A return, in his case, very possibly meant coming back to absolute power, depending on the king’s health, and…other factors. Or it meant war. But there was time to watch and wait now. The duke’s people here would be closely observed, and he had his enemies.

Intense, and sometimes violent disagreements had emerged in the city and elsewhere between factions. Those supporting Laurent de Barratin, and those allying with the slain duke’s family, which had vowed vengeance on Montereau’s assassin.

Ferrieres, violently divided? How very startling, Thierry Villar thought.

But he didn’t want to leave Orane, and he didn’t. He wasn’t rushing away—to somewhere, no idea where—in flight from imagined revenge for words he’d spoken at a lectern one day.

He said as much to de Vaux in the provost’s study. The older man replied, calm as ever, “I am not in a position to give you orders. Only counsel.”

“Ah. And your counsel is that I should huddle by a farmhouse fire or in some hamlet, away from everything and everyone I know? Read poems to the cow before milking it?”

De Vaux actually smiled at that. “Do you even know how to milk a cow?”

Thierry acknowledged he did not.

“I’ll assign you a guard here, then. No, not in my livery,” the provost added quickly as Thierry opened his mouth to protest. “Villar, you are still a witness to matters that may come up again, and I’d prefer to keep you alive, on the whole. Where do you plan to sleep?”

He hadn’t thought it through. “Where I have been? My mother’s house or The Lamb. One or the other, mostly. You can’t have men watching me all day and night!”

“They do so for me,” the provost said mildly. “And my family now.”

“I am not a serjeant. I am not…anything!” Thierry said.

They compromised. A guard, no livery, keeping a discreet distance, with Thierry’s acknowledgement that greater distance meant less effectiveness.

It came to be understood in the taverns that Thierry Villar was aligned with the Montereau faction and they had someone keeping an eye on him. It was plausible. People knew by then that he had spoken up at court. He was a trained lawyer, after all. He didn’t discuss the subject.

—

One morning, Marina di Seressa sent him a note, reminding him of something. That evening she came to The Lamb, in a small carriage from the palace, through the muddy streets.

He had promised, more or less, to entertain her in a tavern. From Silvy’s face he could see she was…displeased. He introduced them, with trepidation. Marina wore a deep-blue robe with a crimson overtunic and elegant black boots, her hair artfully dressed. He recognized her scent. Little jewellery. She was too intelligent to wear it here, he thought. Even if she’d never been in a city tavern.