She watched them carefully; Yseult grasped the point first, but Huon was only a second behind. A public oath would be a public statement: I trust Huon Liu at my back, or more specifically I trust Huon Liu at my back with a dagger, twenty-four/seven. Neither was obvious about it either, which was good.

People might, would, still talk, but they’d do it in a whisper and not where he could hear. More important, they wouldn’t do it where the High Queen or anyone close to her could hear it either.

“I understand that you’ve been eager to hear the results of the Most Reverend Father’s investigations,” she said after a moment’s quiet contemplation. “Besides being most helpful.”

“Ah . . . not exactly eager, Your Majesty,” Huon said.

He and his sister exchanged a glance.

Those two are allies against the world, Mathilda thought. A little wistfully, since she’d been an only child. And necessarily a little isolated from others her own age by her birth, except for Rudi.

Though that only child thing may have been for the best. Still, I’m glad my children will have lots of brothers and sisters. Kinship is . . . not everything, but close.

“But we do want to know,” Yseult said. “It’s, ummm, hit us so often and so badly, but a lot of it was just bewildering, especially at the time. We only knew the bits that happened to us, Your Majesty, and then it was like . . . we had to realize that all this had been going on around us without our knowing.”

Mathilda nodded. “That’s part of growing up, but this is a pretty extreme case. You’ve earned the right to know,” she said. “I’m going to tell you what happened immediately after Pendleton. That was when my letter arrived back home, about how Alex Vinson betrayed us . . . betrayed me and Odard to the Cutters. Unfortunately, that was also when the CUT decided to activate your uncle Guelf. Whether he liked it or not. They probably knew the news would get back, after Odard and I were rescued.”

Dmwoski nodded. “As I’ve said before, there is no spoon long enough to sup safely with them. I heard a little of this from a Mackenzie who was involved.”

“I debriefed the Renfrews,” Tiphaine said. “And handled a lot of stuff later that revealed what had been going on at Hermiston. Chime in if I’m missing anything, Most Reverend Father. What apparently happened is that Guelf got desperate because—”

HERMISTON, COUNTY HERMISTON
(FORMERLY UMATILLA COUNTY)
PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
(FORMERLY NORTH-CENTRAL OREGON)
SEPTEMBER 17, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD

Sir Guelf Mortimer felt he was doing a good imitation of a brooding falcon as the pedal car rumbled into the Hermiston station and orderlies rushed forward to take the badly wounded away. The brooding was keeping his chatty squires away from him, at least. He hoped they were still smarting from his tongue-lashing.