Lady Agnes frowned. “Do this sort of thing at night,” she said. “I don’t need to see your kind in these rooms by day, and neither does the queen. What if the King were to come?”

Diota slipped away with her cup of cider and gave it with a sketchy curtsy to Lady Genevieve, who didn’t acknowledge her at all. She took the cup and drank from it. “Tart and sweet,” she said.

Diota smiled happily. “A pleasure to serve you, my lady,” she said.

“Well,” Lady Genevieve said. “A change for the better, then. I see Lady Agnes has come in and I’ll exchange a word with her.” The older woman rose and set her cup down with a click.

She went out, and they could hear her in the outer chamber.

Diota handed the Queen the slip of parchment. The Queen seized it, read it—and then put it in her mouth and began to chew.

Diota collected cups and a shift and began to tidy the queen’s private chamber.

The two ladies came in. “Your Lady Rebecca has deserted you,” Lady Agnes said with real satisfaction. “Lord de Rohan sent for her this morning, but she’s fled. Many things are missing—she was a thief as well as a heretic. I am here to make an inventory.”

“Lady Rebecca had no need to steal,” the Queen said. “She was the lord chancellor for half a year.”

Lady Agnes made a face, and Lady Genevieve made a rude noise. “Perhaps the King pretended that she was the chancellor,” she said. “No woman could ever hold such an office.” She spoke as if she relished the low estate of women. “What foolishness. Women have no aptitude for such things. When I was with my husband, I cultivated a becoming passivity. I never put myself forward.”

“What happened after?” the queen asked sweetly.

“After what, my dear?” Lady Genevieve asked.

“After your husband died?” the Queen asked.

Diota almost choked, but Lady Genevieve frowned. “I have no idea what you are about, madame.”

The queen rose.

“You need to dress,” Lady Agnes said. The Queen was wearing only a shift, and her belly was magnificent—and very visible.

“I am more comfortable like this,” the queen said.

“You are lewd. Indecent.” Lady Agnes began to seize clothes from a cabinet.

“In my private solar?” the queen asked. “I think not.”

“I do not wish to gaze on your body,” Lady Agnes said. At odds with her words, her eyes were on the queen’s belly.

“You are very wanton,” Lady Genevieve said. “We will dress you. It is time you had the becoming clothes of a matron, and shed all this vanity.”

The queen smiled. Her smile was lazy and slow, and took its time, and in the end, she shocked Diota.