Mouse sat in the back of the Council chamber, staring at the Empress as hard as she could. She had heard once that some people were born with unnatural powers that gave them the ability to make terrible things happen to those who crossed them with little more than a look. She now sought to discover whether she herself might be one of these chosen few, hoping that if she stared at the Empress long enough, her hair might suddenly burst into flames, or better still, her eyes might fall from her head and roll away across the chamber floor.

But alas, Mouse was doomed to be disappointed, for the Empress remained were she sat in her high-backed chair at the head of the Council table as unsinged and full of eyes as ever.

The last two Council meetings had been canceled, with the Empress claiming in turn that she was too tired or too busy to attend. But Mouse wondered if her sudden absence might have more to do with a certain grey-eyed guardsman and a desire to be seen in his company by a jilted favorite.

Mouse had already been reminded of what an ill-spirited, insufferable person the Empress could be, and now found she was being reminded of how insufferable Council meetings could be.

Lords Toffrey and Cook had been at odds with one another for the better part of an hour over whether a Caraspin silver coin was worth more or less than a Caldiffan silver. It was not until they had all but torn the hair from one another’s beards that the matter was finally settled by Ludger, who informed them that ever since the Teppish trade edict of some fifty years ago, the two were worth exactly the same.

The old man might have said something sooner, thought Mouse, shifting uncomfortably in her wooden chair, still sore as she was from the ride three days prior, but she knew that he took some strange satisfaction in watching the High Councilors fight among each other until they had made complete and utter fools of themselves.

“An empire of imbeciles,” he muttered when the conversation had resumed, at last turning elsewhere.

“An initial draft of the document is already well underway, Your Majesty,” Lord Eadic was now heard saying importantly, “and I must say that I think it to be going rather well.”

“Hmm,” the Empress murmured in reply. But she was not looking at Lord Eadic any more than she could be said to be listening to him. She had taken her eyes from the pink glass window where they had rested for the majority of the Council session and fixed them now upon the pumice chalice in her hand. Her fingertips drummed irregularly against the sides of the cup as she stared down at it in some quiet contemplation known only to herself.

Mouse knew that she could not be the only one to notice this strange behavior; in fact, as she looked at the High Councilors who sat gathered around the table, she noticed that they were all looking about at one another in concern.

However, no one spoke, that is until Lord Eadic cleared his throat. “However,” he began rather loudly, clearly hoping to rouse the Empress, “we will still require that Your Majesty—”

“How many men are posted on the Chatti borders?” the Empress interrupted suddenly, looking up at Lord Eadic as though he might somehow know the answer. The hook-nosed Councilor blinked at her in confusion.

“I do not know, Your Majesty,” he replied.

The Empress’s eyes moved to Lord Rambert.

“How many men?” she asked.

The High Marshall looked nearly as lost for words as Lord Eadic, blustering in confusion for a moment before responding, “In all, Your Majesty?”

“How many men on the northern borders?” the Empress inquired.

“Six thousand, Your Majesty,” Lord Rambert replied. “Ten thousand in the Chatti lands in all, but—”

“Six thousand on the northern borders?” the Empress echoed in surprise. “That seems a great many.”

Lord Rambert looked at the other councilors, as if they might understand better than he why the Empress would inquire into such a thing.

“It is a considerable amount,” he conceded when no one came to his aid, “but it is necessary, given their position.”

Mouse clutched her cushion, sensing the strange air that was beginning to settle over the Council. She did not like the questions the Empress was now asking any more than any of the councilors seemed to. She swallowed, her throat suddenly beginning to feel as her thoughts returned to the conversation she had overheard in the great hall that first night at Silver Lake, the conversation between the Empress and the Dietric in regard to the Chatti.

The Empress nodded slowly at Lord Rambert, contemplating his answer.

“And these are Arosian men,” she asked, “not Chatti?”

“Arosian indeed,” Lord Rambert replied stoutly, his thick grey mustache quivering with pride. “The Chatti do not have six thousand fighting men in their entire army,” he snorted, thrusting an elbow into Lord Eadic’s side and raising a laughing eyebrow at him.

