“Yes, your grace,” de Vaux now said, answering the queen. “He left at nightfall, after the funeral service and burial.”

“You know this because you had people watching his house?”

She was sharp, attentive, alert. The women of Batiara seemed to be like that, Thierry thought.

The king? The king remained as he had been all winter. Not here with them, not here for his people in any way. He hadn’t been at the funeral.

“Yes, your grace, we did,” said the provost now.

“And why did you do that?” The Duke de Barille. Asking almost reluctantly. As if sensing where this might be going and not liking it at all: the ways in which it might impinge upon his serene, orderly life. But also not able to let this pass, glumly aware of duty emerging, as from mist, unwelcome. The distaste on his face.

“Because we had previously taken and were still interrogating two of his guards in the Châtelet, my lord duke.”

“And you did that why?” Regnault now. He didn’t look detached anymore either.

“Because they, and a third guard, had attempted to capture and very likely kill a man I had asked to assist me in this matter. My serjeants were able to prevent this and take the two for questioning. The third was killed. The Duke de Barratin will have learned of this.”

“What man of yours?” asked the queen. Her voice was cold, very precise.

“He is with us here, your grace. Still assisting me. A citizen of Orane…an advocate, among other things.”

Thierry, so identified, stepped into view from behind tall serjeants and managed a bow. His heart was pounding. That never used to happen to him, he thought. Lately it seemed to be occurring all the time! But this was…this was the queen! The court!

“Ah.” A woman’s voice. “Thierry Villar! I know him. A fellow poet and my newest friend!”

Queen Bianca turned. “You know this person?” Voice still icy, commanding.

“Happily so, your grace,” said Marina di Seressa.

He had noticed her, of course, as soon as she’d walked in, one of three women and two clerics accompanying the queen. She had told him she had been summoned. She had responded. Hard to imagine how not. And she was attesting to his identity. Here. To royalty.

Who was he, that she would do that? He knew, after a fashion, why the provost had kept him close: he had done what he’d been asked to do, at risk. De Vaux was a soldier, would value and honour that.

Proper value and honour, Thierry had felt like saying the night before, would have meant letting him go back to The Lamb to drink and eat among friends, then go upstairs with a girl. Free of debt.

Not, evidently, how this was to unfold. The cards had been laid out otherwise.