“Yes,” said Queen Bianca. “He did, didn’t he? Only yesterday.” You could almost taste poison in her voice. “No more words! Inside the palace, my lords. The smaller stateroom upstairs. Make way in the road for my carriage, if you’d all be so kind.”

Kindness, Thierry Villar thought, astride a horse again, unhappily, was not a word you’d associate with the manner of the queen of Orane then. Or with any of what was happening.

—

The funeral procession from the palace to the Great Sanctuary on its island in the river had been a difficult affair. The roads were lined, six or seven deep, by the people of Orane. As their nobility processed past, the mightiest of the realm carrying the bier of the Duke de Montereau, there were tears, and cries of grief and fear. But also, unmistakably, shouts of denunciation of the dead man. He had been greedy, came some cries. Corrupt. Cruel. Forsaking the god.

So many sins! The crowd was too thick, Thierry Villar remembered thinking, for anyone to be identified. Or they’d not have been shouting.

The weather was warmer.

His own presence among the serjeants, walking (Jad be praised!) not riding, remained a matter of disquiet and anxiety to him. De Vaux was not, evidently, releasing him back to his own life yet.

Among those ahead of them, well ahead, had been the Duke de Barratin. Thierry had seen his face as the procession assembled in the palace courtyard. He remembered it, of course. He was not about to forget it.

It was stricken with visible grief, that hard, hawk-like face, tears running down into the dark, neatly barbered beard.

—

“He left in the night?” Queen Bianca asked in the room where they’d assembled.

It was more of a statement, Thierry thought. He was bemused, and frightened, to find himself here, but de Vaux had insisted. Because Thierry was a lawyer, he’d said—and had refused to accept any disclaimers as to that. Thierry had training, yes, had studied the Codex and Digest of Valerius of Sarantium and other ancient texts. He had graduated, had his diploma somewhere (his mother’s house, she’d know where), but had never done anything with law at all. He had tried to avoid encountering the law, instead! Surely there were proper advocates the provost could summon.

But…no. Robbin de Vaux, for reasons of his own, which he did not deign to share, wanted Thierry Villar with him.

The provost had also given Thierry a substantial sum of money (very substantial for a tavern poet) two nights ago, after he and Medor had returned and reported.

The next morning, early, before they’d walked in the funeral procession and ceremony, Thierry had sent a necessary portion of that to a necessary destination: a man who might now not proceed to break various of his limbs, or kill him outright for debt.

To say it was a relief was to understate.