Outside, a young woman said, “And where is the royal lady this morning?” in a Jarsay accent.

Lady Genevieve was the plainest—and eldest—of the queen’s ladies, a good ten years older than the queen. She wore a cross big enough to hang on a wall and her dress was plain to the point of being frumpish. She wore dark colours and sometimes even wore a wimple, although today she wore her hair in an Alban fashion—each plait was wound in the shape of a turret, making her head look like a fortress gate, which the queen found particularly apt.

“Welcome, Lady Genevieve,” the queen said.

“All this hair brushing is mere vanity,” Lady Genevieve said. She sat without asking permission. “I have brought you some religious instruction.” She looked at Diota. “You may go.”

The queen frowned. “My lady, it is for me to welcome or dismiss my servants. Of whom you yourself are one. I have never been much for formality, but you may stand until I ask you to sit.”

“Do not give yourself airs,” Lady Genevieve said. “You are a wife taken in adultery, bearing another man’s bastard, and the sign of your shame is on you every instant.” She remained seated. “My lord de Vrailly has sent me to attend you, and I shall. But do not pretend with me.”

Desiderata nodded slowly. “So you refuse my command,” she said.

Lady Genevieve was the widow of a southern lord. She knew how to make herself obeyed. “I will accept any reasonable command,” she said sweetly. “Let me read to you from the Life of Saint Catherine.”

“What if I do not wish you to read?” the Queen asked, already weary.

“You are unwomanly in your striving,” Lady Genevieve said. “A woman’s role is passive acceptance, as I told my husband on many occasions. Indeed, I was a byword for passive acceptance.” She snapped her fingers. “If your woman is to remain, she may as well be useful. I’ll have a cup of sweet cider, Diota.” She turned back to the queen. “Where was I? Ah yes—passive acceptance.”

Diota slipped out and found Blanche, one of the queen’s laundry maids, in the outer solar.

The nurse took a cup and poured cider from a jug, and then, catching Blanche’s eye, she reached under her skirts and wiped her hand there and then used it to stir the cider.

Blanche stifled a cackle and handed the nurse a slip of parchment that had been pinned to a shift.

Another of the queen’s “new ladies” came in the outer door without knocking, but by the time she came in, Blanche was folding shifts and putting them into the press.

Lady Agnes Wilkes, twenty-nine, unmarried, and with a face capable of curdling milk, stalked in and looked sullenly at the serving girl. “What are you about, slut?” she asked.

Blanche kept working. “Folding, milady.”