“So you’re leaving us, are you, m’lady?” the serving girl said, plunking down Evelina’s food-laden tray. “I can’t say that I blame you. I’m to leave, as well. They’re paring down the serving staff to the bare bone, so Cook says. Cook volunteered to stay. She’s ever so brave. The Queen had tears in her eyes when she thanked her. Cook says she’s going to see to it them demons don’t make a mess of her kitchen.”

Evelina, flinging clothes into a bag, scarcely listened.

“Prince Marcus is coming home and it seems he isn’t mad at all. He turned out to be a hero, though he’s bad hurt, we hear. The Lady Izabelle is going to stay on to nurse him. I call that romantic, don’t you?”

Evelina halted and turned around, silken chemise in hand.

“Prince Marcus is returning to the castle?”

“Yes, m’lady. I thought you knew.”

“The Lady Izabelle is staying here with him? Is that what you said?”

“Yes, m’lady. The Queen wanted to send her away with the others, but the lady said that she had agreed to be his wife and that this, in her eyes, was the same as wedding vows. She wasn’t going to desert him in time of danger.”

“The prince is a hero, you say? Not mad?”

“No, m’lady, not a bit of it! He led the knights against them terrible demons himself. Men fell all around him, and he rode on and slew a lot with his bare hands and then he fell and all the knights rushed to his rescue and he managed to escape, though he’s grievous hurt, or so I hear. Cook’s fixin’ her special healing broth for him right now.”

Evelina began to take her clothes out of the leather bag. “Then I’m not leaving either.”

“Oh, my lady. How brave!” The serving girl gasped.

“How could I?” Evelina asked, her voice soft. “If my prince is ill, he might call out for me, and then the Queen would have to let us be together. She wouldn’t be so cruel as to keep us apart!”

“I suppose that’s true, my lady,” said the serving girl, though she sounded skeptical. “But won’t you be afraid?”

“Not with my prince at my side,” proclaimed Evelina. “ ‘If I must die, at least let it be in his arms.’ “ She’d sung that line many a time in taverns. It never failed to set all the drunks to sobbing into their ale.