And then he hides himself, and not because of her.

Because of shouting.

It’s muffled by her stoppered windows, but it’s getting louder, and the king raises his head with a haunted, hunted look. Phosyne stares back at him for just a moment, then turns and races up the steps to the loft, crouching to peer out her tiny plate of glass. She expects plumes of dust, jagged wreckage along the walls, the signs of an attack they have been half expecting for weeks now. But the walls are whole, and beyond them, the enemy all but lounges. No assault. No threat from without.

So Phosyne looks within.

A scrum, boiling quickly into a mob, crowds against the short walls that surround the kitchen garden down in the yard.

She sees a flash of metal. It is not a sword.

Not yet.

It’s sun on armor, the blinding reflection of a knight’s breastplate, and the only knights who go about in metal armor inside the walls are the king’s knights. The woman (for the side of her head is shaved, and the remaining dark hair hangs in a braid to her shoulders) has climbed on top of the garden wall, and she bellows for order. The wind steals her words away, but not the sound, and Phosyne is transfixed.

The mob should be afraid. It’s not.

It’s angry.

Somebody throws a stone.

Shouts become screams as the knight draws her sword and descends into the mob.

From here, Phosyne cannot make out details, can’t see if hands are severed, necks are cut, or if there are only threats and shoves and intimidation. She sees at least three people fall to the ground. She sees other guards wade in, along with the familiar fair head of Ser Leodegardis. Somebody is dragged, kicking and thrashing, out of the maelstrom. The soil grows dark.

The king is by her side, frowning at her makeshift shutters. “What is it?”

“A riot,” Phosyne breathes, eyes wide. And then they grow wider because she sees now who was at the center of the mob, as he is pulled from the crowd, hurried back through the garden, into the kitchen. “They had the quartermaster. They were going to tear him to pieces.”

The king snarls and thrusts Phosyne out of the way, crouching to peer through the glass. The screams are quieting now, and so the action must be too. Only a minute more passes before the king pulls away, running a hand through his hair, tugging his beard.

“Ser Voyne has it in hand,” he grinds out. But he does not sound happy. Unrest will kill them far quicker than starvation.

Phosyne will have to revise her numbers.

“I need my miracle.”