“I wonder that we can spare so many,” the Empress said, leaning back as she fixed Lord Rambert squarely in her gaze. “We have our own borders to worry about, do we not?”

Lord Rambert opened his mouth as if to answer before seeming to think better of it and falling silent for a few moments.

“Your Majesty,” the High Marshall began at last, pronouncing each word carefully, “without our men, the Chatti cannot hope to defend themselves against any foreign threat that may move against them.”

He was right, thought Mouse. Without the Arosian army, the Chatti would be helpless. And that was exactly what the Dietric wanted.

“Do not speak to me as if I am a child, Lord Rambert,” the Empress spat back at the High Marshall. “I understand the plight of the Chatti better than anyone in this room.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Lord Rambert blustered, “I only—”

“If the Chatti would like our continued support,” the Empress said, cutting him off, “perhaps they should send a delegation to represent their interests.”

The room was quiet as the Empress looked from one Councilor to the next, daring them to speak. “But as it is,” she continued, “they have no presence at court.” She folded her hands in her lap. “How can I be expected to take them seriously?”

“I will speak with Emissary Badulf and see that they send a delegation at once, Your Majesty,” Lord Rambert answered.

“Good,” replied the Empress, turning to the Marshall. “They have one week before I take every man from their borders and send them south.”

“She cannot mean it,” Mouse said from her seat in the window, clutching the cushion to her chest as she looked down at the empty archery range below.

“Indeed, she can,” replied Ludger. “She is the Empress of the Arosian Empire, and she can do as she pleases.”

Mouse turned to look at the old man, furrowing her brow.

“She would still need a majority from the Council, and they would never allow such madness.”

“Oh, wouldn’t they?” Ludger replied, raising a bushy white brow at her. “Then perhaps they do not care to keep their seats on the Council.”

Mouse tried to turn it all over in her mind.

“If she takes her men from the borders,” she began.

“It would be very bad for the Chatti indeed,” finished Ludger. “Let us pray it does not come to that.”

Mouse dropped the cushion to her lap and looked down at it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Now,” said the old man, clearing his throat. “Is there something you wish to tell me? Something about your recent travels?”

Mouse felt the color begin to rise in her cheeks. There was much that had happened during her travels, much that she should probably tell Ludger, but equally as much that she would rather not.

“Where shall I begin?” she said, tracing a finger along the silver embroidery of the cushion. The cushion she held was not really a cushion—that is, its contents were something more than that of a regular cushion. For inside, Mouse had sewn the wooden box that Ludger had given her. She had understood, after seeing such a box on the Empress’s table, why Ludger had told her to keep in hidden; if she was seen with it, it was certain to be taken from her.

“Why don’t we start with the man who tried to kill you,” Ludger said.

Mouse’s eyes suddenly lifted to meet the old man’s.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked in bewilderment, too stunned by the question to understand it.

“Tell me about the man who shot an arrow at your head,” the old man said. “Jens, I believe he was called.”

“I don’t—” Mouse shook her head. “He wasn’t trying to kill me,” she said. “It was just that, well—” She searched her mind for the words to describe what had happened that day out on the field but could not seem to find them.

“Alright,” said Ludger, lacing his hands about the bulge of his stomach, his grey eyes watching Mouse. “Tell me about the man who loosed an arrow that narrowly missed killing you, only to loose two more when that one failed.”

Mouse let the words enter her mind and begin to uncurl themselves, feeling a strange, sick sort of feeling begin to churn inside of her as she did. She had not considered that the dead man’s arrow might have been meant for her. She could not understand why it should be. Who was she that somebody might want her dead? She sat quietly for a moment, turning over this disturbing new idea.

“How do you know about that?” she asked at last.

“It is my business to know these sorts of things,” the old man shrugged.

Mouse laughed, hoping to relieve some of the tension welling inside of her.

“I thought you were the Master of Tomes,” she said lightly. But the old man did not share in her levity.

