“But there’s no hurry,” Raisa said. “You married young, but there’s no reason I should. You’ll rule for a long time yet. I’ll probably be an old crone with my grandchildren around me by the time I come to the throne.”

Marianna fussed with her shawl. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Sometimes I think I’m not long for this world.”

It was an old weapon, familiar since Raisa was a little girl. Still effective.

“Stop that!” Raisa snapped, then added, “Please don’t say those things, Mama. I can’t stand it.”

When she was little, Raisa used to creep out from the nursery to watch her mother sleep, afraid that she would stop breathing if Raisa wasn’t there to intervene. The fact that there was something ethereal, almost otherworldly about her mother only reinforced Raisa’s fears. Yet she knew Marianna wasn’t beyond using this tactic to get her own way.

“It would just ease my mind if I knew the question of your marriage was settled,” Marianna said with a sigh.

Raisa had no intention of seeing anything settled very soon. Marriage was just another kind of prison to put off for as long as possible.

She’d been looking forward to a long season of flirting and wooing and kissing and clandestine meetings involving desperate declarations of love.

Negotiation. Give and take. Redirection.

Ah, redirection. That had always worked well with the queen.

“I’ve been thinking about my name day party,” Raisa said, though she hadn’t been, really. “I have some ideas about a dress, and I wanted to see what you thought.”

And so they spent a half hour discussing the pros and cons of satin versus lace and black versus white versus emerald green, flounces versus overskirts, tiaras versus beaded snoods and glitter net. Then moved on to debating a tent in the garden versus a party in the Great Hall.

“We’ll need to meet with Cook to discuss the matter of the menu,” Marianna said, when they’d about worn the topic out. “If we make some decisions now, it will save us considerable trouble in the end. Now, some of it will depend on the guest list, of course…”

“Amon’s looking forward to the feast,” Raisa said, thinking to turn the conversation in a direction she favored. “I’m glad he’s back.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Amon Byrne,” the queen said in a tone of voice that never meant good news.

“What about Amon?” Raisa asked, already defensive.

“Magret said you and Corporal Byrne had a secret meeting late last night in the glass house,” Marianna said, absently turning a ring on her finger.

“It was hardly secret,” Raisa said. “We haven’t seen each other in three years. We wanted to catch up, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him during dinner.”