Mouse should have liked very much to stay in bed the next two days entirely, but as it happened, she was called upon the very next morning to join the Empress and the rest of the ladies in breaking her fast.

Though it was with a profound sense of anguish that she climbed from her feathers, the wear of her journey having set in with full fury over the night, she found that she was able to carry out her morning preparations with little hindrance, and so long as she was not asked to sit, stand, or walk, she thought she might manage with little discomfort.

Mouse entered the breakfast room, the morning light pouring in through the tall windows to the east, and sat stiffly down to table. Her anguish now began anew, her backside protesting ardently against the hardness of the thinly padded chair, and though her embarrassment nearly prevented it, she had no course but to relent and call for another cushion to put beneath her.

The other ladies gathered around the table continued to speak in hushed tones, casting glances now and again in Mouse’s direction. She was certain that they would later press her to discover the details of where she had been these last three or more weeks, but they would have to wait until the Empress was not in attendance.

Mouse did not begrudge them this, for after all, it was a lady’s duty to keep abreast of all the happenings of court, to know who went where and when and with whom. But under the circumstances, she did not think there was much she could say about their stay at Silver Lake that would be permitted to circulate.

She therefore entertained herself by formulating possible excuses for why she had been missed, including that she had fallen down an enchanted well and was forced to answer a series of increasingly difficult riddles in order to be lifted out, that she had become lost in the Zauberwald and imprisoned by an old crone before eventually escaping on the back of a centaur, and her personal favorite, that an enchantress disguised as an old woman had cast a spell upon her that turned her into an actual mouse, and she had really been here all along, only no one had recognized her because they were too busy eating sweet breads and cakes and spreading rumors about one another.

But Mouse was suddenly stirred from such reveries by a serving girl who appeared at her side holding a tray that bore a single cup. It was full of some green herby liquid that looked nearly as repugnant as it smelled.

Mouse felt the color rise in her cheeks as she took the cup from the girl, the other ladies’ eyes upon her as they whispered behind their sleeves. Her eyes went to Empress, who, though pretending not to watch, was no doubt congratulating herself on another cruel and needless show of humiliation.

Mouse knew what the drink was, and she knew what it was for. But she also knew that one did not become pregnant from a single kiss like the one she had shared with Torben.

It had been given to her, she was certain, not for any practical purpose, except to chasten her, to remind her that whether she was at Silver Lake or Kriftel or any other place on earth, she did not belong to herself, she belonged to the Empress.

It was a fool’s drink, Mouse thought as she held the cup in her hands, for she had been a fool to think that she should be allowed any degree of happiness without being made to suffer for it later.

She tipped the cup and swallowed the drink all at once, returning the empty vessel to the tray from which it had been taken, eager to rid herself of the attention the act had garnered.

But Mouse’s punishment, mortifying as it had been, was not the worst that might be dealt.

“Lady Agatha, I am so sorry,” the Empress said suddenly, setting down her own cup and pressing a napkin to her lips. “I hope it has not upset you to see Mouse take the drink. It is for her own good, and I assure you that you shall not be made to do the same.”

The flaxen-hair girl looked at the Empress in confusion.

“Certainly not, Your Majesty,” she said, eager to make herself agreeable, even if she did not understand.

“Oh, good,” the Empress smiled in feign relief. “I was worried that in your present state, such a thing may offend your sensibilities.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty, I am not at all offended,” the girl replied.

“Nonetheless,” said the Empress with a cordiality so contrived, Mouse wondered Lady Agatha herself could not see the trap being laid for her, “I should like to offer my apologies,” she lifted her cup, “and my felicitations.” She smiled at the dumbfounded girl. “Let us all drink to Lady Agatha’s great happiness,” she pronounced.

Mouse could feel her stomach begin to turn. It was not just the drink she had been forced to swallow, though it certainly did not help, but she recognized the glimmering malice in the Empress’s eyes and began to fear for poor Lady Agatha.

The girl blushed, and if she had been clever, Mouse thought, she would have kept her lips closed and said nothing. But as it was, the girl was not very clever.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Lady Agatha said. “I am certain that I am very happy. But I—”

“Of course you are,” interrupted the Empress brightly, taking up a sausage from her plate and placing it between her teeth. “To be with child is the greatest blessing one could hope for.”

All the eyes in the room turned to Lady Agatha as the color drained from her face.

“Oh, no!” the girl stammered, “Your Majesty, I am most certainly not—that is, I cannot—”

“Do not be silly,” the Empress smiled, swallowing. “You cannot hide your delicate condition.”

“No, Your Majesty,” the poor girl protested fervently, looking about as if someone should at any moment come to her rescue. “I cannot—I swear, I never even—”

The Empress delicately replaced her napkin upon the table and furrowed her brow.

“Can you be certain?” she said, with a tilt of her head. “For I am certain that I have it from more than one person that Lord Johannes was seen leaving your chambers on several occasions while I was away. And while Lady Katla is not here to remind us, we all know what a knave he is.”