“And I thought you were brave enough to face the truth,” he said gravely.

Mouse knit her brow together as she looked into the piercing grey eyes that watched her.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her fingers pulling unconsciously at the loose threads of the cushion.

The old man sighed heavily.

“Let us try another subject,” he said, shifting his weight from one side to the other in his padded chair behind the large acacia desk. “Tell me about the Foilunders. Why did they wish to meet with the Empress?”

Mouse averted her eyes, afraid that if she continued to look at the old man, he would be able to see through her.

“I cannot say for certain,” she said, though it was by most accounts a lie.

The old man grunted.

“You cannot or you will not?” he snorted. Mouse looked down at the cushion.

Perhaps it was because she did not want to believe that the Foilunders or the Empress, for that matter, were capable of it, or perhaps it was because she was not, in fact, brave enough to face the truth, but she did not want to repeat what she had heard.

“If you cannot tell me the Foilunders’ intentions, then at least tell me the Empress’s,” the old man said impatiently.

“I do not know,” Mouse said quietly, pulling a thread from the cushion and dropping it to the floor, watching as it floated slowly down from the window.

“What do you mean, you do not know?” Ludger demanded, his voice growing exasperated.

Mouse did not speak.

“You are the Empress’s lady-in-waiting, are you not?” the old man said. “And yet it seems that it is more often I who is explaining the motives and interests of the Empress to you rather than the other way around.”

Mouse swallowed, hoping that the shame she felt at being scolded by the old man would bury itself somewhere deep inside her with the rest of her many humiliations.

“You are not a child any longer, Maudeleine,” Ludger said, his voice hard and unrelenting as he spoke. “You have duties, responsibilities.”

I know, Mouse wanted to say, that is all I have, that is all I am allowed to have. But instead, she remained silent.

“A lady-in-waiting is not just some glorified servant who spends all day writing letters and falling asleep during council meetings,” the old man continued to chide. “A true lady-in-waiting is a confidant, an advisor, a friend. You could have the Empress’s trust, if you chose it. You might even bend her ear to reason from time to time.”

Mouse shook her head, fighting back the tears that were beginning to sting at the backs of her eyes.

“She would never listen to me,” she murmured without looking up. “She hates me.”

“Have you not considered,” said the old man, “that perhaps it is not that she hates you, but that she is disappointed in you?”

Mouse looked up into the old man’s hard grey eyes, as the tears began to inch closer and closer to her eyelids. The old man looked back at her, unmoved.

“Do you know why she calls you ‘Mouse?’” he asked.

Mouse felt her lips begin to tremble as a tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

“Because she thinks so little of me,” she said softly, bitterly.

“Because you have made yourself small,” the old man said.

Mouse let the words hit her like the blow of a hammer, as more tears began to spill from her eyes and roll down her cheeks.

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had spent her life being bullied and tormented and humiliated, and now the old man was telling her it was her own fault. But what was worse, she realized in mortification, was that there may be some truth in his words.

“You could be so much more than what you are,” the old man shook his head, “but you are too occupied with your own perceived misfortunes, too busy moping about and feeling sorry for yourself to instead rise to the task before you.”

Mouse did not think she could speak, even if she had wanted to. The lump in her throat was too big to swallow and the cruelty of the old man’s words was too much for her to bear. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do that would lessen the weight of them.

She took the cushion in her arms, and lowered herself clumsily from the window, pushing past the chair at the desk and hurrying toward the door. She wrenched it open, half expecting old man to try and stop her, but he did not.

“How now, Mouse? Where are you off to in such a hurry?” It was Johannes. How was it, Mouse wondered, that the last person on earth she should wish to see might be the only one passing through the hall at that very moment?

She kept walking, her cheeks stained with dried tears, hoping that if she ignored the smarmy nobleman, he would simply go away. But instead, he continued alongside her, determined to keep her pace.

“Is it true, what I hear, that you bedded some foreigner?” he asked, a crooked grin upon his lips as he spoke. “A monster of a thing from what I heard,” he said. “I cannot imagine it to be a pleasant experience for a little creature like yourself.”

