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360 M.E.
The little country church wasn’t hard to find. It was less than a mile from where Lukas and Halvor had set up camp for the night, in a tiny hamlet surrounded by apple orchards. Vittoria was waiting there in the habit of a Leofine sister, and Molly sat down on a bench to give her report.
There wasn’t much to tell. She had heard Lukas say something about only staying in Keneburg for a few weeks, but she couldn’t say whether he’d been serious about that, or even if his intention was to return to Severn for a while.
“More specific information would be helpful,” said Vittoria.
“Yes, I understand that,” sighed Molly. “But I can’t very well ask Lukas for a copy of his war plans, can I?”
“I don’t know. Can you? Do you have that sort of relationship?”
“No! Of course not. Listen, I’ll try to find out more, but you have to understand that Lukas doesn’t really take me seriously.”
Vittoria smiled. “So much the worse for him. Men underestimate women at their peril, especially women they’re intimate with. In this line of work, it’s always much better to be underestimated, believe me.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
The trouble was, of course, that Lukas rarely made or discussed his plans in front of her. As always, he made her play hostess at suppers for his officers, but it seemed to be considered vulgar to “talk shop” when the lovely Miss Coburn was around. Once, she had found it flattering the way all the men competed for her attention and wanted to talk about music and dancing with her. Now it annoyed her. If only one of them were to tell her something useful. But no. When they were around her, they acted as silly and empty-headed as they thought she was.
Molly met Vittoria twice more during the march south, but she never had much to tell her. The Immani spy was undaunted, though, and told Molly, “Keep trying. Keep your eyes open, and something always turns up.”
On the last day of the year, Lukas’s troops arrived at Keneburg. And of course there was the obligatory New Year’s party at Dunharvin Castle. Relations between the Byrne family and their new Gramiren overlords were as frosty and awkward as ever, so the affair was rather subdued. Duchess Flora and Duke Lukas danced the first dance of the New Year together with icy formality and then retired to their own circles of friends and officers.
Molly was aware, yet again, of how few friends she had at court. Few of the officers asked her to dance, and almost none of the women would talk to her. Sir Halvor tried to draw her into a conversation with Pedr Byrne, and she went and sat with them out of sheer boredom. But it turned out that Halvor was trying to convince Pedr of the virtues of marrying Penny Ostensen. Knowing how Halvor actually felt about the girl, Molly felt ill at hearing him praise her as “the wisest woman in Myrcia” and “a paragon of beauty.” After a couple minutes, she couldn’t stand it anymore, and she excused herself.
Near the big hearth in the great hall, Molly ran into Hildred Stenburg, daughter of the Duke of Keelshire. Hildred was now visibly pregnant, and as a result, there had been a strange alteration in her social standing. Women who had refused to speak to her months earlier were now eager to talk about babies and childbirth with the expectant mother. Having a child—perhaps an heir for her husband’s titles—was the ultimate act of respectability. Despite her scandalous past, the women of the court seemed willing to accept her now.
Molly still wasn’t accepted, though. She had a few quick words with Hildred before she moved on, feeling the smug looks of the other ladies following her. She ended up spending most of her time at the servants’ party, where she drank Annenstruker whiskey with Timothy.
When they were about halfway through their third drink, Timothy pointed across the kitchens at a tall, broad-chested blond fellow. “That’s Milo,” he said softly.
“Your lover?”
“On-again, off-again. He wants to see me tonight, but I feel like I should tell him ‘no.’”
“Because Sir Halvor will want a report of what he did and said?”
“Yes.” Timothy sank miserably in his chair.
“Who says you have to tell Halvor the truth? Make something up.”
Timothy shook his head sadly. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Halvor gets...upset when people lie to him.”
Molly didn’t see Lukas that night in her rooms. And she didn’t see him the next two nights, either. He claimed that he was visiting his commanders in the area, but she had a strong suspicion he was seeing someone else. She smelled perfume on his clothes that wasn’t hers. She saw him exchanging glances with a baron’s daughter during church. And then there was the way his officers behaved when they saw her now. They looked embarrassed, as if they knew something they weren’t supposed to tell her.
For a week or two, she became obsessed with finding out exactly who Lukas’s new paramour was. The prime suspect was that baron’s daughter, a silly little red-haired girl with an annoying laugh and impossibly perky tits. With Timothy’s help, Molly found out which inn the girl and her father were staying at, and she took to haunting the place in a hooded cloak, hoping to catch Lukas in the act.
She wasn’t quite sure what she would do if she did, though. Part of her wanted to cause a scene and force an end to their relationship forever. Another part of her knew that sort of thing wasn’t really in her nature. Maybe she would confront him with it privately. Or maybe she would say nothing at all, and let him have his way. What was the point in fighting the inevitable?
As it turned out, Lukas never showed up at the inn. After one very long night, sitting up in the common room with strong coffee to keep herself awake, she was forced to admit that the baron’s daughter was probably blameless. If Lukas had another woman, it wasn’t her.
Molly was about to slip out the back door and return to the castle when, to her shock, she saw Timothy emerge from a room and pause at the top of the stairs. Then there was another man up there in the shadows. She recognized the handsome Immani fellow named Milo. They both looked around, failing to notice her, and then kissed goodbye. Milo hurried away, but Timothy lingered in the common room, ordering a plate of eggs and some coffee. After some internal debate, Molly decided it would be more polite to let him know that she had seen him. So she pushed back her hood and went over to join him at his table.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, eyes wide in shock.
“I was hoping to catch Lukas seeing another girl. I failed.” She smiled. “But it looks like you decided to start seeing that Milo fellow again.”
Timothy put his head in his hands. “It’s awful. If I really cared about him, I would tell him to keep away. But Halvor keeps pressing me for updates. I wish there was something I could do to get out of this.”
Molly pondered that for half a minute. Then she said, “I think I may know someone who could help you.”
Two days later, when she had another meeting with Vittoria, Molly still didn’t have much in the way of useful information. But she had Timothy, and Vittoria seemed thrilled to meet him. He wasn’t nearly so excited, at least not at first. Like Molly, he was initially mistrustful.
“You look like someone I saw in camp once,” he said to Vittoria.
“That’s possible,” she said. “I like to see things for myself.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Nothing you’re not comfortable with,” Vittoria assured him. “But anything you could tell me about Sir Halvor’s plans would be greatly appreciated.”
“Why should I help you?”
Vittoria smiled. “Because you don’t like Halvor, and you don’t want him to win in the end.”
“Fair enough,” he admitted. “Just let me think about it.”