He stared at the door, and at last it creaked open and creaked shut. A light appeared, and a pale head loomed before him. Without speaking, he grabbed the cap that covered Ivar’s head and ripped it off, then held the lamp close to see the color of his hair. With a muttered oath more like a moan than words, he grabbed Ivar’s left hand first, released it, and grasped the right one. There winked the lapis lazuli ring, gleaming in lamplight.

He shut his beautiful eyes and his legs gave out as he sank onto the stone in an attitude of prayer. His hands shook, and Ivar pulled the lamp from his grasp before he dropped it.

‘Ai, God. How can it be? You were dead. I saw you myself. I touched you. I pressed that ring onto your cold hand. You were dead.”

“It was a ruse, Baldwin. I am sorry you had to suffer, not knowing the truth.” He set down the lamp and, hesitantly, placed a hand on Baldwin’s shoulder. “I was never dead, only drugged. I escaped from Queen’s Grave to take a message to Princess Theophanu.”

Baldwin surged up and embraced Ivar tightly, bursting into tears.

Ivar was at first too choked up to speak, but he understood how little time they had. “Surely your absence will be noted.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Baldwin into his shoulder. “I came out to use the necessarium, but she’ll wonder and suspect. She keeps me prisoner. You can’t imagine how awful she is, always watching me.”

“You saved our lives.”

“I know.” He said the words not with anger or accusation, but simply because they were the truth.

He released Ivar, then grasped his hands in his own and stared keenly at him. There was a look in Baldwin’s handsome face that had never been there before, but Ivar could not identify what it was. The light from the lamp, shining up from below, highlighted the perfect curve of his cheekbones and lent sparks to his lovely eyes. The midnight blue of his robes blended into the night, making him appear almost as an apparition, not a real human being at all. He had lost none of his unfortunate beauty.

“Why are you here, Ivar? I knew you wouldn’t abandon me.”

“Will you escape with me, tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I need one thing.”

“What?”

“Parchment, ink and quill, Lady Sabella’s ducal seal, and a person who can write in the manner of her schola. We’ll need a letter to the guard at Queen’s Grave, an order to release Biscop Constance and her retinue.”

“I can get those things by midnight,” said Baldwin.

“Even the seal?”

“Even the seal. I can write whatever you want.”

“I saw that—I saw—Baldwin, how did you learn to write so well? Can you read now, too?” He grimaced, hearing how he sounded, but Baldwin neither smiled nor frowned.

“She doesn’t like it when I pray and act the cleric,” he said softly. “It reminds her of her daughter, so it gives her a disgust of me. That’s why I prayed so much, and practiced my letters so hard. Once I learned, I found I was good at it. Everyone says I have a beautiful hand for letters. They all praise me. I know every word in every capitulary and cartulary that comes out of her schola. I have the seal of Arconia, Ivar. I am the seal. That’s what she calls me. See?”