Kitabı oku: «A Throne for Sisters», sayfa 9

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kate couldn’t ever remember feeling as though she was a part of a family. No, that wasn’t true, because she had her sister, and that connection was like a constant comfort at the back of her mind. She had vague images and flashes of things before the orphanage, too. A smiling face looking down at her. A room where everything had seemed much larger than a child’s tiny form.

She’d never had this though: just sitting around a table with a family eating stew and bread, feeling as though she fit in with the rest of the people there. Thomas and Will were laughing. Even Winifred seemed happier than she’d been when Kate had arrived, but that was only to be expected. She’d come as a thief; she stayed as someone who could help around the forge.

It probably helped that Will was there too. His presence seemed to make everything better, relaxing his mother and making his father happy that he was safe. Kate just liked to watch him, and thinking that made her glance away in embarrassment.

“Are you going to be home for long?” his mother asked.

Kate saw Will shake his head.

“You know it doesn’t work like that, Mother,” he said. “The free companies don’t sit around for long. The wars over the Knife-Water are getting worse. Havvers fell to the Disestablishers and the True Empire contingents one after another. Lord Marl’s company was paid to put down an uprising in the Serralt Valley, and found that they’d formed a bandit company to rob everyone they could.”

“It sounds dangerous,” Winifred said, and Kate could hear the concern in her voice. Kate couldn’t blame her. She wanted to protect her son.

Kate wanted to hear more about the excitement of being a soldier.

“What’s it like, being part of one of the companies?” Kate asked. “Is it different from being a regular soldier?”

Will shrugged.

“It’s not so different. There are only so many ways an army can work,” Will said. He sounded a little like he was trying to convince himself. “Although the kingdom’s standing army isn’t that large anyway. It has always just relied on the loyalty of the company commanders, and the ability to buy their services.”

That didn’t sound like too good an arrangement to Kate.

“What happens if someone offers more?” she asked.

Thomas answered that one. “Then you get half your army switching sides in the middle of a conflict, but the dowager’s ancestors were always able to outbid their enemies, and it’s better than what happened in the civil wars.”

“With a big central army slaughtering the people,” Will said. “I don’t think that the Assembly of Nobles would allow that anymore, although Prince Rupert has built up the army a little.”

Kate saw Winifred shake her head.

“Enough talk about wars, and violence, and killing,” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel safe to know that soon you’re going to be going back out to all that cruelty, Will.”

“It’s safe enough, Mother,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “Most of war is waiting around. The companies avoid one another where they can, and Lord Cranston is always cautious about where he commits his men.”

Kate wasn’t entirely happy about that. “I was hoping for tales of adventure.”

“I’m not sure if I have many of those,” Will replied. He obviously saw her face fall. “But I have a few. I’ll tell you them some time when Mother isn’t going to be worried by them.”

“I worry every time you go off to fight,” Winifred said.

They kept eating, and all Kate wanted to do was find excuses to ask Will more about his life. Strangely, he seemed just as interested in her.

“So, you’ve only been helping my father around the forge for a day?” he asked.

Kate nodded. “I… showed up last night.”

“She’s a thief,” Winifred corrected. “Was going to rob us of everything we had.”

Kate sat very still as the other woman said that. She could see that Will’s mother still didn’t entirely like her, and she guessed that it had a lot to do with the way she’d shown up at the forge. She couldn’t help feeling, though, that it might have something to do with other things: with the talent she had, and with the mark of the indentured on her calf.

“Not everything,” Thomas said, obviously picking up on Kate’s discomfort. “And she’s been a hard worker since, Winifred.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Kate could see enough of the woman’s thoughts to know that it wasn’t dislike so much as mistrust. She wasn’t sure what Kate was going to do next, and it didn’t help that Winifred didn’t trust those with her gifts as much as her husband did. Kate pulled back, not wanting to pry where she wasn’t wanted.

“This sounds like too interesting a story to ignore,” Will said. “Kate, you’re going to have to tell me more of it. Maybe… we could go into the city later, together?”

Even without pushing at Winifred’s thoughts, Kate could pick up her shock at that.

“Will, I don’t think that’s – ”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Thomas said. “The two of you should go out together.”

Right then, there was nothing that Kate wanted more.

