Tiphaine nodded. “She’s in fosterage in a noble household, at a place where her status as your daughter won’t cause her trouble. Doing very well, from what I’ve heard, and well liked. Huon is still page to Lord Mollala. He was at the battle of Pendleton last year, running messages and so forth. Lord Chaka thinks well of him.”

“Last year! You mean last month!”

Tiphaine shook her head. “It’s been a long time. It’s almost June. You’ve been in some sort of a fugue state since your arrest for treason. Do you remember your brother coming to you in September, just after the battle? ”

Mary looked at her; there was something distinctly odd in her blue eyes, a desperation.

“You’re trying to drive me mad!”

“Drive you?” said Tiphaine dryly. “No, you were arrested when news came that Vinton failed to give the Princess to the CUT and your late brother did a bunk. As far as we know, Odard is still alive, still with the Princess and they are somewhere on the Great Plains. Take a look out the window and tell me if you see fall or late spring.”

Mary hesitated and then thrust the cloth into Tiphaine’s hands and walked to the window. She stood there for what seemed like a very long time, gripping the bars and pressing her face against them. When she turned her eyes were full of tears, and the marks of the iron were white on her skin.

“So long, so long. Where was I?”

“Well, here, in body, but your mind was wandering. That’s why Stratson had to cut your hair. It was getting badly snarled. I’d like to know where your mind wandered. According to the guards you kept saying something about hidden and eyes that couldn’t see.”

Mary shook her head and took back her embroidery and began to ply her needle.

“I couldn’t see Odard,” she said, in an almost conversational voice. “They promised I’d always be able to see him and I could and then he went away, and they couldn’t bring him back.”

“They?”

“He, the Priest. He said God would grant me this miracle and . . .”

Mary snapped her mouth shut. Tiphaine waited. Mary shot her a sly glance. “He said . . . that . . . he’d pray that Odard got his desire, to marry the Princess.”

Tiphaine frowned down at the woman. Something is off, she thought.

“And now you can see him?”

“Yes, he’s traveling with them, there was grass, so much grass, and buffalo, and fights. There’s a city, a great city, and a golden dome. I think he spent the winter hidden . . . But how? How did he escape the eye of the Sun?”

Tiphaine pondered the answer; the Cutters used a solar disk as one of their important symbols.