Yseult shot a quick look at Huon and straightened her back. Her fingers pinched a small fold of the sideless surcoat and the cote-hardie under it and lifted it, a scant inch from the floor. She glided forward and followed Jehane out of the room.

Two large men-at-arms in black armor stood at the door like the legendary metal men of the ancient world except for the faces under their raised visors, others beyond, in the corridor.

Things may have seemed simpler in bygone days, thought Yseult.

Even then she couldn’t help admiring Jehane’s magnificent pale green ermine-trimmed cote-hardie with the elaborate dagged sleeves faced in silver silk, black marks echoing the ermine. Either she had perfect taste, or the Lady Regent did and insisted on it for her immediate staff, or both. Probably both.

But they weren’t, not really. I just never noticed what was going on over my head. Mother has been intriguing for years, and so has Uncle Guelf. What an inheritance!

Probably her father had as well, and her mother had helped. It was the play of great lords, the game of advantage.

The audience chamber to which they were escorted in the Dark Tower was an uncomfortable room despite the handsome stone of the floor and walls and the roof of carved plaster arabesques. Harsh light from the bare high windows fell in spears on the spot before a large desk of carved walnut on the slightly raised dais. The Lady Regent sat there, wrapped in a great cloak of priceless black-and-white ermine. Two Associates’ daggers lay on the desk before her, points towards the accused, their bright edges glittering against the dark silky wood.

Yseult sank into a deep curtsy and held it, as Huon did his bow.

“Rise, and approach,” the Regent said.

Yseult took a deep breath as they did, and let her eyes take in the room.

It was large and chilly, with a great medallion of the Lidless Eye set in the wall behind the desk, jet and niello and obsidian and raw gold. Yseult looked for the hot-water radiators. They were there; bronze pipes running in through the classic cast-iron radiators.

So the Spider wants us to be cold and uncomfortable. Did she think I wouldn’t notice and would just be frightened, or did she expect me to notice? Or is she testing to see if I do notice, and just caught that look at the radiators? Oh, yes, that’s it.

Hard wooden chairs ranged in an arc before the dais, but Yseult and Huon were not offered a seat. Jehane sank in a deep curtsy to the Regent and sat quietly next to a girl about her age; she took up a little blond-wood writing desk on her lap and dipped a pen ready in the tiny bottle of ink built into it.