“Better follow me, then.”

A door painted with the heraldry of the Twin Queens opened into a corridor of tapestries, musty from too many damp winters. Another door opened, and there was a clean rush of cold air as they stepped out into a wide rectangular courtyard, surrounded by a sheltered colonnade.

“Wait here. Don’t wander off.” The footman left Mosca in a darkened archway, and hurried off with the letter.

The courtyard was paved with great, six-sided tiles, glazed in creams and shades of caramel. Across it extravagant figures lolled in sedans, or strolled idly like sun-struck drones over a giant honeycomb. Along the darkened colonnade, footmen paced briskly in cloth-soled shoes, and serving girls tripped with baskets of dry lavender, beating them with pestles to fill the air with its scent.

Mosca stood nervously cleaning out the dark crescents from under her fingernails and tucking stray hairs under her mobcap. Eventually one of the lavender girls noticed her and approached. She was about fifteen, Mosca guessed. She had a plump prettiness, a narrow waist, and her flouncing frock looked very becoming on her. Her nose turned up enchantingly, and from time to time she would smile down through her lashes and admire it.

“Were you looking for the servants’ quarters?” she asked as she drew level with Mosca.

“No, no, I’m here to see Lady Tamarind. She’s going to give me a job.” Lady Tamarind would see her, they had an understanding, a connection, Lady Tamarind would see her.

“So what are you meant to be, then?”

“I’m a secretary,” Mosca announced with angry uncertainty.

“You don’t look like one. Secretaries are men.”

“I’m different—I’m secretary to a poet.” Mosca was almost feverish with nerves. “I got a practical outlook an’ a concise way of speaking. We’re wordsmiths of no common order.”

The chambermaid looked her up and down.

“Your bonnet’s on funny.”

“It’s . . . it’s fashion!” Mosca flashed back defensively.

“It’s not. I work in the chambers of Her Ladyship, and have the handling of her wardrobe. There’s nothing I don’t know about fashion—I see her gowns before everyone in the town copies them. Sometimes”—she bent forward confidentially—“sometimes some of the ladies pay me to tell them how she will be wearing her kerchief tucked to the next party, or whether she’ll be wearing a mantua gown. And when she gives me her cast-offs, the ladies will pay next to anything you like for them.”

“She gives you her clothes—just gives ’em?” When I work for Lady Tamarind she’ll give me dresses, ones I can cut down to my size . . .

“Lots of them, yes. Good clothes too, but Her Ladyship cannot abide wearing anything with a smudge or a spot on it, even if it’s as small as a pinhead. Sometimes I get her damaged stoats as well.”