Mouse gets a mission

Mouse was not an idle girl, but her sudden elevation to steward’s wife had left her with very little to do. Lady Lili’s household had run smoothly for years without her. When she had hinted that she might be granted a task or two, her husband had not taken to the idea, and she had not mentioned it again.

She had not even the ladylike occupation of sewing. She and Ethelwyn occupied but one room in Sir Egelric’s castle, and her husband had already possessed all they needed in the way of towels and linens before she had arrived. Nor could she pass her time mending his clothes as a wife was supposed to do: Ethelwyn was such a neat and careful man that his very toes seemed to refuse to wear holes in his stockings.

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Stein sees another Sophie

Lady Sophie’s household had never been especially well-​run, but Stein and his bride had been kept waiting even longer than usual. Stranger still was Sophie’s arrival: she did not spring upon them with a whoop, as he had told Lathir to expect, but waddled in so quietly that they saw her before they heard her.

Stein stumbled up from his seat, pink in the face from not having been on his feet sooner.

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Wulf doesn't have a chance to ask

It was no great feat to have made it this far undetected, especially so late at night. If, however, the whispers of the maids were to believed, there was a real live elf behind this door, and Wulf suspected that a real live elf would be just as keen-​eared as he and Gils.

This was a mission requiring the greatest stealth, and his squirmy little brother often jeopardized even ordinary raids on the pantry. Tonight he was so excited he was hopping from foot to foot, and his bare soles slapping on the dusty flagstones were no less than an army of tramping boots to Wulf’s ears.

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Gwynn loses a dream and gains in romance

Sir Egelric was not a man to measure his tread, but this evening he came as silently into the hall as his hard-​soled boots would allow. His voice too was unnaturally soft. “Pardon the interruption, ladies.”

Lady Gwynn was slightly annoyed to have been interrupted just then, when she had finally gained the amused attention of all four big girls in the room. When she saw who had come in with Egelric and Ethelwyn, however, she was too overwhelmed to speak in any case.

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The Queen plans a princely education

“There you are!” Sigefrith panted in feigned exhaustion. “I’ve been upstairs, downstairs—”

“In your nightgown?” Eadgith interrupted.

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Alred considers a ban

Alred opened his mouth to say—in ever so many elegant words—how delighted he was to be thus interrupted, but he let it fall closed into a frown of compassion.

Hetty’s translucent skin revealed the play of emotions beneath, and he had learned to read them all. There would be pink blotches across her cheekbones for her rare bouts of anger; a pink mist over her entire cheeks for embarrassment, spreading onto her forehead and down across her breast and shoulders for passion; a pink nose when she had sipped enough wine to become silly; and pink beneath her slanted eyes when she had cried.

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Lena is spoken to

The elf Vash was composing a new song. It was what he often did in the evenings, but this was the night of the night-​dark-​blue-​sky-​moon, and Lena never knew whether he would stay in or go out for these. The fact that he ventured out during the night-​dark-​moons made him seem all the more godlike to her. Truly he must have magic that no elf could imagine.

But she was almost as impressed to know him as a composer of songs. Before she had come to dwell with him, she had never known—nor even wondered—where songs had their source. Since then, on several occasions she had heard coming up from the courts far below the strains of some new song she had previously heard him maundering in the evenings. He had made it.

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Ethelwyn Ealstan does something absurd

Although his wet hair and clothes would provide an excellent alibi, Ethelwyn nevertheless hoped that he would not be caught nearly naked in this narrow corridor. He would not mind being teased about it in the morning, but to actually be caught here now…

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Ethelwyn decides

“You really did it!” one of the guards laughed.

“I really did it!” Ethelwyn agreed.

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Ethelwyn walks out on the bridge

Princess Britamund had been born on the day after the feast of Saint Laurence. The birthday season therefore coincided with the time when the night sky sparkled with the falling stars that were said to be the saint’s tears. One week after his feast, Saint Laurence was still crying, though it seemed that his eyes were finally beginning to run dry.

Ethelwyn was not, so far as he knew, a man who cried. Surely a crying man would have shed a tear or two by now. He had been a stranger to his own life for a month and a half, and the knowledge that there were thirty-​one years of memory missing made him feel hollow and unreal among the other men, like a bubble floating over a field of stones.

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