The queen of Ferrieres summons the only adviser she trusts in matters that might touch the half-world. And so Gauvard Colle, brought to her, listens also to Peire de Broché. He looks shaken after (he never looks shaken) and says, quietly, “I think you must do as she requests.”

“Including the king?” asks Queen Bianca. “Really?”

“Including the king,” he says.

“Will you come?”

“I will do whatever you ask of me,” he says. “And I should like to meet this girl.”

By that point, word had also come that what is left of Hardan V’s wrecked invasion fleet has come ashore—and is not turning back. It is said they are headed southeast from Calienne, burning villages and farms and villagers and farmers as they go. Hardan is a vicious man.

There is great danger, and great opportunity, because of the storm. The world, as men and women have it, can offer these together sometimes.

The king and queen, and the leaders of the court of Ferrieres, set out for Chervaux two mornings after, through the city’s walls and west, well-guarded.

Prince Girald, the heir, stays in Orane. Also well-guarded.

—

It took time, even for the well-trained staff at Chervaux. There were so many people to be assigned rooms, and fed, including those being quartered in the outbuildings, and the Maiden’s army sleeping in tents or outside in the meadow.

The king was watched in pity, shuffling in slow, painful-to-see confusion from his coach into the hunting lodge.

But by late afternoon the members of the court had assembled in a very large ground-floor room with four fireplaces, a heavy wooden throne, and heads of animals mounted along the walls.

Chervaux might have been more a palace than a hunting retreat, but it was a place for hunting. Once, King Roch had reportedly preferred being here to anywhere in the world.

Now, he did not seem to know where he was, Thierry Villar thought.

The king was neatly barbered and dressed, but his posture was slack. He looked dazed and inattentive. There was an unsettling feeling that he might soil himself, or explode into violent motion at any time. Perhaps it was the two attendants, standing watchfully by him as he sprawled on the heavy chair on its dais. The queen stood a few steps ahead of it, and below.

She was looking at Jeanette de Broché, in front of her, alone.

“We are here,” Queen Bianca said calmly. “Why are we here?”

Further along the room—with Silvy and, unexpectedly, Medor Colle, who had come with the court and his uncle—Thierry couldn’t see the Maiden’s shockingly blue eyes now. She didn’t like that name, he reminded himself. It was hard not to use it, though, in one’s thoughts. It was hard to call her, or think of her as simply Jeanette, a miller’s daughter from Broché. It occurred to him he had no idea where Broché even was.