“Surely you should go and lie down instead,” said yellow-haired Rose, almost whispering. “Let us take care of you, Lady Elan.”

“No, if my brother-in-law calls me, I must go.” She turned to Tinwright. “It has been good speaking with you, Master Poet. If you think of any answer to my question, I shall be interested to know. It seems to me that things move more quickly toward an ending every day.”

“I am waiting, my lady!” Hendon Tolly seemed full of rich humor, as though at a joke only he understood. “I have things I wish to show you.”

She turned and walked behind the ladies, heading back toward the steps that Tinwright had climbed and the waiting master of Southmarch. Just before she reached them, when Tolly had looked away to talk to his guards, she turned back toward Tinwright for a brief moment. He thought she might nod or give some other sign of farewell, but she only looked at him with an expression as bizarrely full of mixed shame and excitement as a dog who has been caught gorging on the last of the family’s dinner, who knows he will be fiercely beaten but cannot even run.

Matt Tinwright would see that face again and again in nightmares.

Briony wriggled, trying to ease herself. The scarf she had borrowed from one of Idite’s daughters bound her breasts securely, but left an uncomfortable knot in the center of her back.

“Do the clothes fit?” Shaso had put on something similar to the loose homespun garments that one of the servants had brought to Briony. The pants were long; she had rolled them so they would not drag on the floor and trip her, but she was pleased to find that the rough shirt, though large, was not so big as to hinder her movements.

“Well enough, I suppose,” she said. “Why am I wearing them?”

“Because you are going to learn something new.” He was holding a bundle wrapped in oiled cloth, which he tucked under his arm, then led her down the hall and out to the courtyard. The rain had stopped but the sky was still heavy with dark clouds and the stones of the courtyard were wet. He gestured for her to sit down on the edge of the stone planter that housed the courtyard’s lone quince tree, bare now except for the last few shriveled fruits the birds had not taken. “That should be dry.”

“What am I going to learn?”

He scowled. “The first thing you must learn, like all Eddons, is to be patient. You are better at it than your brother—but not much.” He raised his hand. “No, do not think of him. I shouldn’t have spoken of him. We must pray that he is safe.”

She nodded, willing her eyes to stay dry. Poor Barrick! Zoria, watch over his every moment. Put your shield above him, wherever he is.

“I would not have chosen to teach you swordplay, had you not wished it and your father not have given in to your whim.” Shaso held up his hand again. “Remember—patience! But I have, and you have learned to fight well, for a woman. It is not the nature of women to fight, after all.”