***

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as just leaving the forge behind. Kate still had to show Thomas her work on the sword, making small adjustments as he suggested that the tang would need to be thicker with metal, and the taper on the edge less square.

Then there were the chores that Winifred suddenly found for her, from cleaning up in the courtyard to peeling vegetables in the house. It seemed obvious to Kate what she was trying to do: trying to take up so much time that she wouldn’t be able to go off into the city with her son.

Kate got around it by slipping off when she wasn’t watching, although Thomas was. He nodded in what seemed like permission. That was good, because Kate didn’t want to risk upsetting him.

Will was waiting for her in the courtyard, and Kate could see the excitement written in every line of him there.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked. “Did you want to wash up first, or – ”

“Why?” Kate countered. “Do I not look good enough to go out with you like this?”

“You look wonderful,” Will said, and that was strange in itself, because Kate wasn’t used to compliments. Sophia was the one people complimented, not her.

“Good,” she said. “Besides, I think your mother will try to keep me here forever if we don’t go now.”

“Then we’d better go,” Will said, with a laugh and a look back toward the house. He reached out for Kate’s hand, and to Kate’s own surprise, she let him take it.

They walked down toward the city, and it was clear that Will knew the way expertly, in a way that Kate didn’t. He led the way down broad streets as the sun started to fall, and Kate found herself watching all the people who thronged through the streets as they walked. Most of them were just people on their way back to their homes, but there were street entertainers too: a man walking on stilts higher than Kate’s head; a pair of wrestlers who fought to throw one another in a sand-filled pit.

“Where are we going?” Kate asked.

“I thought we might go down to one of the theaters,” Will said. “The Old King’s Players are performing a version of The Tale of Cressa.”

Kate didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t heard of either the play or the players, because she assumed that it was something everyone who hadn’t been brought up in the House of the Unclaimed would know. Instead, she went along with Will as he led the way to a large, round, barn-like building painted on the outside with gaudy scenes. Already, there were people gathering there, waiting to be let in by the players, who stood at the door to collect a penny entrance fee.

Will paid it for both of them, and Kate found herself in the middle of a crowd so tightly packed that she could barely breathe.

“Are you all right?” Will asked.

Kate nodded. “I’ve just never been to a playhouse before. It’s very crowded.”

It wasn’t long before the play began, and Kate found herself lost in the story of a girl from one end of the Curl peninsula who had to travel it in search of a boy whose love she had lost. Kate couldn’t imagine going all that way for a boy, but she found herself engrossed in the spectacle of it. The Old King’s Players had obviously worked out that their audiences wanted action and music, flashes of fireworks and sudden appearances. They played up to it, even if they paused here and there for speeches set to rhyme that seemed to go on longer, as if added as an attempt to make the whole thing more. Kate found herself laughing out loud at some of the comic moments, and looking on eagerly during the stage fights.

She also found her hand keeping hold of William’s throughout it all, not wanting to let go of him or risk losing that contact. She didn’t know about traveling the length of the Curl for him, but she would certainly fight her way through a crowded theater if she lost him.

By the time they spilled out onto the street with the rest of the crowd, Kate felt breathless with the play. She felt alive, and awake.

“We should probably head home,” Will said, although his thoughts didn’t agree with that.

I don’t want to yet.

“In a while,” Kate said, echoing his thoughts. “For now… can we just walk a while?”

Will seemed surprised by that, as if he’d been expecting her to want to go back as quickly as possible, but he nodded enthusiastically. He started to lead the way.

“Definitely. We can go up along the garden row.”

Kate didn’t know what that was, and found herself pleasantly surprised when Will led the way along a couple of streets to a ladder, leading up toward the roofs of the city. For a moment, Kate found herself thinking about the hiding spot that she and her sister had found, tucked in behind the chimney stacks where no one could find them to hurt them.

“You want to go up there?” Kate asked.

“Trust me,” Will said.

To her surprise, Kate did, and ordinarily, she wouldn’t have trusted anyone that easily. She started to climb, and it was only as they reached the top that she saw what was there. A string of trees sat impossibly at roof level, in a garden that seemed to stretch across several different houses.

“This is beautiful,” Kate said. “It’s like a piece of the countryside in the middle of the city.”

It was more than that; it was something hopeful and defiant, standing against the overwhelming pressure of the city in a single act of growth and greenery.

