too fast.”

“End this. End this,” the auctioneer mimicked. “Is that not what you shouted? Make up your mind. I’m finished for the day.”

“This is an outrage!” Lady Milla said.

“Nettice! Do something,” his wife said.

“Leave it,” Lord Nettice said to his entourage, his tone cold and bitter. “Leave it. She’s paid too much for it, anyway. Fenton was always the runt of the villages.”

Through the crowd Beatriss could see Trevanion, his eyes on Nettice as if he wanted to tear the man apart. But a moment later, she was surrounded by those of Fenton and lost sight of him. Abian and August were there too, as were Tarah and Samuel and anyone present from Sennington. They all seemed stunned at the quick outcome of the day’s events. Beatriss could hardly find the words to speak.

“Did I just buy a village?” she asked.

Then Makli laughed. “You did indeed, Lady Beatriss. You did indeed.”

That afternoon her home was filled to the brim with those from Sennington and Fenton. Even the auctioneer had returned with them when he heard of the ale and the sweets to be served.

“May I make a toast?” Beatriss called out when the sun was beginning to set and it was time for her guests to leave. Silence came over the room.

“A toast to Lord Selric and Lady Milla and Lady Hera and Frana and Lestra. And a toast to those others we lost from Fenton and Sennington.” Beatriss’s eyes blazed with tears. “We won’t have a moment’s rest this coming year, dear friends. Not a moment’s rest, but we break our backs in their names.”

There was a cheer for her words, and she stood among them overwhelmed with fear and exhilaration. What had she gotten herself into? What would people say? One moment refusing to step outside her house, next moment buying a village.

Later, the man who had conducted the sale approached and took her hand, and she smiled.

“I gather you weren’t a big supporter of Lord Nettice after what you did today?” she asked. “Did he do you wrong, sir?”

The auctioneer, named Pollock, shook his head. “I’m not interested in those who do me wrong, Lady Beatriss. There’s not enough time in the day for them. But my daughter spent five safe years in the cloisters because of you and that mad Tesadora. Won’t be forgotten by me and my wife. I can tell you that.”

She stood awhile and watched them all go, but as she turned, she heard the sound of a horse coming down the road. Samuel stepped out beside her.

“It’s the captain,” she said quietly. “I’m safe, Samuel.”

She waited for Trevanion to dismount, and without a word, he followed her into the house.

“Was it him?” he asked, and she heard the barely contained rage in his voice.

She sighed, pouring him a cider and cutting him a slice of cake.

“And what are you going to do to him if it was?” she asked.

“Kill him,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No, you won’t,” she said gently.

Trevanion kicked the stool out of the way, and it bounced off the wall and splintered. “I’ve killed traitors before, Beatriss. It’s my job. In what way would this be any different?” he asked.

Beatriss calmly picked up what was left of the stool. “Because you don’t have proof. Nettice was smart in that way. He would come to this house often in the early days to talk about the soldiers and his hatred for the impostor king. Later he’d tell me he was lonely. His wife kept a cold bed. I would send him away each time. And then suddenly he was a guest of the impostor king in the palace. A fact I knew because I was dragged down there often enough.”

She caught Trevanion’s wince of pain.

“Nettice would tell all who would listen that his visits to the palace were to make life easier for us, but the only families who had an easy life were those who collaborated.”

She swallowed, trying to keep down the bile that always rose when she thought of those years.

“He must have made a deal with the impostor king and somehow I became part of that bargain because the king and his men didn’t touch me again. And do you want to know the truth, Trevanion?” she asked. “I felt relief. Each time he came up that path, I felt relief. Better a demon I knew, better one man than any of the others in the palace. Relief,” she cried. “Nothing more. Nothing. And that relief shamed me and he knew, trading on that shame all these years.”

Trevanion closed his eyes, his expression so pained that she wanted some kind of magic to take away all their suffering. But that type of magic didn’t exist.

“He stopped the visits when I was carrying Vestie, and then, of course, there was Tesadora. Nothing frightened those cowardly men more than Tesadora. Her friendship saved my life. It saved my spirit.”

Beatriss began to clear away the plates and cakes. She looked away so she wouldn’t have to see his face. Would there be judgment? Had it been easier for him to love Vestie knowing that the father was nowhere in their lives?

Trevanion stayed, his silence frightening. And there they sat opposite each other, two people who had grown older without the comfort of the other. She wanted to weep for the lost opportunities. But deep in the night, when she thought there would never be words between them again, he spoke.

“The reason I couldn’t ask questions all this time is that I feared I’d have to respond to yours in return.” His voice was low and hoarse. “That I’d have to speak of being imprisoned in the mines and my first months there and what I let them do to me and how I couldn’t save those two brothers from the Rock who came to join me there.”

He looked away, the tears biting at his eyes.

“We didn’t let them do anything to us, Trevanion,” Beatriss said fiercely. “They did it without our permission.”

She walked to where he sat and placed her arms around him. He turned and buried his face against her waist and she thought she felt a sob against her, and they stayed wrapped around each other, bathed by the sounds of this house that had seen the worst and best of times. But all Beatriss had to hear was the sound of his breathing and her child mumbling in sleep to know that perhaps for tonight alone all was good in her world.

“Do you remember the day three years ago when we spoke at the babe’s grave?” he asked. “Do you remember your words? Has anything changed? About how you can never go back to the way things were?”

She took his face in her hands. “I only remember the words that haven’t changed, Trevanion.”

She pressed her brow against his.

“I still wake with your name on my lips every morning.”