He would later remember he’d been standing beside the table and chairs placed beneath the chestnut tree, looking out at the woods. Had thought he saw a fox at the edge of the trees, but it had disappeared before he could be certain.

He heard voices, the steward escorting a woman across the carefully manicured grass. He turned. And was comprehensively assaulted by desire. It hit him like a blow.

She was slender, tall; a small, neat nose, high, vivid cheekbones, large, very wide-set, very dark eyes in an almost triangular face. Her hair, pinned under a riding hat, with tendrils drifting free, was black. She looked like a forest spirit, he immediately thought, one that had come from the trees beyond the garden, not along the road and through the house, not a noblewoman of Ferrieres.

“So many poets here now,” the woman said quietly, smiling. Only that. First words.

She took off her hat and laid it on the stone table. He watched her. She adjusted, slowly, the pins holding her hair. Then took a seat, still smiling at him, looking up, entirely at ease. There was a light breeze, from the direction of the woods.

The steward made the formal presentation, bowed, and withdrew to bring them the promised wine.

“Poets? I am trying to be one here, yes,” Thierry said. “Not my world, to be honest. Too much quiet?” He was trying not to stare at her. Was failing. “I’m sorry my lady Clare is not here to greet you. I’m sure she won’t be much longer. She returns from her morning visits around this time.”

“Returning soon? A pity,” said the black-haired woman. Thierry blinked. “I find Clare tedious, but please don’t tell Marina I said that! She’s not tedious at all. Have you bedded each other here yet?”

“What? No!” Thierry exclaimed.

“How can that be? She’s so lovely, and you have a pleasing look, though you’d do better with a proper shave. She’s unattached, and I am told you are also.”

“Marina di Seressa has been gracious enough to allow me to remain here while Orane is judged…unsafe for me,” Thierry stammered. “After her return to the city. With the queen. I would never presume upon—”

“Presume? That is how you think? How foolish,” said this woman, this Alaina d’Arceval.

He was remembering, necessarily now, a night in an inn in a village near the Livraise, when he had awakened in darkness and in pain, and Marina had been lying there, unexpectedly, to reassure him if he woke in the night that he was safe, had not been entirely broken in a dungeon.

“We move,” Thierry said, “in different worlds.”

“Not necessarily, from what one hears of events in Orane last winter. But that can also be alluring, don’t you find?” said the woman. “Different worlds?” He watched her raise her arms to adjust a hairpin again, slowly.