‘I’m sure I can arrange that.’
Prince Ottone released her hands, straightening in his saddle, and Alinore resisted the urge to pull him back to her.
‘So you’ll return to Tormale with me now?’ he asked.
Slowly, she nodded.
Relief flashed across his features. ‘I passed a tavern earlier. I’ll need to stop there a while to get food. I wasn’t joking when I said I’ve been riding all night to catch up with you.’ He turned his stallion’s head in the opposite direction and looked over his shoulder, waiting for her to do the same.
Alinore hesitated, a question resting on her lips. ‘Why did you come after me?’ she asked finally.
Prince Ottone’s expression grew serious, his familiar playfulness fading. ‘To make amends,’ he said quietly. ‘And because … I was worried about you.’ Before Alinore could reply, he quickly added, ‘I know you can look after yourself, but I still worry. And so does Cress. You left without saying goodbye.’
At the mention of Cressyda, Alinore felt her old stubbornness returning. ‘A long way to come to say goodbye,’ she muttered.
There was a pause.
‘The truth is, I should never have let you go like that in the first place,’ said Prince Ottone, his voice strained. ‘I mean it when I say that you deserve a chance to pursue knightly training. I shouldn’t have stood in your way. I’m sorry.’
He looked at her with wide, dark eyes that held something deep inside them that she could not quite name.
‘Will you forgive me, Lady Alinore?’
She felt a rush of warmth that she tried desperately to fight off. It crept up her spine and pooled in her chest, soft and unsettling. She gulped, forcing herself to remain distant, to hold on to her carefully constructed indifference. ‘I suppose so,Your Highness,’ she managed to reply. ‘I can hardly say no to a prince, can I?’
He grinned. ‘If anyone could, you could.’
For a moment, he looked as though he was about to say something else, and the possibility of it hung between them.
Then came the sound of creaking wheels and they turned to see a wagon pulled by two horses rounding the bend, wooden barrels rattling in its crates. The driver gestured for them to go ahead or move out of the path.
‘We should be on our way,’ said Prince Ottone. ‘No one at Syonno Castle knows that I’ve left and I’d like to keep it that way.’ He clicked his tongue, nudging his stallion into a trot. ‘Come on,’ he called.
Alinore looked one last time at the road behind her. Then she turned her horse and followed him.
Cressyda
VOICES DRIFTED THROUGHthe window. They spoke in hushed tones, reverent and uneasy, murmuring first the name of King Samsel, then the Maiden Sacrifice.
Hearing them, Cressyda scrambled off her bed, blinking away her drowsiness. The same black mourning dress she had worn yesterday flopped, creased and crumpled, around her feet, the tight boning pinching her waist as it had all night. Hurrying to the window, she pushed it wide open into the fresh morning air. She peered down to see Lady Vienlia and her daughter-in-law, Lady Frankis, walking the length of the front courtyard below, arm in arm.
Cressyda ducked to the side so as not to be seen and turned an ear in their direction. She held her breath, listening.
‘It’s all very confusing,’ continued Lady Vienlia. ‘Are we supposed to pretend that the Princess never existed? What did the King mean in his address this morning that she would soon be relieved of her duties?’
Panic flooded Cressyda’s body. She had known this was coming, of course. Samsel had made it clear last night that he was going to destroy her. But it was still shocking to hear it said aloud by someone else.
An exhale sounded in response. ‘She’s not of royal blood and she never was.’ Lady Frankis’s words were tight and clipped. ‘As the King said, he’s putting the situation in order. It should’ve happened long ago.’
‘It doesn’t seem right …’
‘What’s not right is that the Pet has had all those winters of privilege when she’s nothing more than a fleckless peasant!’
Cressyda flinched. She could not remember ever having spoken a cross word with Lady Frankis before, but clearly that did not matter. Despite many winters growing up in the same court, this woman hated her. They had never been close exactly, but Cressyda thought they had always been civil and pleasant to one another. She had suspected that her position at the Queen’s side irritated many of the courtiers, but it was startling to have it confirmed so starkly. It was what she had always feared.
‘We’ve had to simper and curtsey to that girl when all along she’s no better than us,’ hissed Lady Frankis. ‘She’s a nobody, a nothing. Just a pet. Everyone is saying so.’
‘But the Queen’s wishes …’