Will nodded. “They say that some nobleman planted it as a place to think, but after he died, people just kept it going.” They started to walk around the small number of trees, where hanging lanterns attracted lunar moths. “You probably didn’t get to see much of the city, growing up in an orphanage.”

Kate froze for a moment, because she knew that she hadn’t told Will about that. Maybe his mother had told him, hoping to persuade him not to do this. She knew that Winifred didn’t hate her exactly. She was just worried about the impact that Kate’s presence might have.

“No. The door was left open, but that was like a taunt. You could leave, but you always knew that there was nowhere for you to go. And if you left and came back…”

Kate didn’t want to think about some of the punishments she’d seen for that. The House of the Unclaimed had been bad at the best of times, but those had been things to leave girls broken and staring.

“It sounds awful,” Will said. Kate didn’t want sympathy, because she didn’t want to be someone who needed it. Even so, it seemed different, coming from Will rather than from someone else.

“It was,” Kate agreed. “They knew that they would be indenturing us, so they spent our lives trying to make us into obedient little things who would have just enough skills to fetch a noble’s wine or work as an apprentice.” Kate paused, putting her hand against a tree. “It doesn’t matter, though. I’m not there now.”

“You’re not,” Will said. “And I’m glad you’re here.”

Kate smiled at that. “What about you?” she asked. “I’m guessing that war isn’t as boring and safe as you want to pretend to your mother.”

In fact, she suspected that it was anything but safe. She wanted to hear the truth of it, the battles and the smaller engagements, the places Will had been. She wanted to hear anything he had to tell her.

“Not really,” Will said with a sigh. “Lord Cranston mostly does keep us out of engagements, but when you do have to fight, it’s terrifying. There’s just violence everywhere. And even when you don’t, there’s the terrible food, the risk of disease…”

“You’re making it sound so heroic,” Kate said with a laugh.

Will shook his head. “It isn’t. If the wars spill over the Knife-Water to here, people will find that out.”

Kate hoped that wouldn’t happen, but at the same time, a part of her longed for it, because it would be a chance to fight. She wanted to fight then. She would fight the whole world if she needed to. The horror of it didn’t matter. There would be glory too.

“Half the time, the battles are just revenge for other battles a lifetime or more ago,” Will said. “Vengeance is pointless.”

Kate wasn’t so sure about that. “There are a few people I’d like revenge on.”

“It doesn’t do any good, Kate,” Will said. “You take revenge, and then they want revenge, until there’s no one left at all.” He paused for a moment, then laughed. “How did this turn so bleak, so quickly? We were supposed to be having a good time.”

Kate reached out to touch his arm, wishing that she had the courage to do more than that. She liked Will.

“I am having a good time,” she said. “And I think you sound very brave, with your regiment. I’d like to see it.”

Will smiled at that. “I don’t think it will be as dashing as you think.”

Kate suspected that it would be everything she hoped and more.

“Even so,” Kate said.

When Will nodded, she couldn’t have been happier. “All right,” he said. “But in the morning. They’ll look more impressive by daylight.”

Kate could barely wait.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sophia wandered the palace, and as she did so, it was impossible not to think about quite how lucky she’d been. She’d come from nowhere, and now… now it seemed as though this might actually be her life from now on. She had found the place she’d been looking for, and it was everything she could have ever hoped. The palace was beautiful.

Sophia wanted to be able to stay here. More than that, she wanted to be able to stay here with Sebastian. She found herself staring at a painting of some long dead noble while contemplating what she could do to make sure that Sebastian didn’t ask her to leave. It was obvious that he liked her, but how did Sophia know that he was serious? She was happy in that moment, but it felt eggshell fragile. She didn’t want anything to ruin it.

Sophia kept wandering, not knowing quite where to go next. She didn’t want to simply go back to Sebastian’s rooms, because that would feel as though Angelica and her cronies had driven her there to hide, or like she was stuck simply waiting for Sebastian to save her. She didn’t want to go back to the library, because there was too much of a chance that they might be there.

Instead, she wandered up to a gallery where people walked around looking at the paintings, and then she went down toward the servants’ quarters in an attempt to get the layout of the place. She went to a glass-topped solarium, where delicate plants were set to grow in the greater heat, and spent some time sitting in a nook where it seemed that no one was about to pass.

