“There’s a grange not far,” he said. “Do you need a Marshal?”

“This house must be cleansed,” Dorrin said. “That is why I’m opening the windows, when I’ve untrapped them …”

“Windows were trapped?”

“Evil delights in darkness and secrecy,” Dorrin said. “Anyone who tried to let in light, without knowing the dangers, faced certain death. If you like, come inside and I will show you.”

“No,” he said, backing up a step. “If the prince says you are welcome, you are welcome and I will pass the word. We do believe passages underground lead into the cellars here, but we were not able to penetrate them.” He mounted. “Do you wish me to send a Marshal?”

“I will go myself and speak to the nearest grange,” Dorrin said. “Though if you wish to tell them I will be coming, they might like to know. But first, when I have cleared enough of the house for myself and these my escort, I must present myself at the palace.”

“I will tell them,” he said. “Lest they think you are the other Verrakaien come back.”

“Thank you,” Dorrin said.

It was evening, the long slow twilight of near Midsummer, before Dorrin had enough rooms cleared for the safety of her escort and her kitchen staff. The boy, Jaim, had been to a market twice. In the stable, oats, hay, and straw seemed untainted by magery, and the horses they’d ridden stood quietly in the stalls, munching as if back home.

She had to bathe. In the kitchen, Efla chopped vegetables; steam rose from a kettle on its hook over the fire. In the scullery, an array of tubs hung along one wall. Dorrin set the largest on the stone floor and poured in cold water from the water butt and a little hot from the kitchen. It was so like her first days in the country house that she found it funny.

She was in the tub when a thunderous banging on the front door echoed through the house. It was the Marshal from down the street, her escort informed her, demanding to see her.

“When I’m dressed,” Dorrin said. Her uncle had left linens in the house at least; she had placed a stack ready and grabbed one when she heard the knocking. “Put him in the safe reception hall; warn him that the house is not yet safe and tell him I will be there shortly.”

She might as well put on the informal court dress she had brought to the scullery with her, what the tailor had told her was appropriate for submitting her credentials. She put on the gray trousers, a halfdress shirt with a handspan of lace at the cuffs and neck, a doublet of light blue and silver-gray brocade, dress boots with fancy spurs ornamented with silver chains. Her ducal chain of office; her ducal ring; her sword belt—she slipped her dress dagger into its sheath, the sword into the hanger.

The Marshal waiting in the smaller reception room had his lips compressed and a look of suspicion on his face. Dorrin expected that. She did not expect his first words.