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He advanced to the end of the passage and threw open the door to the oaken parlor. Freda, who was sat before the fire facing Gerold Ankatel, let out a startled shriek. Seeing who it was framed in the doorway, she sank back in her seat and pressed a thin hand to her meagre bosom. “Oh, Konrad!” she whimpered. “How you did startle me!”

“Kentigern,” Gerold Ankatel greeted him, rising to his feet. He eyed his son-in-law cautiously. “Is all well?”

Konrad recovered himself in an instant. “Your pardon, Ankatel,” he said, coming at once into the room. “I – er – did not realize this room was in use.”

“I am keeping Mistress Freda company this afternoon,” the other man responded easily. “As I find my daughter away from home.”

“Away from home?” Konrad repeated sharply. He shot a quizzical look at Freda.

“Oh – er – that is, Aimee received a personal invitation from the queen this morning,” Freda stammered. “A most gracious attention from her majesty.”

Konrad stared at his cousin a moment. “Oh?” he said testily. What the hells was the southern queen playing at, he wondered, taking such a particular interest in his wife.

“Indeed, she seemed very taken with Aimee yesterday,” Freda observed. “Really, she was speaking to her for an age. Nothing would do for her highness except to send everyone else away and have Aimee sit at her feet and tell her all about herself.”

Konrad felt a twinge of misgiving. All about herself? It seemed unlikely to him somehow that Queen Armenal would find the life of a merchant’s daughter so very fascinating.

“Well, well,” Ankatel’s chest puffed out. “The Queen of Karadok taking a fancy to my little Aimee! Mind, she’s a taking little thing, even if I do say so myself,” her fond father commented with pride. “Takes after her mother in that respect.”

“Mistress Ankatel must have been a very charming creature indeed,” Freda twittered and earned a beaming smile from the amiable merchant.

“Well, she wasn’t a lady, strictly speaking,” he conceded. “Her father owned some very fine vineyards in the east. But I have never found anyone to rival her. Not in my estimation.”

“Oh!” said Freda, who seemed almost brought to the brink of tears by these words. “Such sentiments do you credit, good master Ankatel.”

“Sit down, my boy! Sit down!” Ankatel urged. “For your cousin was telling me you were victorious yesterday, both in the melee and the jousting.”

Konrad lowered himself gingerly onto a seat. “Yes,” he agreed tersely. Seeing two pairs of enquiring eyes directed his way, he reached into his tunic for the leather pouch. “I just came back to fetch these,” he admitted and loosed the strings to show the jewels within.

Gerold whistled. “A pretty haul! They must have cost a small fortune, my lord!”

Konrad shook his head. “These have been in my family for centuries.”

Freda gasped. “Are they truly the Bartree jewels, Konrad?”

He nodded. “My father kept hold of them and nothing else.”

Freda’s face fell. “The diadem, it’s truly gone, then? And my aunt’s collection?”

“Long gone,” he confirmed. “Donated to the Blechmarsh cause. It would have been melted down.” He spilled the gems into his hand and pointed to three large green stones. “These are the emeralds from the diadem though.”

“Oh,” Freda sighed. “At least they remain.”

“I thought to get them re-set,” he admitted cautiously.

Freda clapped her hands. “For Aimee?” she said excitedly. When he nodded, she breathed, “What a wonderful idea, Konrad! She will be thrilled! Once I understood how things stood, I thought it such a shame that there was no family jewelry.”

“What do you mean?” Konrad frowned. “How things stood?”

“Well, er …” Freda flapped her hands around and turned very pink. “I mean, that Aimee has never owned any jewels, due to, um … her status.”

“Her former status,” Ankatel corrected her mildly.

“Yes, of course!” Freda said quickly. “And she owns that remarkably fine gold chain and such beautiful beads. The string she gifted to me and Trude are very fine indeed.”

Konrad opened his mouth to demand a clearer explanation, but seeing the meaningful frown his father-in-law was directing at him, he shut it again. What was he missing here?

“Are you heading in that direction now?” Ankatel enquired politely. “I could perhaps accompany you part of the way.”