“Are we doing right?” Ambroise asked. “Do we have a side in this? Would Laurent de Barratin be worse, governing Ferrieres?”

His son raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking that to test me?”

“Perhaps,” Ambroise said.

“Well. Well, then. The Duke de Barratin murdered his cousin. And that same day he attempted to have your presumably beloved son killed in an icy winter street because he grew suspicious of me after a visit to his home. So, yes, I think our family has a side here, beyond everything else.”

Ambroise smiled at him. “If I hadn’t known you were a poet, now I would.”

“What? Why?” Thierry had not expected that.

“Really? What normal person would say ‘icy winter street’ there when ‘street’ was all that was needed?”

Thierry laughed. “So now you know,” he said. “Finally! It…sounded better?”

His father’s smile deepened. “Exactly what I mean.” Then, “Thierry, you need me to wait? Not do anything?”

“Is there anything you can do?”

Ambroise shook his head. “Not really. He’s written to Rhodias. That will take time, and would supersede anything any high cleric here could do, and I’m not—”

“You’re not the high cleric, I know. I wish you were.”

“You just want to ring the bells in the Great Sanctuary,” Ambroise said.

“Can I? Please? Can you make that happen?”

“No,” said his father. “Besides which, you’d have no notion how. Will you be with us for the evening rites and a meal? Shall I tell your mother?”

“Not tonight. There are people I must see now, quickly.”

“You’ll tell me what happens?”

“You know I will.”

They kissed and he left.

—

He went to Medor first. Someone at the court would have received this same letter, but Medor might not yet know of it. It wasn’t certain he needed to know, as provost—this was not a matter for Orane in particular—but Thierry had been looking for another chance to see him.

On reflection, on his way through the noise of the city, he sent one of his two escorts to Robbin de Vaux’s home, to tell him where Thierry was going, and that it was important. If the constable was available, it made sense for him to be present for this. Probably should have done it the other way around, he thought. Gone to de Vaux and sent a note to Medor. Too late now. He wasn’t very good at this.

Unsurprising. The thought came, and not for the first time, how strange it was that he—and his father now, because of him—seemed to be involved in these events. He was just a tavern poet.

Which made him smile to himself as he walked. Icy winter street, indeed. But the words one chose were a way of seeing, of understanding the world. And the sound of them mattered. It did!