“After Regal died, most of his hangers-on dispersed to their family holdings, and some to inspect new holdings I had given them. No one claimed Rosemary. Her father had died before she was born. Her mother had his title, Lady Celeffa of Firwood, but the title was little more than words. Firwood is a tiny holding, a beggar’s fiefdom. There is a manor house there, but I am told it has not been inhabited in some years. But for being in Prince Regal’s favor, Lady Celeffa would never have come to court at all.” She sighed. “So there was Rosemary, an orphan at eight, and not in favor with the Queen. I suspect you need little help to imagine how she was treated by the court.”

I had to wince. I could recall how I had been treated.

“I tried to ignore her. But Chade would not let it rest. Nor in truth could I.”

“She was a danger to you. A half-trained assassin, taught by Regal to hate you. She could not simply be left to wander about as she pleased.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, “Now you sound like Chade. No. She was worse than that. She was a neglected child in my home, a little girl blamed by me for becoming what she was taught to be. A daily rebuke to me for my own neglect of her and my hardness of heart. If I had been all to her that a lady should be to her page, Regal could not have taken her heart from me.”

“Unless he had it before she ever came to you.”

“And even then, I should have known it. If I had not been so focused on my own life and problems.”

“She was your page, not your daughter!”

“You forget, I was raised in the Mountains, to be Sacrifice to my people, Fitz. Not a queen, such as you expect. I demand more of myself.”

I stepped to the side of that argument. “So it was your decision to keep her.”

“Chade said I must either keep her or be rid of her entirely. I was filled with horror at his words. Kill a child for doing what she had been taught? And then his words made me see all of it clearly. It would have been kinder to kill her outright than to torture and neglect her as I had been doing. So. That night I went to her chamber. Alone. She was terrified of me, and her room was cold and near bare, the bedding gone unwashed I don’t know how long. She had outgrown her nightgown; it was torn at the shoulders and far too short for her. She curled up on the bed as far from me as she could get and just stared at me. Then I asked her which she would prefer, to be fostered out to Lady Patience or to be my page again.”

“And she chose to be your page.”