“And I brought young Beatrice to . . . serve you,” Clarissa said. “Using men-at-arms as maids may well have its charms, but I thought you might like a girl.”

Blanche looked at the enthusiastic young woman who was kneeling before her.

“Really?” she said a little distantly.

“I would be the best serving lady ever,” the young woman said.

Blanche made a face. In her head she thought, Young woman, I was myself the best serving woman ever. “I’m not sure I need a—”

“Blanche,” Kaitlin said.

Clarissa de Sartres straightened as if Kaitlin had uttered a blasphemy.

“Blanche, it took me months to get used to it. Just do it. You can’t dress by yourself; you just slow everyone down. Really, you need two ladies and a couple of maids.” She shrugged.

Blanche looked at Kaitlin.

Clarissa looked out the window.

Kaitlin looked at the Queen of Arles. “We weren’t born to this,” she said. “I can do laundry better than your laundry maid.”

“And I can sew and iron better than your staff,” Blanche said.

Clarissa burst out laughing. It was not a ladylike laugh, but a snorting, gurgling laugh.

“I can sew, too,” Clarissa said, snorting and wiping away tears of laughter. “I wanted to be a nun,” she admitted.

The other two woman looked amazed.

“I was never going to be a nun.” Kaitlin laughed. “Imagine, a Lantorn nun? I’d ha’e been the laugh of the place.”

Blanche looked down at Beatrice. “I suppose I must try you, demoiselle.”

The young woman’s back straightened. Her smile grew, if anything, broader.

“How are you at hair?” Blanche asked, playing with a strand of her own.

Beatrice giggled.

Blanche turned to Kaitlin. “Let’s have the swords. Whenever the Lord Michael is available.”

“You outrank him,” Kaitlin said. “You could just order him to come.”

Clarissa made a noise of disgust. “You can’t really order anyone ever,” she said. “This is the first rule of giving orders, I think.”

“What do you mean?” Kaitlin asked.

Clarissa raised a perfectly curved eyebrow. “I mean that when you snap an order at a servant, they resent it; if you request the same in gracious language, they resent it less, but ultimately, they do your bidding of their own free will because you are paying them, not because they love you. And likewise, when you snap an order at a great lord, he, too, resents it; when you ask graciously, he resents it less . . .”

Blanche laughed. “And when you provide his daughter with a juicy marriage, he remembers why he should obey you?”

Clarissa smiled. All three of them were of an age; all three had seen a great deal of life in a very short time.

“No one was ever particularly nice to me when I was serving,” Kaitlin said. And then, a little dreamily, “Well, of course, Michael was.”

“And look where that got you,” Blanche said, patting her friend’s tummy.