Mouse could feel the heat burning in her cheeks as she gritted her teeth. The only monster, she wanted to say to the nobleman, is you. But instead, she held her tongue, hoping that she would be rewarded for her self-restraint by his imminent departure.

But Johannes would not be so easily dissuaded.

“Really,” he Johannes, tugging at the skirt of her gown, “you needn’t go to such lengths. I’ve been telling you for years that I am at your disposal whenever you should require me.”

Mouse drew a deep breath, biting down hard on her lip to keep her silence. Had she not already endured enough from both the Empress and the old man?

“Anyway,” Johannes continued, “not to worry. If the drink doesn’t take, I’m sure the Empress will find you someone you can pass off as the father.”

Mouse’s fingers dugs into the cushion she held fast to, wondering how much longer she could listen to the inciting remarks of the nobleman without walloping him across the cheek.

Johannes now turned to face her, walking backward down the hallway as he did.

“Oh,” he said, frowning upon seeing her face, “you’re upset. I didn’t realize.” He grabbed her arm, stopping her in place. “I’ll tell you what,” he said with a rakish grin, “why don’t you come to my chambers, and you can tell me all about it.”

Mouse wrenched her arm away from his grasp.

“I warn you, Johannes,” she said in a voice thick with anger, “I am in no mood—”

“Ah, but you see, the thing is, I am,” he said, grabbing her arm once again and pulling her toward him.

“What’s the trouble, Johannes?” a voice suddenly came from behind. Johannes dropped Mouse’s arm as she turned to see Ulrich approaching from the eastern wing.

“I did not see you there,” the nobleman smiled in feign cordiality. “Captain, is it?”

Ulrich said nothing, merely looking between Johannes and Mouse.

“I heard about your promotion,” the nobleman continued, “but perhaps I should remind you, I am still a Lord, and you must therefore address me accordingly.”

Ulrich looked at Johannes with an expression so taciturn it nearly made Mouse shiver.

“What’s the trouble, Lord Johannes?” he asked.

“Nothing as far as I can tell,” the nobleman shrugged. “Mouse was just walking me to my rooms,” he said. “She promised to tuck me in, accommodating little thing that she is.”

“Is that right?” Ulrich asked, though it sounded more a challenge than a question.

The smile on Johannes’ face turned to a sneer.

“You know, it’s a real shame you’ll be stuck in the service forever,” he said to the guardsman. “With a face as beautiful as yours, I’m sure you’d make some Lord very happy.”

But Ulrich did not rise to the nobleman’s provocation.

“Actually,” Johannes said, stepping back to look between Mouse and the guardsman, “I think we may have found the perfect father for your bastard child, Mouse. I mean, think of it: he’s got everything a lady could possibly want—apart from gold, lands, or a title, that is.”

Mouse looked at the guardsman, wondering how his countenance could remain so stoic when she could feel her own mounting anger toward the repugnant nobleman take hold of her every feature.

“And best of all,” Johannes jeered, “he’ll never have the nerve to touch you, because you’re a Toth, and he’s nothing more than an up-jumped little—"

But whatever Johannes was about to say, no one would ever know, because it was at that precise moment that Mouse brought the cushion across his face with a crack.

The nobleman staggered back a step, holding his reddening jaw as he looked at Mouse in stunned silence. The filling of the cushion had been enough to soften the blow, but not enough to dampen the impact of the hard wooden box entirely.

“Ouch!” Johannes shouted when he had at last regained the ability to speak. “That hurt, Mouse!” he cried. “Did you mean it to?”

Mouse looked at him, not feeling the least bit sorry for what she had done.

“Indeed, I did,” she said. “Be glad that I could not strike stronger, for I certainly would have.”

The nobleman’s expression was one of pure shock; the guardsman’s less so.

“And now,” said Mouse, “if you will excuse me.” She bowed. “Johannes, Captain.”

And on she continued down the hallway to her chambers, the most violent and vindicated of cushions still held in her arm, daring anyone to follow.