Her husband and her father had both died some years ago, within months of each other, he knew (it was well known). Another of the plague years that had afflicted them all. She’d been left with her mother and two small children and a need to find a way to survive.

She hadn’t gone back to her family in Batiara. She’d become a writer, instead, with patrons at the royal court and in the palaces of several dukes. She moved from one nobleman’s castle or city home to another, or worked at her own late husband’s estate west of Orane, north of the Livraise.

She’d written commissioned poems about legendary figures (linking them to her patron of the moment, of course), guides to proper behaviour at court, and a satire on how not to treat women, among other things. He’d read most of her work, when he could obtain it. The university had copies. He’d liked the satire supporting women. Respected, didn’t love her courtly poems. Not his preferred style. He thought they were humourless. But he also knew she was using chivalry, the courtesies embedded, as a corrective to the violence of their world. As if to teach those reading her that they could be better? Because life was so seldom beautiful?

She added, changing her manner, “I’d have expected better than flattery from the man who wrote the bequest poem to Jolis de Charette offering her a renewable maidenhead. Instead, here is another pallid courtier come to call. You disappoint, sir!”

She wasn’t humourless.

And she knew—somehow—not only who he was, but that poem, of all of them. He was unsettled.

He said, stumbling a little, “I am hardly a courtier. And had truly not thought you’d know of me, my lady. We move in very different worlds. Mine is wine-fuelled or sodden, in loud rooms with rough wood floors, or even bare earth in some taverns nearer the walls. Yours is…scented with perfumes and compliments, with quiet music in the background.”

That smile again. She deployed it, he thought, in different ways. None of this was as he’d expected.

“That was clever,” she said. “Better.”

“You are surprised?” he heard himself say. “Expect cleverness only from those well-bred?”

Her expression changed again. “You are offended. I am sorry. No, it was only appreciation. I have read some of your verses, as I said. I am not surprised to find wit.” She gestured. “There is wine on that table. There is only good wine in this household. Please pour for us?”

He walked over, did so. Reminded himself why he was here, and that bristling would achieve nothing good. He approached her with two goblets. Silver, he noted, quite heavy. This palace, the wealth of the man who owned it. When he neared her he became aware of perfume. Sandalwood in it. Almost amusing, given what he’d just said.