Page 7 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“Lady Katryen has asked me to help you dress,” Ead said. “If it please you.”

“I am seventeen years old, Mistress Duryan, and possessed of sufficient wit to dress myself.”

There was an intake of breath from the other maids.

“I’m afraid Lady Katryen thinks otherwise,” Ead said evenly.

“Lady Katryen is mistaken.”

More gasps. Ead wondered that there was any air left in the room.

“Ladies,” she said to the girls, “find a servant and ask for the washbasin to be filled, if you please.”

They went. Not with curtsies. She outranked them in the household, but they were noble-born.

Truyde gazed at the leadlight for a few moments before rising. She deposited herself on to the stool beside the washbasin.

“Forgive me, Mistress Duryan,” she said. “I am ill-humored today. Sleep has eluded me of late.” She folded her hands in her lap. “If Lady Katryen wishes it, you may help me dress.”

She did look tired. Ead went to warm some linen beside the fire. Once a servant had brought water, she stood behind Truyde and gathered her abundant curls. Cascading to her waist, they were the true red of madder. Such hair was common in the Free State of Mentendon, which lay across the Swan Strait, but unusual in Inys.

Truyde washed her face. Ead scrubbed her hair with creamgrail, then rinsed it clean and combed out every tangle. Throughout it all, the girl said nothing.

“Are you well, my lady?”

“Quite well.” Truyde twisted the ring on her thumb, revealing the green stain beneath. “Only . . . irritated with the other maids and their gossip. Tell me, Mistress Duryan, have you heard anything of Master Triam Sulyard, who was squire to Sir Marke Birchen?”

Ead patted Truyde’s hair with the fire-warmed linen. “Not a great deal,” she said. “Only that he left court in the winter without permission, and that he had gambling debts. Why?”

“The other girls talk ceaselessly of his absence, inventing wild stories. I hoped to silence them.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you.”

Truyde looked up from under auburn lashes. “You were a maid of honor once.”

“Yes.” Ead wrung out the linen. “For four years, after Ambassador uq-Ispad brought me to court.”

“And then you were promoted. Perhaps Queen Sabran will make me a Lady of the Privy Chamber one day, too,” Truyde mused. “Then I would not have to sleep in this cage.”

“All the world is a cage in a young girl’s eyes.” Ead laid a hand on her shoulder. “I will fetch your gown.”

Truyde went to sit beside the fire and finger-comb her hair. Ead left her to dry.

Outside the room, Lady Oliva Marchyn, Mother of the Maids, was rousing her charges with that crumhorn of a voice. When she saw Ead, she said stiffly, “Mistress Duryan.”

She enunciated the name as if it were an affliction. Ead expected that from certain members of the court. After all, she was a Southerner, born outside of Virtudom, and that made the Inysh suspicious.

“Lady Oliva,” she said calmly. “Lady Katryen sent me to help dress Lady Truyde. May I have her gown?”

“Hm. Follow me.” Oliva led her down another corridor. A spring of gray hair had escaped her coif. “I wish that girl would eat. She’ll wither away like a blossom in winter.”

“How long has she had no appetite?”

“Since the Feast of Early Spring.” Oliva tossed her a disdainful glance. “Make her look well. Her father will be angry if he thinks the child is being underfed.”

“She is not sick?”

“I know the signs of sickness, mistress.”

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