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“What do you mean, I can’t go hunting?” Elwyn adjusted the gauntlet on her arm as she glared at the guardsmen. They were standing in the door to the stairwell, and two of them had crossed their pikes in her face when she approached.
“I’m sorry, your royal highness,” said their commander, blushing and lowering his eyes. He was a sergeant by the name of Burnham, and she’d known him for almost her whole life. “We have our orders, you see.”
Elwyn shook her head, hoisted her quiver on her shoulder, and turned on her heel. “Fucking ridiculous.” She went back down the hall through the nursery and looked in on one of the servants’ stairwells. There was a guardsman there, too. A fellow named Olhouser, if she remembered correctly. “What in the Void are you doing there?” she demanded.
He touched the brim of his steel helmet. “Sorry, your royal highness, but I’m supposed to stand guard here.”
“Are you going to let me pass?”
Olhouser clutched his pike to his chest like he was afraid she was about to attack him. “I’m sorry, my lady, but no. We can’t let anyone in or out except on the captain general’s orders.”
She dropped her bow and quiver in the outer parlor of her apartment. Then, to be certain, she went down the hall to the southeast stairs, where sure enough, soldiers blocked her exit. These men weren’t royal guards, but wore the arms of Duke Lukas of Severn.
One of them told her to “settle down” with a leering grin. Another said, “Let’s see a smile.”
“If you think I’m angry,” she snapped, “wait to see what my mother’s like when she finds out.”
“Your mother isn’t in charge anymore,” said the man.
“There’s been a threat against your family,” his companion said, smirking.
“So apparently we’re prisoners now,” she thought, heading back up the hall.
She didn’t believe there was really a threat. Or if there was, it came from these Severnshire men, and their master, Duke Lukas. Which, of course, meant it came ultimately from Cousin Broderick. She thought of her father’s warning, and Lady Bianca’s, too. There had to be some way to stop Broderick. There had to be.
She paced up and down the hallway, lost in thought, passing the nursery, then turning and walking toward her own apartment, and then turning again and heading back. On about the tenth lap, a small voice called out to her from the nursery playroom, and she looked in to see her sister, Alice, at her little oak desk with a quill and some parchment.
“Elwyn, I’m trying to write a letter,” she said. “Can you help me?”
Alice could write with pencils now, but she hadn’t mastered the use of a quill yet. In the midst of all this frightening mess, here, at least, was a problem Elwyn could solve.
“Of course,” she said, coming over to kneel by her sister. “Who are you writing to?”
“Jennifer Stansted,” said Alice proudly. “Mother said I could write it.” Her hands were almost coal-black from spilled ink.
Whether Duke Lukas and Cousin Broderick would allow the letter to be sent was another matter, but Elwyn would cross that bridge when she came to it.
“Very well. Here—let’s get a fresh sheet of parchment, shall we? And maybe clean up a little of this ink, too.”
Eventually they had the desk and Alice herself mostly clean, and then Elwyn knelt to take dictation. Alice’s letter was mostly about the everyday events of the nursery—what she was learning in her lessons, and what Edwin was up to with his toy soldiers, and which dolls of hers were feuding with which others in the imaginary court dramas she and Jennifer enjoyed creating.
At two points, however, Elwyn had to fight to control her emotions and not scare her little sister by showing quite how disturbed she was. The first time was when Alice jokingly referred to Sir Robert Tynsdale as “Mama’s new admirer.” Under normal circumstances, that would have been hilarious, and Elwyn would have heartily enjoyed telling Lady Bianca and Duchess Flora about it later. But now, with those awful lies about Rohesia flying around court, they couldn’t take any chances.
“You know Sir Robert isn’t really in love with Mother, right?” she asked Alice.
The little girl scrunched up her face dubiously. “Really? Are you sure? Because it seems to me like he is.”
“Well, let’s leave it out for now,” said Elwyn.
To herself, she said, “Oh, Holy Finster, please let that not be true. That’s the very last thing we need now.”
The other time Elwyn had to hide her emotions from Alice was when the little girl related how she had seen Sir William Aitken peeking at her from the servants’ stairway the previous night.
“He came and looked in,” she burbled happily, “and then he went away. And then he came back again. And he did this all night, like he’d forgotten something here and he kept looking for it. It was very silly.”
“Yes...very silly,” said Elwyn weakly. Thank Earstien the girl wasn’t old enough to understand the threat implied by those visits. Personally, if Elwyn had looked up from her bed to see Sir William watching her, she would have been strongly tempted to grab her bow and put an arrow through his eye. She decided to move a wardrobe in front of the servants’ door to her bedroom as soon as possible.
They finished the letter, and Elwyn helped Alice seal it, and then Elwyn took it down the hall to Sergeant Burnham.
“I don’t know that we’re allowed to carry letters in and out,” said the sergeant, scratching his chin. “But on the other hand, no one has given me any specific orders that we can’t.” He took the letter, and Elwyn felt relieved that one small thing had finally gone right today.
She was about to return to her own apartment when she heard Rohesia call her name from the next parlor. “Come in here, please,” said the queen. Was it Elwyn’s imagination, or did she sound frightened?
Elwyn entered her parents’ apartment and saw Rohesia standing over by the tall glass doors to the north balcony with Sir William Aitken, of all people. Elwyn’s temper, a rather thin strand at the best of times, was too frayed to withstand the sight of the man, and she rushed up to him, shaking her fist in his face.
