Page 211 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Oh, I think they would. If they knew she cannot give them an heir, the commons would believe that Sabran is responsible for the coming of the Nameless One.” Ead sat at the table. “That scar on her belly, and what it represents, would strip her of legitimacy in many of their eyes.”

“She isstilla Berethnet.”

“And the last of her line.”

The innkeeper had provided them with two bowls of gristly pottage and a hunk of stale bread. Loth forced down his share and chased it with the ale.

“I’m going to wash,” Ead said.

While she was gone, Loth lay down on his pallet and listened to the rain.

Igrain Crest was a tick on his thoughts. In his childhood, he had seen her as a comforting figure. Stern but kind, she had radiated a sense that everything would be well.

Yet he knew she had burdened Sabran in the four years of her minority. Even before that, when she was a young princess, Crest had hammered into her a need for temperance, for perfection, for devotion to duty. During those years, Sabran had not been permitted to speak with any children but Roslain and Loth, and Crest had always been near at hand, watching her. Though Prince Wilstan had been Protector of the Realm, he had been too deep in mourning to raise his daughter. Crest had taken charge of that.

And there had been one incident. Before the Queen Mother had died.

He recalled a freezing afternoon. Twelve-year-old Sabran on the edge of Chesten Forest, folding a snowball in her gloved hands, her cheeks pink. Both of them laughing until it hurt. After, they had clambered up one of the snow-clad oaks and huddled together on a knotted branch, much to the consternation of the Knights of the Body.

They had climbed almost to the top of that tree. So high they had been able to see into Briar House. And there had been Queen Rosarian in a window, visibly furious, a letter in her fist.

With her had been Igrain Crest, hands behind her back. Rosarian had stormed away. The only reason Loth remembered it so clearly was because Sabran had fallen from that tree a moment later.

It was some time before Ead returned, her hair damp from the river. She removed her boots and settled on the other pallet.

“Ead,” Loth said, “do you regret leaving the Priory?”

Her gaze was on the ceiling.

“I have not left,” she said. “All I do, I do for the Mother. To glorify her name.” She closed her eyes. “But I hope—I pray—that my path will bend southward again someday.”

Hating the pain in her voice, Loth reached for her. A careful brush of his thumb along her cheekbone.

“I am glad,” he said, “that it bends westward this day.”

She returned his smile.

“Loth,” she said, “I did miss you.”

They were riding again before the sun rose in the morning, and on they rode for days. A snowstorm had blown in, slowing their horses, and one night brigands set upon them, demanding all their coin. Alone, Loth would have been overwhelmed, but Ead put up such a spirited fight that they retreated.

There was no more time for sleep. Ead was in her saddle again before the brigands were out of sight; it was all Loth could do to keep up with her. They turned northeast at Crow Coppice and galloped up the South Pass, keeping their heads down as they joined the wagons, packhorses, and coaches moving toward Ascalon. And finally, by owl light, they arrived.

Loth slowed his horse. The spires of Ascalon were black against the evening sky. Even in the rain, this city was the beacon of his heart.

They rode on to Berethnet Mile. Fresh snow was a bordcloth on it, as yet untrampled. At its end, far away, loomed the wrought-iron gates of Ascalon Palace. Even in the gloaming, Loth could see the damage to the Dearn Tower. He had almost not believed that Fýredel had been upon it.

He could smell the River Limber. The bells of the Sanctuary of Our Lady were ringing.

“I want to ride past the palace,” Ead said. “To see if there are increased defenses.” Loth nodded.

Each ward of the city began at its gatehouse. Queenside, the closest to the palace, had the most impressive, tall and gilded, carved with likenesses of past queens. As they neared it, the street, usually busy at dusk as people flocked to orisons, was quiet.

The snow beneath the gatehouse was stained dark. When Loth looked up, the feeling left his face. High above them, two severed heads were mounted on pikes.

One was unrecognizable. Little more than a skull. The other had been tarred and parboiled, but the features slumped with decay. Ears and nose leaking rot. Flies on pallid skin.

He might not have recognized her if not for the hair. Long and red, streaming like blood.

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