Did they search my satchel? I have no way of knowing if she saw Theodore’s letter.
Anne followed her gaze and then looked back at her face.
She is unreadable. She considered for a moment. Time to bait the trap.
“Have you seen much of my friend Theodore, Lady Anne?” she asked. “Lady Caroline and I were just talking about him. You and he seem to have grown very close.” Caroline let out a little gasp, but said nothing.
Kara allowed herself to be helped into the gown as she spoke. Madame Thessalia tightened the garment at her back and Kara lost her breath.
Anne remained silent for a full minute as she watched Kara being dressed. Finally she spoke.
“He is a very fine knight, Kara,” she said coldly. “Today he bested Varrock’s most accomplished warrior, Lord Hyett, the Black Boar. It has saved me from any more of the man’s advances, and Theodore knows how grateful I am.”
Kara struggled to answer as both Thessalias fussed about her, forcing her to stand straight to better shape the gown. It was very low-cut in the front, she thought.
“Are you sure this is acceptable?” Kara asked Caroline, who nodded shyly before looking to Anne, perhaps to seek her permission. “It has a yellow ribbon on. Isn’t that the King’s colour?”
“Not exclusively so,” Anne said.
“And you don’t think it too… revealing?” Kara asked.
“It is the only dress left that suits your figure,” Madame Thessalia replied. After a moment she and her daughter finished their efforts, and stood back to assess the results.
“Well, that fits at least,” Anne said as she approached the older Thessalia. “Take it off, Kara, and we will return to the palace to prepare together.” She took her purse and dropped five coins into the old woman’s hand.
“My lady?” Madame Thessalia asked.
Anne looked at Kara, her eyes narrowing.
“That is a bonus,” she said. “I am very happy with my dress for this evening, and if things go as well as I expect, then I will pay you some more.”
I have missed something here.
Madame Thessalia bowed her head in respect.
“You are our very best and most generous patron, my lady.”
“But as I was saying Kara-Meir-” Anne spoke with a sudden relish, and Kara prepared herself. “-Theodore may be a knight, but he is also a man. A very good man in fact. Very good. And ever so eager to please.”
Kara went cold inside as Anne gazed at her in triumph. She forgot the dress in an instant.
Oh, Theodore.
The atmosphere in the carriage was tense as they journeyed back to the palace. Occasionally Kara would see Anne look at her with a superior smile. Caroline, for her part, stared always out of the window. When they arrived, Anne gestured to a man who was waiting for them.
“This servant will guide you to your room, Kara-Meir,” she said. “A chamber has been put aside for you in the palace’s guest wing, and your packs from your horses have already been sent up. You will be expected back down here in the Great Hall for nine. It would be most embarrassing if you were late, for you are a guest of honour.”
Kara followed the servant up the great staircase, while another came behind, carrying the dress that Anne had picked out for her.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she has found me room in the stables.
Her thoughts were so turbulent that when the servant stopped outside of a closed door, she nearly walked straight into his back.
“These are the very best guest quarters, my lady.” The man swung the door inward. A cosy anteroom led off through an arch to a larger space. “Three rooms-a bedroom, living room, and a dressing room.” He hesitated suddenly. “I was asked to find a servant for you. I know your friends have been appointed valets to help them, but apparently you have your own? Lord William de Adlard told me so. In fact, he asked me to tell you that he will be coming to see you shortly.”
“Who is Lord William?” Kara said, thinking quickly of the many faces she had seen in the royal box. She couldn’t recall being introduced to him, yet she knew his name from Anne’s scathing assessment in the carriage.
“He is a friend of Squire-” The servant coughed. “Forgive me, my lady. Of Sir Theodore’s.”
“Is he an honest man?”
“I really shouldn’t comment, my lady. But I do believe so.”
The second servant left her dress in the cupboard as the first man bowed.
“If you need anything else, my lady, the bell rope will call us.”
Once they had left, Kara lay down on her bed, dropping the satchel beside her.
Don’t let yourself get lazy, she told herself. Weapons first. Always they come first. With a sigh she got up and dug through her saddlebag to find a whetstone. Then she took her satchel off the bed and examined the daggers she had taken from the barn.
Could they really have cut Jerrod?
But her questions died when she saw Theodore’s letter, the paper’s edge protruding from inside the leather satchel.
She read it again. There could be no mistaking what the knight had said.
And yet it appears he has made his choice, she thought. What does he really want or expect now?
Someone banged a fist on the door to her quarters.
Kara hid Theodore’s letter back in her satchel before answering.
“Kara-Meir,” said a hard man with an angry face. “I have some property that belongs to you, by order of the King. Two items. Each of poor quality.”
The man stepped aside to reveal Pia and Jack. The boy gazed at her hopefully. Pia looked sullenly to the floor.
“I have also added up your bounty,” the man declared. “It will pay adequately for the money these two took off the people yesterday. That was, after all, your offer to the King?”
Kara nodded.
“That is correct. See to it that it gets to the right people… Captain?” She paused.
“Captain Rovin, Kara-Meir,” the angry man said, seeing her expression. Then he bowed stiffly. “These people are your servants now. It would not do for them to be caught stealing again.” He turned and exited. “Good evening.”
Kara ushered the two inside.
“So neither of you can read?” she asked. They both nodded their heads. “Can you cook? Can you sew?”
Jack nodded and smiled.
“I can sew. Look.”
He tore a false front from his shirt. It was stitched on only one side, like a door with a hinge. Behind it, upon his body, was a board of some sort with thick padding behind that ran from his chest to his belly.
“What is that for?” Kara asked.
“Show him, Pia. Come on!”
“I don’t have my knife any more, Jack,” Pia sighed. “Straven took it.”
“I still have the duplicate,” Jack replied.
The girl stood angrily as the boy handed her a thin blade with a weighted hilt.
She hates me, Kara guessed. She hates me for saving her and putting her in my debt.
Pia walked to the far end of the centre room, leaving Jack still in the antechamber, his cork board displayed. She spun and with a grunt drew her arm back and hurled the knife. It spun, end over end, and landed straight in the cork. At the same instant, Jack folded his false front across, hiding it beneath.
The boy was smiling.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Kara said tentatively.
Pia tutted angrily.
“I pretended to be you. Therefore I needed to demonstrate my skill with a weapon. We rehearsed this often. Jack would play as an urchin, and with a duplicate knife he would stab an apple a few minutes before we performed. I would then throw my knife into his board and he would hide it, holding the apple up. In a crowded room, with him at the front, it worked perfectly.”