The room had fallen so silent that the sound of a crumb falling might have been heard. The smile smoothed across the Empress’s lips could not disguise the contempt glistening in her dark eyes as she looked at poor Lady Agatha.

The girl now looked contritely down into her lap, tears falling silently from her eyes.

“Do not cry, dear,” said the Empress. “We shall find you a suitable husband who I’m sure will be willing to overlook the child’s parentage. Perhaps Lord Hildimar or some nice Chatti man.”

“No!” cried Lady Agatha, lifting her eyes to the Empress in desperation. “That is, please no, Your Majesty. It is not necessary, I promise, I—” The girls lip quivered as the tears began anew.

“Oh, dear,” sighed the Empress in false contrition after an uncomfortable period of silence. “Perhaps it is my mistake. It is only that, well,” she sighed, “you are looking rather round-faced these days.” She smiled softy at Lady Agatha. “But I suppose that too many sweet breads can do that to a lady, can’t they?”

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“Indeed, Your Majesty,” the girl said, her voice trembling as wiped the tears from her face with her palms. She tried to laugh, but found little success.

“Now then,” said the Empress, taking up another sausage and gesturing to Lady Agatha with it, “you will simply have to be more careful of what you put in that mouth of yours, won’t you?”

The Empress sat in a blue silk embroidered chair, a parchment covered front and back in elegant script held in one hand while the other held a small white cup that smelled of jasmine and honey. The tassels that hung along the bottom of the chair swayed gently as Mouse brushed by them, stepping around to take up another pin from the small silver tray that sat on the table.

The Empress has dressed simply that morning, too simply, and she would now have to be done properly if she were to sit Council. This meant that Mouse, as usual, found herself being forced to put aside the feelings of animosity and disgust which the Empress had excited in her and see to a duty that would not bend to personal feeling or preference.

A Seneschal sat idly in the corner of the room, satisfied, it seemed, to do little more than fetch the remainder of his own breakfast from between his teeth, while a boy with tight blond curls and the brave if premature makings of a mustache waited by the door.

The boy Mouse recognized as one of Johannes’ yeoman, and he had come, she did not doubt, to plead his master’s case in regard to the many claims against him in regard to Lady Agatha. But the Empress, her ire now incited, was more than content to ignore the boy’s presence, and it was a wonder he had not already been dismissed.

Mouse could tell from even the briefest of glances that the handwriting upon the sheet that the Empress held was that of Lord Hildimar. Though he had been in Council some three weeks ago, just before the party left for Silver Lake, she wondered if he had not gone east again. She thought of the garish collar and even more garish fringe he had donned at the last meeting and wondered if Lady Agatha knew how fortunate she was to escape him.

“Your Majesty,” the yeoman now ventured bravely, though he had not been called upon to speak. “I wonder if I may be so bold as to—”

“No, you may not,” the Empress said, silencing the boy without so much as looking up.

Mouse reached for a pin, placing two between her lips before taking up a third. The Empress, she reflected, had looked much younger at Silver Lake, her dark hair left to spill over her shoulders as it had often been. The gowns she had donned were of a simpler thread than those she wore at court, and she had looked much more the girl of nineteen that she was than she now did, with her hair drawn away from her face and her dark eyes glowering at the parchment held in front of her.

The Empress turned the letter in her hand over and sighed, tossing it atop the rest without finishing it and setting down her cup to fish out another. Her unexpected movement knocked the pin from Mouse’s hand, who knelt down quietly to retrieve it, wincing in agony against the soreness of her legs as she did. She did not know how the Empress could bear such exhaustive riding without showing any signs of weariness. She rose slowly, using the arm of the chair to help herself, and that was when she noticed something unusual, something which she had not noticed before.

Peaking out from beneath the stack of letters that lay strewn across the table was the gilded handle of a knife. Though she could not make out the ornamentation of it, concealed as it was beneath the pile of parchment, she knew at once that it could not belong to the Empress, for all of her blades were decked with any number of jewels, most of them bearing the mallow of Toth. Nonetheless, the blade was familiar to her, even if she could not say where she had seen it before.

The next letter was in a hand that Mouse could not immediately recognize, but the Empress gave the sender away soon enough.

“Ah,” she said with an air of amusement, her expression brightening slightly as her eyes flicked up to the Seneschal, “Batton’s boy is looking for a wife. It is a shame I have already promised Lady Agatha to Lord Hildimar.” She smiled wickedly, throwing the letter away. "I think she would have rather like being the wife of a glorified goat herd."

The Seneschal laughed.

"Batton's boy, you say? I didn't think him the marrying type."

"We are all the marrying type," the Empress said, "sooner or later." She cast the parchment aside. "Honestly," she murmured as she took up another sheet, “has no one anything better to do than sit around writing letters all day?” She turned the sheet over, examining it to see how long the letter might go on.

