Chapter Thirty-Four

The palace had seen better days. Miriam was doing her best to rectify the matter, with the help of Jenna and Ruth who were now in charge of running the household. She was in her element here, doing something for which she had been raised. If not here, then in her husband’s domain, he surmised.

Ketil realised he had never asked Magnus why Ruth hadn’t been released in the same way as Jenna. It was probably too late now. If anything, he assumed Daphne had insisted on hanging onto her, quite literally, which probably explained the tear in her kirtle. Newly mended now, of course.

The Masked King was still languishing in the dungeons but he could wait. He reckoned it was time for a proper talk with his half-sister, who had started to avoid Sigurd for reasons known only to herself. He caught up with her in the solar, a place he would never have expected to find a woman like Astrid, though the booted feet planted on a chair opposite the bench on which she was sitting said it all.

“Idling agai