Chapter 1
What her majesty had in mind was to remove me as swiftly as possible,” said Bertram, accepting the book. “What’s a nephew for, save to run errands?” “Well, you’re very useful in matters of household management,” answered Chrysafer. “I’ll take your advice and petition for more firewood.” “I’ll make them send you more,” he promised. “No undue use of influence. No favoritism. Other rooms in the palace are warmer. I’ll just direct that their excess arrive here.” “I refuse to presume—” Chrysafer began. Bertram cut her off. “We had the same tutor, so what?” “Because I was an orphan—” “A poor orphan,” Bertram reminded her. “A fit object for charity. If you insist on the letter of the law, I suppose I can get her majesty to grant you rights to forage for windfalls in the gardens.” “I hate it when you try to be funny.” “And I hate it when you try to be scrupulous and grateful and virtuous and tiresome. You were a ward of the crown until you were old enough to be of real use. The queen thought of something you could do to serve her and earn your own way. And you do it better than anyone. Better by far than Master Askew, who wouldn’t even bend over to see what books were on the bottom shelf—” Bertram broke off, suddenly horrified at his own words. “I’m sorry,” he added hastily. “I know he’s been ill. I didn’t mean to plague you.” “I only want to do my work,” said Chrysafer. She rubbed the tip of her nose. “Too late,” said Bertram. He produced a folded sheet of paper from the breast of his doublet. “Unless you consider criticism part of your work.” Chrysafer sighed, accepted the sheet and unfolded it. “A sonnet?” she asked. “I suppose that’s an improvement. In your hands hexameters were a deadly weapon.” She scanned the sheet rapidly, went back to the beginning of the verse and started again more slowly. Bertram perched himself on the edge of her desk, watched her concentration with pleasure. “Go on, Chrysafer. This one came out much better, I think. Do your worst. I’m ready.” “Are you?” Chrysafer asked. “Even with an audience?” Bertram’s brows shot up. Chrysafer glanced from his verse to his horrified expression and nodded toward the door at the far end of the library. “A visitor with written permission to study in the royal archive. So far he’s done nothing but sit and stare greedily at the queen’s curios, but he isn’t deaf. If you answer my reasoned criticism of this sonnet with your usual squeal of wrath, even he may notice!” “Written permission?” asked Bertram. “Whose? And what was he given permission to study?” Chrysafer pointed to a heap of papers on her desk and went back to scanning the sonnet. “‘Her teeth are like pearl,’” she read mournfully. She shook her head, then said, “Still, I suppose it is an improvement over last time.” With a little shuffling, Bertram found the letter he was looking for. “It is in the queen’s hand,” he exclaimed. “Mate me to a mandrake root—it’s Souriant!” “I know,” Chrysafer said, glancing up abstractedly from the sonnet. “Why, who is he?” “He entered the service of the duke of Tilbury a few months ago,” Bertram replied, his voice pitched low, his eyes on the door to the archive. “Rumor claims he can grow diamonds from grains of sand. He’s promised Tilbury that he will unlock the secrets of the past.” “Can he?” asked Chrysafer. “Who knows? But it troubles me that he stares with greed at the queen’s treasures.” “Nothing leaves this room,” Chrysafer said. “He may only enter when I am here to unlock the archive for him. He brings nothing and he bears nothing away.” “You will keep good watch on him?” Bertram asked, striving to keep the trace of anxiety from his voice. “I shall,” she answered. “The queen’s archive is my duty. I’ll watch after her interests—and yours. I suppose I can’t convince you not to rhyme ‘lady’ and ‘baby’?” Before Bertram could reply, a knock sounded at the library door. Chrysafer handed him back his sonnet and answered the door. At the top of the stair stood Askew’s nurse, her hands demurely folded before her. “If you please, Scholar Woodland,” she said softly, “Master Askew wakes and asks for you again. He is very restless, and the queen’s physician believes your presence may soothe him. If you can spare the time from your duties—” She glanced beyond Chrysafer to Bertram and broke off to drop him a formal curtsey. “Yes, of course, at once,” said Chrysafer impatiently. She turned back to the library, handed Bertram the red volume of Chronicles, and went to rap on the archive door. “Master Souriant,” she said crisply to the wooden panels of the door, “I must close the archives early today.” There was a stirring within the archive, and the cold in the library seemed to deepen as the door opened. On the threshold stood a small bald man with black eyes bright and hard. “So soon?” he said. “There is light left to work, Scholar Woodland.” “It must wait until tomorrow,” said Chrysafer. Busy with keys, she stepped past him into the archive, checking to be sure that all the queen’s curios rested where they belonged in the glass caskets and cases arranged within the smaller room. “It is already late, in any case,” said Bertram. Belatedly, Souriant