“Indeed,” said the Seneschal, retrieving a finger from the back of his mouth and examining the findings of his nail, “some people have too much time on their hands entirely.”

Mouse cast a glance at the man sat languidly in the corner, wondering if he could fail to see the irony of his own statement.

“I should nearly envy such a life,” the Empress sighed, “were it not for the putrid stench of the country and the ever-present specter of one’s own insignificance.”

The country. That was where Mouse had seen the blade before, she suddenly realized, her eyes darting to the handle once again. Only then, it had been fixed to the Dietric’s hip.

She crossed to the table and took up a string of pearls to fix to the back of the Empress's crown, trying to get a better look at the blade as she did.

“Your Majesty,” the yeoman said from his post by the door, “on behalf of my Lord, I simply wish to—”

"Oh, now this is rich indeed," the Empress said, cutting the boy off, "the 'heir of Vejle,'" she raised her eyebrows meaningfully at the Seneschal, "would like to request an audience."

"Would he then?" the Seneschal laughed, poking a fingernail between his two front teeth. "I did not know Vejle had an heir."

"Nor did I," the Empress laughed, dropping the letter into her lap.

Mouse draped the pearls carefully against the back of the Empress’s hair, wondering, as she did so, if the blade had been given to her by the Dietric as some kind of gift, a token of friendship perhaps—or perhaps something more. She had not been listening to the conversation passing around her, and so was with great surprise that she now found herself being addressed.

“Tell me, little Mouse,” the Empress said, “what did you think of our northern guests?”

Mouse felt a lump begin to form in her throat. She had been staring at the blade, hadn't she? She had not meant to, but once she had seen it, she could think of little else. The Empress must have noticed her looking at the thing and now sought to out her.

“They seemed to be good men, Your Majesty,” Mouse said, measuring her answer carefully as she crossed to the table to take up another string of pearls, “men who love their Dietric, men of duty and honor.”

“Is that so?” the Empress replied with a smile as she watched Mouse in the glass. “I wonder if you could mean all of them, or one in particular?” Mouse felt a blush creep onto her cheeks as she lowered her eyes and began to drape the second strand of pearls beneath the first. She already knew that the Empress had not failed to notice the attachment she had formed to Torben, but she did not like to be reminded of the fact, especially after the humiliation she had been forced to endure at breakfast.

“That reminds me,” the Empress said suddenly, a gleam of mischief in her dark eyes, “what was the name of that guardsman, the one who nearly got himself killed with a wooden stick?”

“Bo, Your Majesty?” Mouse said, fixing the second strand of pearls into to place.

“Yes, Bo!” the Empress said excitedly. “He’s a handsome creature, now isn’t he?” Mouse did not know what to say. If truth were told, she did not think that Bo was particularly handsome, but with his dark curls, clear grey eyes, and slender build, she did not see why someone else should not think so.

"What's this about a guardsman nearly being killed?" the Seneschal said, flicking something from his fingers. But the Empress did not answer him.

“It is a pity that he will not be able to fulfill his duties as guard for the while,” she continued, her eyes traveling from Mouse to the yeoman by the door, “but I am certain we shall find some other employment for him, what with Johannes no longer being of use to me." Her smile as she watched the yeoman’s growing discomfort was as that of a cat with a warm bowl of cream, an though Mouse felt sorry for the boy, she did not feel the least bit of sympathy for Johannes.

"Your Majesty, Lord Johannes would like to extend his most—"

“Actually,” the Empress interrupted, turning in her chair to face the boy, “you’re not such a terrible looking fellow yourself.”

The yeoman’s face instantly went bright red.

“How old are you, boy?” the Empress asked.

“Nine—nineteen,” the yeoman stammered, “Your Majesty.”

“Nineteen?” the Empress smiled. “That is a fine age.”

“Y—Yes, Your Majesty,” the boy managed anxiously.

Mouse straightened the strands of pearls hanging from the back of the Empress's crown and went to the table to take up a thick silver necklace set with rubies to fasten about her neck.

"No, the other one," the Empress said to Mouse, indicating a wooden box that sat on the corner of table, "just there." Mouse returned the necklace the table and took up the box, rubbing a thumb against the brass latch as she stared down at it.

“Do you enjoy your life here at court?” she heard the Empress ask the yeoman, though her own attention remained on the box in her hands, the polished wood smooth and supple.

“Y—Yes, Your Majesty,” the boy replied. "Very much."

Mouse traced a finger across the ivy engraved into the lid. It was the same box, she realized, or at least very nearly the same, as the one that sat nestled beneath her mattress, the one Ludger had given her. She swallowed down the strange feeling in her throat, lifting her eyes to look at the Empress in the glass.

“Well then," the Empress smiled at the yeoman, her dark eyes glistening, "I suggest that you get the hell out of my chambers if you want to live to see twenty.”