Guard towers loomed on both sides of the eastern channel; the western channel had two courses of walls. Tiphaine approved as her bona fides were scrupulously checked before the spear points and crossbows went up, and she was rowed across, with the horses and her party stashed in a barn on the shore. The Grand Constable leapt out of the boat onto the narrow bench and waited for the postern beside the main gates to be opened; it was all rather like a castle, but focused mainly inward rather than outward. The medium security prisoners were all in the main building closest to her, which had a conventional enough layout for a jail, plus the quarters of the Seneschal and the guards and their families. A large bare cobbled yard separated it from the maximum security block, known as Fen House. Norman had said the best place to hide a prison was inside a prison.

And laughed. It was a joke after his own heart.

Sir Stratson came to meet her and escorted her through the next few doors to the exercise yard and across it. He looked as mournful as ever. She couldn’t imagine living here and not going insane, though the garrison seemed contented enough. They had boating and fishing, and poaching she supposed, and their families cultivated gardens nearby. Otherwise . . .

“So, have there been any changes since you sent that dispatch, Sir Stratson?”

There was no need to specify which prisoner she was inquiring after.

“No, about the same since she came out of her fugue. She works on that white-work embroidery . . . there’s more than enough light in there most of the day. Eats, takes care of herself. She’s a boring prisoner, to be sure. Whines and frets, demands and puts on airs. Nothing out of the ordinary for one of the upper-upper caught out in their peculations.”

“And what does she remember of the missing months?”

“Nothing. She was truly annoyed about my cutting her hair. She doesn’t remember anything. And she doesn’t believe it, either. Thinks I drugged her like they did at Castle Gervais, won’t believe what month it really is even with the weather and all.”

Tiphaine studied the Warden as they waited for the guards to open the inner gates. He was a very fair-skinned man and only slightly taller than she, ruddy faced with a grizzled ring around the bald dome of his head, merging into a whiskers and a floppy mustache. His dark eyes were alert enough, but the long lines on his horsey face told of a weariness that wasn’t really physical.