Ethelwyn awaits his fate

The dancing broke up immediately when the door was opened onto the inner court, letting in a blast of cold air as well as Sir Sigefrith and two ladies.

“Sigefrith’s here!” the Duke cried.

“Sigefrith’s here!” Sigefrith repeated. “And it’s a lucky thing for you that we made it! Good Lord, how the snow is coming down!”

“It’s about time,” Egelric growled, “after threatening it for two days!”

Ethelwyn laughed to himself. He thought Egelric was only sore at the sky for proving his weather-​​predicting abilities fallible.

“Oh, now how shall I get home?” Sophie whined.

“The roads should be clear by spring, Soph,” Sigefrith reassured her.

“Ha ha! And my baby will be walking!”

“Then he can meet you halfway. Good evening everyone! I brought you some ladies, in case you were running low.”

“We were one short, so that is welcome news,” Hetty said.

Ethelwyn was trying to get a glimpse of this Mouse person, but he was too well aware of his own rank to push himself forward past these nobles and knights and ladies.

“Poor Hetty, look at the size of you already!” Sigefrith laughed. “With the snow we’re having, we’ll be stuck here long enough for you to present us with another lady or gentleman to make things uneven again.”

“But if she contrives to have another gentleman,” Alred said, “which I think she will, then she will be able to dance again, and the balance will remain even.”

“And if she has another lady?”

“Can two more beautiful ladies ever be too many?”

“I see your point,” Sigefrith smiled.

And then Ethelwyn saw her.

For the first few moments he thought that Lady Wynflaed had brought her maid into the party, which he found to be in rather poor taste. His impressions of Red Boots had built up over the past month and a half to form a sturdy enough edifice that it took more than the sight of the maid in a fine dress to knock it down. He even wondered whether it had not been Red Boots herself to contrive to get herself admitted in order to humiliate him not only in public, but even before his friends.

And then Ethelwyn understood.

It was not that the person he called Red Boots had never existed. In fact, it seemed she was crueler than he thought, for she had allowed him to continue in the belief that she was only a maid.

She should have told him the truth at once. He would even admit that she had had every right to have been indignant on that first day on the stairs. He had been rude. To Lady Wynflaed’s sister he had been rude indeed, but even to a maid he had been rude – he would admit that too. He was always grouchy when his ears ached with cold. It was no excuse, but it was true.

But this – this – this deliberately misleading him so that she could continue to mock him for treating Lady Wynflaed’s sister like a maid… It was beyond rude. It was a cruel trick.

And at the sight of Sir Egelric and Lady Lili exchanging a conspiratorial smile, he began to wonder how many other people were in on it.

Had they all planned this party for the sole purpose of humiliating him? Egelric and Alred? Mouse in Red Boots too? And the Duchess? Was it possible that she could even allow such a thing, much less participate in its making?

Ethelwyn had not felt so miserable nor so alone since he had been a boy, too ill to run and play and fight with the other boys, mocked for being so weak and pale, tormented and humiliated as only boys and depraved men can do.

From Egelric he could believe it. He had heard stories of his master’s youth that made his skin crawl with sympathy for the boys Egelric had bullied.

In the Duke he was disappointed. Alred was ordinarily a kind man, but Ethelwyn supposed he so loved his jokes that he might occasionally be tempted to take them too far.

But the Duchess. She had wanted to see him crow, he thought, but more than that she seemed to want to see him cry. He had thought his heart had been broken when her marriage had been announced, but that had only been a hairline crack compared to this.

Ethelwyn would not run. He was strong now, but the lessons he had learned in his youth had remained with him. In his mind he still could not outrun the others.

He did what he had always done: he crept away to the most shadowy, most secluded place he could find, and he awaited them.