It was at that point that Sophia told herself that she was being stupid. She had at least one friend in the palace, after all.

It took her a little time to find Cora, working her way out from the ballroom until she found the space where the servant plied her trade with makeup and perfumes.

“My lady,” Cora said with a smile as Sophia approached. “Come and sit down. I’ll put some powder on your cheeks.”

“Cora, you don’t need to call me that,” Sophia said.

Cora nodded. “I do, and you need to get used to it. From what I hear of things between you and Prince Sebastian, you’re going to be here awhile. You need to remember who you are.”

“Who I’m pretending to be, you mean?” Sophia said. Sophia of Meinhalt felt like as much of a mask as the one she’d worn to the ball.

Cora pushed her down into the chair. “You can’t ever say that here. You don’t know who might be listening in. From now on, you are Sophia of Meinhalt.”

What would happen to us if the dowager found out her son had been tricked, I don’t know.

Sophia caught that thought clearly. She supposed that she could understand the idea that there might be spies, or just servants in a position to hear more than they should. After all, she spent her life overhearing more than she should of people’s thoughts. She could understand the danger, too. No one liked being made a fool of, and the dowager would act to protect her son, wouldn’t she?

“All right,” Sophia said. “But I can still come and see you, can’t I? Even a noble lady needs her makeup done.”

“She does,” Cora agreed, and started to dust Sophia’s features with a powder that turned her naturally pale complexion into something luminous and blemish free. “And while she’s doing it, she can tell me how things were with a certain prince.”

“Wonderful,” Sophia said, unable to help herself. “He’s… perfect, Cora.”

Cora brushed her lips with just a hint of rouge. “He’s not the man I suggested.”

Was she angry about that? No, Sophia realized, with a glance through her new friend’s thoughts, she was worried. Worried about all the things that might go wrong now that Sophia had picked a prince rather than some dull minor noble.

“It wasn’t something I planned,” Sophia said. She wanted Cora to understand that. She didn’t want her thinking that she had simply decided to ignore her advice.

“It’s just… it makes things more dangerous if this goes wrong,” Cora said. “You know that there are rumors flying around the palace about you now?”

Sophia had guessed that there might be, simply from how much Angelica had heard about her. “What kind of rumors?”

“That you managed to brush aside Milady d’Angelica to take the prince’s heart. That you’re astonishingly beautiful and appeared from nowhere. That you’ve fled the wars across the water, and you have dangerous enemies there. I swear, half the servants are gossiping about how beautiful you are, or how wonderfully you dance.”

Sophia shook her head at that. “I barely made it through the dancing without tripping over my feet.”

That got a laugh out of the servant. “Do you think that matters? People see what they want to see.”

Which was, of course, why Sophia had been able to succeed at this in the first place. The whole reason she had been able to find a place at court was because people wanted to see the mysterious girl fleeing a conflict, rather than the reality.

“It’s just…” Cora began. “Be careful. There are already people trying to find out exactly who you are. I hear that Milady d’Angelica is asking questions, and she isn’t the only one. The nobles hate it when they don’t know everything there is to know.”

Sophia could understand that. “I’ll try to be careful.”

She left, and she suspected that she looked even better than she had done for the ball. It was hard to believe that she was getting to walk around the palace with nobody challenging her. Perhaps it due to her amazement at that fact that she wasn’t paying as much attention to the thoughts around her as she should have been, or perhaps she’d just gotten used to the idea that no one would bother her as she walked past them.

Either way, she turned a corner and froze as she found herself face to face with Rupert, the kingdom’s heir and Sebastian’s older brother.

He wasn’t dressed quite as brightly as he had been for the party, but it was close. There was a lot of gold brocade on an outfit of red velvet, shot through with flashes of creamy silk. Like Sebastian, he was a handsome young man, although there was a confidence, even arrogance, to his demeanor that said Prince Rupert was completely aware of it. Sophia watched his eyes rove over her in a combination of surprise, amusement, and… admiration.

“Your Highness,” Sophia said, with a hurried curtsey. She had to remember the etiquette, even though she could see exactly what Rupert was.

