She smiled. When Clarissa de Sartres smiled, she was quite beautiful; the transformation was breathtaking. “I envy you,” she said. “Many of my knights are going. I am not going. I will sit here and be queen.”

Toby had no idea whether there had been acrimony about the queen remaining behind. He didn’t know what to say. So he said nothing.

She looked at him, and drank some wine. “Do you think you will triumph, Ser Tobias?” she asked.

Toby nodded. “Yes,” he said.

She rolled the goblet along the edge of the chair arm. “Why?” she asked. “Why so confident?”

Toby shrugged.

“Because of him?” she asked.

Toby felt trapped, but after a moment, he said, “I’ve been with him for some years, Your Grace. He doesn’t . . . lose.”

She nodded. “I want to be there,” she said. “A moment will come; the moment of victory. I do not want to be a girl and sit at home. I want my barons to remember that I was there.”

Toby was far out of his depth. But in that moment, he knew he would go up the stairs; Anne’s rejection, on the cosmic stage, was a small thing, a risk he could and should take, compared to the unfairness of being left behind.

“Maybe you should just come,” Toby blurted out.

Clarissa frowned. “That is not the path of duty,” she said. “All my life I have done what I have been ordered to do. Because, for the most part, the world would collapse if rulers did not do their duty.” She looked out the window. “I went to the Gallish court because my father ordered me to,” she said softly. “And I stayed home when my father went out to face the Wild.”

She shook her head. “I am unfair to you, young sir. These are not your troubles.”

Toby nodded. “Well,” he said. “I am a great one for duty, Your Grace. I ha’e been a servant, a page, and a squire; I generally do as I’m told.” He shrugged. “If you was to go along o’ us, and die . . .” He met her eye. “What would happen? Here?”

“My family line would end,” she admitted. “There would be trouble. Political trouble.”

“And if you don’t go?” Toby asked. He didn’t know why he was doing this.

“Ser knight, if we both survive this, I think perhaps you should return to my court and take a place as one of my counselors.” She put her wine aside, and Toby knew what she had decided.

Toby paused, ready to walk up the steps. But daring was coursing through him; perhaps it was her flattering words, or his intention of confessing his love to Anne. Either way, he nodded. “Listen, Your Grace,” he said. “Philipe de Beause needs an armed page. You can handle a lance?”

The Queen of Arles smiled again. “Oh yes,” she said.