The poet smiled again; she had a wide mouth, good teeth. She recognized the parry, Silvy thought.

“Only by name and reputation. The queen has summoned him a few times, I understand. Never when I’ve been with her.”

“You usually aren’t?”

“No,” said Marina di Seressa simply. And waited.

Hers was a known story. She wasn’t really wealthy, people said. She’d said as much herself, in their brief exchange in The Lamb, when Silvy had been irritated by her. Her husband had died young, left her with a country estate to maintain, a family to support, a good reputation—and not enough money. Silvy didn’t know why there hadn’t been money. Perhaps he’d been bad with it, or a gambler. But Marina di Seressa had become perhaps the best-known writer in Ferrieres. Thierry had told her that. She’d been asking about poets, she remembered.

She sighed. “Villar is my friend. Not my lover.”

“Why not?” the other woman asked. “He’s an appealing man.”

Direct, this one was, Silvy thought. That sort of confidence could come with status.

“I suppose he is,” Silvy said. “It’s easier as friends.”

“You dislike men?”

“I do not.”

“You dislike risks?”

Silvy shrugged.

“We’ve nothing but time right now, you know,” said Marina di Seressa.

One of the ladies-in-waiting was sleeping, snoring quietly. The other was awake, looked bored. It was boring on the road. Unless someone clever was probing you. For amusement?

She didn’t like it. “Have you bedded him?” she asked.

Laughter again. “Hardly. We’ve had two meetings. One in your tavern. I’ve read his poems.”

“Well, that would excite him.”

They laughed together this time. The attendant still awake looked over at them, and then away again, as was proper.

“I was also present when he spoke against the Duke de Barratin at court. In a way it was my doing. I vouched for him to the queen.”

“Why?” It felt better to be asking the questions.

“Someone needed to. And I’d already realized he was clever. And I knew he had his degree in law. He’d also stood up already, which took courage. Is he brave, your friend Thierry?”

“I’ve never thought about it, to be honest.” It was honest, she hadn’t.

“Are you?”

“Same answer, my lady. And you?”

“I’ve not thought so. I’ve just done whatever I needed to do, the tasks that fell to me.”

“Same answer again, then, here.”

The other woman smiled. “As many women do.”

“Most?” said Silvy.

“Most,” agreed Marina di Seressa. A brief smile.

Thierry was increasingly certain he was going to die here, in the fetid castle dungeon of an arrogant toad of a puffed-up provincial high cleric. And it was his own Jad-cursed fault. Didn’t make anything easier, admitting that.