“And you are Sophia, aren’t you?” He didn’t bother using the lie that was her surname. With anyone else, Sophia might have taken it for friendliness. With him, she could see it was simply that he didn’t feel the need to afford anyone even that much respect. She was just one more girl among a host of them, even if she was with his brother.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Sophia said. “Sophia of Meinhalt.”

He took her hand, drawing her up out of her curtsey with all the grace Sophia might have expected from a crown prince. He didn’t let go of her hand, though, holding onto it in a way that must have seemed courtly and romantic to anyone watching, but which actually felt to Sophia as though he was holding her in place, laying claim to her as surely as a man grabbing the arm of a thief.

“I saw you at the ball last night,” he said. “Dancing with my brother. You should have come over to me. We could have danced.”

One glance at his thoughts told Sophia that dancing wasn’t anywhere on his mind.

“You seemed busy with other partners,” Sophia said with a delicate laugh.

Rupert looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not busy now, and I’d like to find out exactly what captivated Sebastian so much. Perhaps we could go somewhere.”

Sophia didn’t have to ask what he intended once they got there. She could see it in his mind as clearly as if someone had painted it. She found herself grateful for the powder Cora had applied to her features, because it hid the depth of her blush.

“Your Highness, I couldn’t possibly. Your brother – ”

“Isn’t here,” Rupert pointed out.

She’s just a whore. Why should it matter to her?

“Your Highness,” Sophia began, trying to think of a way to get out of there without having to slap the heir to the throne. She could see the way Prince Rupert saw her: as something to use because his brother had. As a prize to be claimed simply because he was the eldest. He found her beautiful, but Sophia doubted that he even saw her as a real person.

“I’m sure you found my brother sweet and gentle,” Rupert said. Again, Sophia caught images that made her want to pull away. “And boring. I think you and I will not be boring when we are – ”

“Sophia?”

Sophia had never been as grateful for anything as she was for the sound of Sebastian’s voice right then. She managed to pull free of Rupert’s grip as he came around the corner, and hurried to him.

“Sebastian,” she said with all the happiness that came from not being in Rupert’s grip any longer added to the normal happiness of seeing Sebastian. “You’re back! I hope the day was a good one?”

“If I know my brother,” Rupert said, as though nothing had just happened, “he’ll have been bored out of his mind by it all. Sebastian, Mother wants us to dine with her in an hour or so. Bring Sophia. I’m sure Mother will love her. She seems delightful.”

Sophia got one last flash of the things he was thinking about her before he left. It was enough to make her cling to Sebastian’s arm and wish that she could wipe the things she’d seen from her mind.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sophia said, leaning against him.

“I hope Rupert wasn’t too overwhelming,” Sebastian replied. Sophia caught the worry there. There had been girls before Sophia whom Rupert had pulled away from Sebastian when they’d realized that he was the one willing to be more extravagant. That they weren’t here now only said how quickly he’d cast them aside.

“No, it’s fine.”

A part of her wanted to tell Sebastian exactly what had happened, but what could she say? That she’d read Rupert’s mind and knew what he wanted?

“We still have some time before dinner,” Sebastian said. “Would you like to take a walk around the maze for a while?”

Sophia nodded. Anything, so long as it was out of there, and with Sebastian. She walked with him out into the gardens, where lamps were starting to light up flowers that had opened in the dark, pale and silvery.

“They’re midnight orchids,” Sebastian said, obviously noting Sophia’s gaze. “They open to attract the moths that aren’t out in the daylight, so that they don’t have to fight for butterflies’ attention with the other flowers.”

“They feel that they can’t attract the butterflies?” Sophia asked. “But they’re beautiful.”

Sebastian touched her arm, and the contact was enough to send a shiver along Sophia’s skin. “Sometimes, the most beautiful things can come along at unexpected times.”

They kept going into the maze. Sophia got the feeling that Sebastian knew his way around it, because he took the turnings with confidence even though she couldn’t make sense of them.

“It seems like a good place to get lost for a while,” Sophia said. “Is that why you like to come here?”

“It’s part of it,” Sebastian said. “Although it also means we have some privacy.”

Sophia made the most of it, leaning in to kiss him. She couldn’t believe that she was free to do that with someone like Sebastian. That, and almost anything else she wanted. More than that, she couldn’t believe that she’d found someone like him at all.

She had, though, and Sophia held close to him as they kept going through the maze.

