Chapter 26

Evander's POV

Theo slipped in from the door with the face he wears when he has bad news that isn't his fault.

"Highness, it's the woman Mistress Dunne sent away earlier. A widow, Darrow. She won't leave. She's asking to see you. She says she'll look after the young master properly, if you'll only let her try."

"Highness, forgive me," Dunne said at once. "The woman has no idea how to behave. I've already told them to..."

I lifted a hand, and she stopped.

"Let her in."

Dunne's mouth opened a little. She knew as well as anyone how much I disliked women who wept and wouldn't take no for an answer.

I sat back in my chair and tapped one finger on its arm. "Bring her in. I'd like to see what she can do that makes her think she can raise her voice in my house."

Dunne bowed, very low, and went out quickly.

A few minutes later two of the house women brought her in between them. They were half holding her up and half holding her by the arms.

She was a sight. Her cap had come off somewhere and her hair was coming down, dark red, with a few strands stuck to her forehead with sweat. There was dirt all down her skirt, and one sleeve was torn at the elbow where somebody had pulled her. Worst of all, the front of her bodice was soaked through in two dark patches that clung to her. I could smell the milk from where I sat. It was strong, and warm, and mixed with dust and salt.

She got down on her knees, bent over as far as she could to hide herself, and spoke without lifting her head.

"Your Highness. Please let me try."

"Try?"

She looked up then. The window was behind me and the light fell straight on her face. Her skin was very fair, almost too fair, as if she had spent her life indoors. Her eyes were full of tears, and there was pleading in them, and something else under the pleading that looked like she had been wronged and knew it.

Something in my chest moved before I could stop it. My eyes went down to the front of her dress, and stayed.

Was that what this was, then? She had come to my house to put herself in front of me like this? Someone had sent her. She said she wanted to stay so badly. Who wanted her here?

"Highness," Dunne said.

I looked at her. She was looking from me to the widow and back, with the face of a woman who has been proved right and would rather not have been.

I cleared my throat and looked at the wall. "My house is not a place anyone may walk into because they want to. If you want to try, there'll be a price."

"I'll pay anything, Highness," she said.

"You've said it. Remember that." I turned to Dunne. "Take her and have her washed and put into clean clothes. She can't go near a pup like that. Keep the other two as well. They can all be tried."

The widow bowed her head to the floor, and then again. "Thank you, Highness. Thank you. I'll take such care of him."

I got up. "I told you there would be a price. I haven't decided yet what it is."

She lifted her eyes to me, wet and clear and grey-green, and a heat went through me that had no business there.

I had been offered women enough, and never wanted one, unless I counted whoever she was on that winter night I could barely remember. And now a widow off the street, in a torn sleeve?

I went out without looking at her again.

* * *

Wren's POV

He had helped me once before, in the lane behind the Hale house, when I was stained brown and six months gone and he had no idea who I was. It was why I had dared to say *anything*. I had thought a man like that wouldn't be cruel.

The washroom was full of steam. Two women stood waiting for me, one on either side of the tub, and neither of them looked kind.

The stout one, whom the other called Mistress Hobb, looked me up and down and pursed her mouth. "Well, Goody, what are you waiting for? Get those things off and get in. Look at you. Dirt from head to foot, and your front all..." She sniffed. "And you want to go near the young master."

My face burned. I crossed my arms over my chest. "Mistresses," I said, so low I could barely hear it myself, "would you wait outside? I can wash myself."

Hobb laughed out loud. "Oh, listen to her. Anyone'd think she was a maid on her binding day. You've had a pup, girl. What have you got that we've not seen? Get on with it."

The thin one was Mistress Grayle, and her face was harder than Hobb's. "If you want to be near the young master, we look you over first. Whether you're clean, whether you've any sickness on you. That's the rule. If you've caught something dirty, do you think we'd let you near him? Hurry up."

So that was what this was. Not a bath. An examination.

I pressed my nails into my palms. Then I shut my eyes and began to undo the dress, the dusty brown dress with the two wet patches on the front. My fingers shook on the laces. Every piece I took off felt like a piece of my pride going with it. I kept my head down and held everything else in.

When the last of it slid off my shoulders, the room went quiet.

I didn't look up. I heard Hobb draw in a breath to say something, and then not say it. I heard Grayle's skirts move as she came round to look at me from the other side, and stop.

After a long time Hobb said, very low, not quite to me, "Well. She kept that hidden."

Grayle didn't answer her. When I risked a glance, the two of them were looking at each other across me with an expression I didn't understand and didn't like.

Then Grayle's face went back to how it had been. "Turn round. Arms up. Now the left foot. Now the right."

She looked at my back, my arms, behind my knees, for marks, scars, rashes, anything. I did as I was told. The air was cool on my bare skin and I came out in gooseflesh all over, partly from the cold and partly from shame. I could stand it. For Sol, I could stand much worse.

At last they let me wash and dry myself, and gave me a clean shift and a grey dress that almost fitted.

"Mistress," I said to Grayle, "when may I see the little master?"