Page 300 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Ead grimaced and obeyed. When she had forced it down, Margret made good on her word.

She told her how Loth had volunteered to be the Inysh ambassador in the East, and how he had gone across the Abyss to make the proposal to the Unceasing Emperor. How weeks had passed. How wyverns had burned the crops. How a Seiikinese girl had stumbled to the palace with bloody hands, carrying a golden fruit and the Inysh coronation ring, which Loth had last possessed.

“And that was not all she carried.” Margret glanced at the door. “Ead, she has the other jewel. The rising jewel.”

Ead almost dropped the cup.

“That cannot be,” she said hoarsely. “It is in the East.”

“No more.”

“Let me see it.” She tried to sit up, arms quavering with the effort. “Let me see the jewel.”

“Enough of that.” Margret wrestled her back into the pillows. “You have taken little but drops of honey for weeks.”

“Tell meexactlyhow she found it.”

“Would that I knew. As soon as she had handed me the fruit, she fell down with exhaustion.”

“Who knows she is here?”

“Myself, Doctor Bourn, and a few of the Knights of the Body. Tharian feared that if anyone saw an Easterner in Ascalon Palace, they would haul the poor child to the stake.”

“I understand his caution,” Ead said, “but, Meg, I must speak to her.”

“You can speak to whoever you like once I am satisfied that you will not fall on your face while doing so.”

Ead pursed her lips and drank.

“Dearest Meg,” she said, quieter, and touched her hand, “did I miss your wedding?”

“Of course not. I delayed it for you.” Margret took back the cup. “I had no idea what a tiring affair it would be. Mama wants me to wear white now. Who in the world wearswhiteon their wedding day?”

Ead was about to remark that she would look very well in white when the door flew open—and then Sabran was in the bedchamber, dressed in crimson silk, breast heaving.

Margret stood.

“I will see to it that Doctor Bourn also received my message,” she said, with the slightest smile.

She closed the door softly behind her.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Ead held out a hand, and Sabran came to the bed and embraced her, breathing as if she had run for leagues. Ead held her close.

“Damn you, Eadaz uq-Nara.”

Ead released a breath, half sigh and half laugh. “How many times have we damned each other now?”

“Not nearly enough.”

Sabran remained by her side until a harassed-looking Tharian Lintley came to take her back to the Council Chamber. The Dukes Spiritual were poring over the letter from Loth, and her presence was required.

At noon, Margret let Aralaq into the bedchamber. He licked Ead’s face raw, told her that she should never walk into poisonous darts (“Yes, Aralaq, I wonder that I never thought of that before”), and spent the rest of the day draped across her like a fur coverlet.

Sabran had insisted that the Royal Physician examine her before she rose, but by sundown, Ead yearned to stretch her limbs. When Doctor Bourn finally came, he wisely judged that she was well enough to stand. She eased her legs from under Aralaq, who had lapsed into a doze, and dropped a kiss between his ears. His nose twitched.

Tomorrow, she would pay a visit to the stranger.

This night was for Sabran.

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