She looked at Yseult. “But we don’t know what happened with you, just that the CUT . . . got at . . . your mother the way they did at . . . Martin. Would you tell us? It . . . it would make us feel less alone.”

“Like we’re part of an army, not just people something bad happened to,” Janie said.

She’s no fool. Neither of them are, Yseult thought as she sipped her wine. Maybe I should. We do have this in common. And . . . not to be cynical, but they are princesses. I like them, and it certainly can’t hurt to be friends. You need friends in this world. Friends, and strong allies. And you can’t have friends unless you’re prepared to be one yourself.

“Well, my mother was arrested, when the Lady Regent found out what she’d done,” Yseult began slowly. “Everyone suspected Huon and me, too.”

“That must have been awful,” Shawonda said

“Were you locked up in a dungeon?” Janie said, with the ghoulishness of her age.

“Not quite! What happened was—”

CASTLE TODENANGST, CROWN DEMESNE
WILLAMETTE VALLEY NEAR NEWBURG
(FORMERLY WESTERN OREGON)
PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
SEPTEMBER 27, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD

Her quarters at Todenangst were not quite a cell. There was a room that was small and whitewashed within and furnished with a plain bed with equally plain but adequate sheets and blankets, a small cupboard and a commode. There was a Spartan sitting room next to it, with a table and chairs and an étagère. The place smelled of soap and wax and, very slightly, of concrete still curing after all these years; a maid came through and cleaned thoroughly every day.

There was no need for her do to anything menial, no dérogeance, but it was very bleak.

She rose each morning when the sun came through the high slit windows, dressed in her riding habit, waited for the door to open and was escorted by an unspeaking squire with an equally taciturn middle-aged duenna to the stables and rode for two hours, in a walled tilt-yard of the Protector’s Guard, under instruction and ward of the Master of the Stables, Sir Henri Gallardo.

Castle Todenangst was more than a castle; you could have lost Castle Gervais in it a dozen times over. It was a palace and a city in itself, the inner keep here alone a vast labyrinthine complex of towers and courtyards, little hidden gardens and terraces, armories and barracks, offices and halls and galleries, archives and libraries and chapels and quirking passageways. Some of it was bleakly plain like her rooms; some parts she traversed were stunningly beautiful and decorated with things new-made by the Protectorate’s most skilled artists or plundered from half a continent. All of it had a faint air of menace that might be her imagination. After days she still felt she’d be hopelessly lost if she took one wrong turn, and almost grateful for the constant escort.