“How dare you spy on my little sister!” she cried. “How dare you trap us in here like we’ve done something wrong.” It was all she could do not to swing a punch at his rodent face. “You’re revolting—you and Colonel Rath and Duke Lukas and—”
“Elwyn, control yourself,” said Rohesia.
Turning to her stepmother, Elwyn said, “Mother, Alice said she saw him looking in on her room last night. Can you believe that?”
Sir William bowed. “I am sorry if I caused any offense. It is a standard precaution when the royal family is under threat.”
“He’s right, Elwyn,” said the queen.
“Oh, please,” said Elwyn. “You don’t really believe there’s a threat, do you?” She turned back to Sir William. “Who exactly is threatening us? Did you hear them do it? Did you see a letter?”
He didn’t answer, but only bowed again.
“Huh. That’s what I thought. It’s complete bullshit, isn’t it?”
Rohesia stepped over and put a hand on Elwyn’s arm. “Calm yourself, please. Elwyn, Sir William is here to speak with you. He has...something rather particular to tell you.”
“What are you talking about?” said Elwyn suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘something particular’?”
Sir William looked taken aback. “Your majesty, my message was for you alone. I had not anticipated speaking with the princess herself.”
“But here you are now,” said the queen curtsying to Sir William and heading for her bedroom. “You might as well be the one to give the news. I’ll be next door if you need me.”
Never before in her entire life had Elwyn wanted so badly for Rohesia to stay in a room with her. Usually she rejoiced when her stepmother left her alone. But not now. Not when she was going to be alone with Cousin Broderick’s vilest henchman.
“Mother, wait!” she said. But the queen shut the door, all the same.
“Your royal highness, I apologize again,” Sir William said. “I assure you that I meant no disrespect toward your sister.”
“Your assurances mean less than nothing,” said Elwyn. “What was it you needed to say to me? Get it over with, and then we can both get on with our day. I’ll sit in my room and be bored for a while, and you can go frighten some more small children.”
“I would never harm a child, my lady,” said William, looking genuinely affronted. “I was doing it for your sister’s protection.”
“As if I would believe you. Get on with it. Say what you came here to say.”
He bit his lip and shuffled his feet slightly. Elwyn had never seen the man look so uncomfortable. Usually it was his job to make everyone else uncomfortable.
Finally, in a strangely stiff and formal voice, he said, “My lady, I have the honor of conveying the wishes of Broderick, Baron Gramiren that you be united with his son, Sir Broderick Gramiren, in matrimony.”
Elwyn struggled to form a coherent answer. She made him repeat what he had said twice before she could really fathom it. “Cousin Broderick wants me to marry his son, Young Broderick? Seriously?” It had to be a joke, except that no one had ever accused Sir William Aitken of being a comedian.
“There is no need to answer right now, my lady,” he said. “His lordship merely requests that you agree to consider his son’s suit.”
Now it all made sense—the sudden confinement in their apartments. And that odd, awkward meeting yesterday with Muriel and Young Broderick. Flora had been trying again to get Elwyn to go hunting with her son, Pedr. And then Baroness Muriel had shown up, and Elwyn could only think about Pedr Byrne shirtless with his head between Muriel’s firm, naked thighs. She had only noted Young Broderick long enough to wonder why he would join three women for tea in the Palm Court. He never did things like that.
“That’s why Muriel brought him over there,” thought Elwyn. “They’ve been planning this.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had suggested she marry the younger Broderick. She had known for years that a lot of people at court thought it would be an interesting dynastic match—reuniting the bloodlines, or whatever. And when she had been at school with Broderick the younger, her friends Alicia Garmont and Hortense Trevelyan had teased her about him, with the result that she had avoided him as much as possible. But to the best of her knowledge, no one had ever seriously tried to arrange the marriage before.
Aloud, she said, “I can give you my answer right now, Sir William. I would sooner marry Cousin Broderick’s horse than his son. If the last two men on earth were Broderick the younger and a one-eyed Sahasran eunuch, I’d marry the eunuch.”
The door to Rohesia’s bedroom swung open, and the queen loomed there with her most serious scowl. “May I have a word with you, my dear girl?” she hissed. Then she dragged Elwyn back into the bedroom with her. “Have you gone mad?” she said, once the door was shut again.
“Mother, you can’t seriously think I can accept this proposal.”
“You don’t have to accept it,” sighed the queen. “But you don’t need to go out of your way to make yourself a target, either. Think, Elwyn! Today there’s a letter that says Edwin is illegitimate. Tomorrow there could be one saying you’re illegitimate, too. No, don’t roll your eyes like that! It would be the easiest thing in the world. If they can fake one letter, they can fake ten, or a hundred.”
With a sinking feeling, Elwyn realized her stepmother was absolutely right. There could easily be a letter that said she was a bastard. And one for little Alice, too. Why not smear the whole family while they were at it? If she and Alice were very, very lucky, they might be allowed to retire to a convent. And if they weren’t lucky.... Oh, Earstien.
“Very well, mother,” said Elwyn. “Very well.”
She left the bedroom and went back out into the parlor, where Sir William stood exactly where she had left him.
“I cannot yet accept Young Broderick’s suit,” she said. “But I will promise to consider doing so. Is that good enough?”
He bowed very low. “That will do for now, my lady. But if I may give you a word of advice....”
“What?”
“I would not wait too long to make up my mind, if I were you.”