Yseult shook her head. “Mama tells me what to embroider, by the count. She’ll give me a starting point, but she won’t explain. She told me that it would make me concentrate more, that I was getting distracted and letting the colors and shapes guide my hands and not the pattern, itself.”

Romarec shook her head. The last foot of cloth she frowned at. “This? She thinks this must be taken out? Child, your mother never could decide from which side of her mouth she should blow! I can see the difference, with my eyes six inches from the cloth, but on an altar at five yards, white on white, it’s not going to show at all. Howsoever, your Lady Mother is sure to ask and inspect. So, come meet my new girls, pick this out and I will expect you here from nine in the morning every day. You will have elevenses with us and eat dinner with the castle staff and work until three in the afternoon.”

“And then?”

“Thusly, Master Johannsen will still see you at four for your riding lesson, and we will inform Mistress Virgilia that your tutoring will be in the evening.”

Yseult nodded, relieved to be free of the hot, boring solar and out of her mother’s sole company.

How awful! I never felt like this about Mama, before. But there were always maids with us!

She picked out the slightly sloppy stitches, wondering why Guelf was in Gervais and what the war news from Pendleton was.

Maybe Guelf brought a letter from Huon? Or one from Odard! Dispatches? Or mischief? Mischief! What a word for high treason. What will happen to us?

She tried to settle the gnawing worm of anxiety in her stomach by ignoring it, forcing her hands not to twitch. She wasn’t very successful. Some time later as she carefully taught Martha how to do a stretch stitch so the cuffs would stand up to rough handling she suddenly wondered:

Jesus’ wounds! Should I tell the Regent my uncle is here? What if he ran away? No, he’ d never run from a fight . . . But, what is he doing here? What should I do? Odard! Huon! Where are you? I need your help!