“There’s a sundial at the center,” Sebastian said. “And a pergola with a chaise inside.”

“I like the sound of that,” Sophia said with a smile. A place for them to sit together. Potentially a place for them to do more than just sit. Sophia hadn’t felt this way with anyone before. “Just so long as you know the way.”

“I do.”

They kept going along the close-walled stretches of the formal maze. It was comforting to know that he knew the way out of there, but even so, she found herself caught up in memories: of running along narrow corridors, running, hiding, hoping that they wouldn’t be found. Of flames, licking at the edges of things so that she could feel the heat and taste the bitterness of the smoke. Telling her sister to stay quiet, because the least sound could —

“Sophia?” Sebastian said in a gentle tone.

Sophia came back to herself, looking over at him and putting her arms around him. “Sorry. I wasn’t there for a moment.”

“Are you all right?” Sebastian asked. “If you aren’t well, maybe I can persuade my mother that it’s okay for you not to come to dinner.”

Sophia could see that wasn’t really an option though. What the dowager wanted, it seemed, the dowager got.

“No, it’s all right,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to make things difficult with your mother.”

And yet, she had a sinking feeling that things with his mother were about to get very difficult indeed.

***

Sophia stood with Sebastian outside the doors to a small dining room, waiting for a servant to announce them. She tried as hard as she could not to let her nerves show, but the trembling of her hand in his must have given it away.

“It’s all right,” Sebastian said. “My mother isn’t a monster.”

That was easier for him to say than for her to believe. The dowager had ruled the kingdom singlehandedly since her husband’s death, managing not to be overwhelmed by the Assembly of Nobles or the Church of the Masked Goddess. She’d stood through plots and economic troubles, wars overseas and threats of rebellion in the Near Colonies. Faced with her, Sophia felt certain that her deception would be unmasked in an instant.

“Prince Sebastian and Sophia of Meinhalt!” a servant announced, opening the door to a dining chamber that seemed quite small by the standards of the palace. That was to say that it was smaller than an entire building elsewhere.

There was a table there, and there were perhaps half a dozen other people seated around it, all dressed in a kind of court finery that was nevertheless a step less formal than it might have been for an official banquet. Sophia recognized Prince Rupert, but none of the others.

She quickly found herself caught in a bewildering round of introductions, obviously designed to put her at her ease, but which mostly seemed to impress on her just how out of her depth she was.

A woman in a silver gray veil was revealed as Justina, the Highest Priestess of the Masked Goddess. A man with mutton chop sideburns and graying hair turned out to be an admiral. The others were a baronet, a Shire governor, and the governor’s wife. There seemed to be no particular reason for this collection of guests other than it being what the dowager wanted. Perhaps these were friends from her youth, or people in her favor who happened to be visiting.

The only thing that made Sophia more nervous was when the dowager herself walked in. Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg was not a tall woman, and age had left her gray in both hair and pallor, but there was an iron hardness to her posture that said nothing would shake her. She wore mourning black, as she had since her husband’s death. She stood at the head of the table, gesturing to the others there.

“Please be seated,” she said.

Sophia did so, hoping that the presence of the others might allow her to hide a little, just one more guest among all the others there. Yet, as the servants started to bring pigeon and grouse, Sophia felt those steely eyes upon her.

“Sebastian, you must introduce me to your guest, dear.”

“Certainly, Mother. This is Sophia of Meinhalt. Sophia, this is my mother, Mary of Flamberg.”

“Your Majesty,” Sophia managed, bobbing in place as best she could.

“Ah, Meinhalt,” the Dowager said. “Such a sad affair. Tell me, girl, what is your opinion of the wars that beset the continent?”

Sophia could see enough of her thoughts to know that this was a test, but not enough to know what the answer ought to be. In the end, she grabbed her answer from Sebastian’s thoughts, hoping that he would know his mother well enough for it to be a good choice.

“My worry is that they won’t stay there,” Sophia said.

“A concern I’m sure we all share,” the dowager replied. Sophia couldn’t tell if she’d passed the older woman’s test or not. “Although it seems that my son is grateful that at least some things have come over the Knife-Water. You must tell us about yourself.”

Sophia did her best, trying to disguise lack of knowledge as modesty or reticence. “I came over before the city fell, Your Majesty. I think I was quite lucky in that.”