acknowledged his presence with a sketchy bow. Chrysafer emerged from the archive to perform the introduction. “Your highness, may I present Jan Souriant, a student here with the queen’s permission. Jan Souriant, allow me to present you to his highness, Bertram, prince of Dwale.” Before Souriant had straightened fully, she had checked the long narrow windows to be certain they were latched, locked up her desk, and swept them all out the door to the stair. Souriant descended first, Bertram after him, but the nurse waited until Scholar Woodland had locked the last of the library’s doors. Then she took the blond girl’s elbow in a firm grip and steered her away from the library, to Master Askew’s sick room. The western wind blew a fine spatter of spring rain against the windows of Askew’s room. In his bed the old man moved fretful hands across the sheets, bony fingers plucking at the linen. Chrysafer Woodland put her warm hands over his cold ones, but the motion went on. “Sir, I beg you, be easy,” she said. “She let him in,” said Askew, his voice a harsh thread. “Despite me, he has gotten in.” He struggled under her hands, widened his unseeing eyes and called out, “Chrysafer!” “Yes, sir!” she called back, her grip tight on his hands. “Here, sir, right here. Oh, Master—” “You know what it means,” said Askew. “You watch him. He must be stopped. He will ruin us all.” He twisted his hands in hers and she felt their clasp, as cold and hard as tempered iron. “You must not let him in.” His hands tightened again, until Chrysafer gasped aloud. Alarmed by her cry, the nurse swept in, put the younger woman aside to tend Askew. Stiffly, Chrysafer moved out of the way, stood by the window to rub the blood back into her fingers. The nurse had as many attendants in the room and in the hall beyond as even the nurse could wish, servants poised to follow any order, bear any potion, poultice, or basin. Master Askew had tutored even the queen herself during his long royal service. No tenderness would be spared one who had lived so long and worked so graciously in service to the crown. Chrysafer watched their work, sore at heart. She found it a terrible thing to watch Master Askew wander in his wits—he who had never wandered from the mark in his teachings—to wait as his voice grew weaker with every bout of restlessness. “Chrysafer!” Askew called, his voice suddenly strong, so strong the nurse drew back from smoothing the sheets tight across his arms. “Recite, if you please, Mistress Woodland.” “Which lesson, sir?” asked Chrysafer gently, her hand on the nurse’s shoulder. The nurse looked from his face to hers and slowly drew back to the door, her attendants with her. “Dullard,” said Askew, “the Lay of Jehane of Domremy.” “I can’t remember it, sir.” Chrysafer settled back beside him, her hand gentle on his breast, feeling his heart beat quick and hard but steadily. “‘Nought is there under heaven’s wide hollowness …’” he prompted, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I can’t remember—” she said, then broke off in dismay. Master Askew’s eyes were open, his mouth slack. Beneath her hand his heart was still. At the door the nurse stirred. “He’s gone at last, then. Don’t fuss that he scolded you. They often babble at the end.” Chrysafer turned her face away, hunched her shoulder against the nurse’s easy reading of her expression. Her resistance was useless before the nurse’s brisk efficiency. Moments later she was alone in the hall, out from underfoot, free to return to the library. She was now the queen’s only archivist, royal historian, palace librarian, and successor to Master Askew in receipt of the pension owing to the queen’s scholar. For a moment, at the rush of thin laughter this thought provoked, Chrysafer thought she was amused. When the tears came, however, she realized her error. That night the queen held revels in her banquet hall, that all those in her court might forget the waning winter with laughter at a troupe of dancers. Bright with ribbons, bound with bells, the dancers capered to and fro before the high table. Obedient to the queen’s wish, her courtiers laughed and applauded, then went to cluster in corners and discuss the latest rumors out of the west, all the while with their attention half on the queen’s demeanor, lest she should catch them speaking from the corners of their mouths. Bertram surveyed the dutiful merriment all about him and stifled a sigh. This counterfeit sociability was just the thing he hated most. For one thing, he was bad at it. The jests made at the queen’s table were of the most rarified sort, filled with double meanings and political symbolism. If he opened his mouth to utter a word, bitter experience had taught him it would be precisely the wrong word, one that would inadvertently insult several people and be repeated with sniggering laughter for days. For another thing, he had seldom in his life felt less like merrymaking. It was difficult to maintain a pretense of enjoyment when he knew that Master Askew had died that very afternoon. At this moment, while the dancers traded mock blows with sticks twirled in intricate measure, Chrysafer Woodland knelt beside
