Seymour reaches Cleves and stops.
“Is that …? What has she covered him in?”
Cleves holds out her palm. The dragon sniffs it, then huffs warm air: she is allowed to touch him. She runs a single finger across a few of his scales, and it comes away with green.
“Paint,” Cleves says.
Seymour laughs, crouching to lavish praise on Howard’s pet. Lelij, hearing adoration for something else, lollops to join them and rolls on his back in front of Seymour so that she can scratch his stomach with one hand and pet Goldfoot with the other. Watching Seymour so simply happy makes Cleves’s stomach twist.
“Howard has sent us something, I think,” Cleves says.
The lapdragon hops off the parcel he dropped, and they open it.
“Oh, she is wonderful,” Seymour says, snatching one of the hard biscuits and crunching into it like it’s a sweet pear.
“She has thought of everything,” Cleves says, noting not just the thought behind the gifts – sustenance, healing herbs and clean cloths – but also the caution Howard displayed in camouflaging Goldfoot and not including anything identifying in the parcel. Something inside her relaxes. “You will outwit us all in the end, little songbird,” she whispers.
Reluctantly, they send Goldfoot on his way, back towards Plythe, and stumble back to the cover of the wood and a bed of soft ferns.
It is only later, as Seymour slumbers, head on Cleves’s chest, leg thrown over her own, that Cleves remembers how unthinkingly she pushed Seymour out of potential danger. Johana told her to keep running, and she did not. If she carries on in this manner, she will not survive. She cradles Seymour’s head, kisses her hair. She had better start running again, but tonight she allows herself to dream.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Howard
It takes only a matter of days for Culpepper to find the information she asked for, though she cannot fathomwhenhe did so, for he seems to shadow her. Applauding her when she plays the harpsichord in her music room. Watching from the tower tops if she takes a walk with her ladies. Nudging Florin aside if he leans in too close as they discuss Perfugian customs.
When he comes with the news, though, she is alone, in her own private chambers. The servant looks pointedly away when they tell her he is waiting.
It would have been more proper for him to find her in her study, even though she so rarely goes there now that Voda Kelaverinn is gone. But despite his protestations of loyalty, she is wary of angering Culpepper. Until sheknows, the way she knows her ladies, the way she knows Florin, she cannot risk alienating him. Still, she slips out of her bedroom and finds him in her antechamber, examining the veneer on one of her jewellery boxes.
When the servant has gone, he bows low over her hand.
“Have you been busy, Master Culpepper?” she says.
He runs a hand over the veneer, where a rose is picked out in cherry and sandalwood.
“This is fine craftsmanship.”
“It was a gift from my husband. Florin tells me it was likely made in Perfugi.”
He looks puzzled, then remembers. “Oh, the Dowager Queen’s young toy? You know, if I had realised who he was, I could have helped disguise him a little better than as a servant. He’d have been less conspicuous if he’d come into my service.”
“Well, no one has found him yet,” Howard says, moving away from the jewellery box. “Did you find out what I asked?”
He follows her across the room. She doesn’t know why his touching the box grates so – it is hardly as though the item means much to her. “It is very irregular. I don’t think you will be able to guess where the Moon Ball is being held.”
It is a challenge wrapped in charm. It reminds her of her first lover, who was so adept at delivering insults wrapped in compliments, then weeping when she expressed hurt.
“Is it High Hall, perchance?” she says.
A tight flicker crosses his handsome features. “How did you know?” Then, more shrewdly: “Did you engineer it so? How? How did you trick the king?”
She tilts her head. “You seem angry, Master Culpepper.”
He bites his lip, then smiles and comes closer. So close she can smell him – bergamot and peppercorn. “Forgive me. I only wish you would trust me. I could be so useful to you if you only told me all.” He sighs. “But I understand. You must be careful, and you have seen me close to your husband.”
“If I trust the wrong person, I and all who follow me die,” she says.
