He slowed near the armory and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a sleeve, then straightened his breeches and hose. It was strange: he felt almost a little shamefaced, as though he were betraying his patroness Briony Eddon, but he shrugged the feeling away. Just because he did not wish to recite his poems before the whole of the Tolly contingent did not mean that he had no ambitions whatsoever.

He walked around the base of Wolfstooth Spire and made his way up its outer staircase, so that when he reached the wall he should seem to be encountering her by accident. He was gratified to see she had not continued on, which would have necessitated him trying to hide the fact of walking swiftly after her to catch up. She was leaning on the high top of the outer wall, peering out through a crenellation across the Outer Keep, her weeds fluttering about her.

When he thought he was close enough to be heard above the fluting of the wind, he cleared his throat. “Oh! Your pardon, Lady. I did not know anyone else was walking on the walls. It is something I like to do—to think, to feel the air.” He hoped that sounded sufficiently poetic. The truth was, it was cold and damp here at the edge of the Inner Keep with the bay churning just below them. Were it not for her, he would much rather be under roof and by a fire, with a cup full of something to warm his guts.

She turned toward him and brushed back the veil to stare with cool, gray eyes. Her skin would be pale at the best of times, but here, on this dank, overcast day, with her black clothes and hat, her face almost disappeared except for her eyes and fever-red mouth. “Who are you?”

He suppressed an exultant shout. She had asked his name! “Matthias Tinwright, my lady.” He made his best bow and prepared to kiss her hand, but it did not emerge from the dark folds of her cloak. “A humble poet. I was bard to Princess Briony.” He realized phrasing things that way might seem disloyal, not to mention suggesting he was out of work. “I am bard to Princess Briony,” he said, putting on his best, most pious aspect. “Because, with the mercy of Zoria and the Three, she will come back to us.”

An expression he could not read passed across Elan M’Cory’s face as she turned slowly back to the view. Why did she wear those widow’s clothes, when he knew for a fact—he had pursued the question carefully—that she was not married? Was it truly in mourning for Gailon Tolly? They had not even been betrothed, or so at least the servants said. Many of them thought her a little mad, but Tinwright didn’t care. One view of her with her hair hanging copper-brown against her white neck, her large, sad eyes watching nothing as the rest laughed and gibed at one of Puzzle’s entertainments, and he had been smitten.