And Thierry said, “You have experienced this, yourself? Unnecessary pain?”

Gauvard Colle stiffened. He said, “Not an unreasonable question, but I am not inclined to answer it.”

Thierry nodded. “Should I go, then?”

“Unless you have more you need from me.”

Thierry shook his head.

Gauvard said, “There is danger coming. And,” he added, “do not be clever and say there always is.”

Thierry had been about to say that.

“Find the constable,” Colle said. “De Vaux will know what needs doing, if anyone does.”

“Me? Why do I have to find someone?”

Again a hesitation. “Not sure,” said Gauvard Colle. “That is often the way with me. But it feels a true thought.”

“From the half-world?”

“From somewhere. You should do it. Find him.”

Colle walked him to the door. Before opening it, he said, “Come see me again, if you have the chance. Bring my nephew, if he’ll come.”

It was still light outside. It felt as if it ought to be nighttime now, Thierry thought, stars and the moons.

—

In the palace, Marina di Seressa was summoned to the queen at almost exactly the same time this conversation was happening. She’d been rereading Villar’s new poems, and feeling something unusual for her: envy.

Not of the work, though she admired it greatly. No, she was envious of how life or whatever else (Alaina d’Arceval? Delicious, really!) had allowed him to grow into these words.

She had told him, earlier, that people were permitted to change. But she also hadn’t lied when she said that her patrons knew what they wanted from her.

And she, in turn, knew what she needed from them. She was maintaining a château, retainers and guards and those who managed her tenants to the east and south on the estate. She had an estate. The great good fortune of that. Her husband’s, but preserved now by her, with her writing. An amazing thing. For anyone, not just a woman. But…more so for a woman?

She imagined a time when she was older, less a part of this world, of the court, when she might live there in quiet. Her children grown, settled, well married. She could do work that did not have to please someone commissioning it.

Was that greedy? Demanding?

Probably, she thought. She should accept the gifts she’d been given. The fact that her work was in demand.

Or, she could take a wealthy man as a lover. Or marry again.

She didn’t want to do either of those. Easier, on the whole, to invite women to her bed to address those needs that did still occupy her. And keep the freedom she’d come to value so much. She had time yet, Marina thought. Maybe. You could only say maybe in the world Jad had given them. You might die of a fever tomorrow. Or a war could come.