“He departed two weeks ago,” boomed Henri’s voice from the end of the corridor.
Someone made a sound of disapproval in the small crowd.
“Well then, who will marry her and the emissary?” Gertrude pressed. “I mean, Maximillian?”
“This is a Catholic kingdom, is it not?” Lilac couldn’t help the sarcasm dripping in her words. “There are priests everywhere. Those at the chapel in Rennes or Paimpont abbey would be more than willing.”
“And who will conduct the Le Tallecs’ funerary rite?” asked a robust woman who clung to her husband’s arm near the right-hand staircase. Unlike the woman on the chaise, this one seemed familiar; Lilac thought she recognized her but a name didn’t come to mind.
The room went silent. Then it was in an uproar.
“Funeral?” Gretchen nearly fell over herself.
“What happened?” gasped Helena when just Lilac stood there, not denying the truth to their hysteria. “For who? All three of them?”
“Just Vivien and Armand, from what I heard,” the woman answered before Lilac could respond, fluffing one of her red curls. “Sinclair is still in the dungeon here. Terrible, I know.”
“Where did you hear it?” asked Gertrude.
“Yes, tell us,” said Lilac, crossing her arms. “Just where did you glean this information?”
The woman didn’t seem bothered much being questioned directly by the queen. “Wendel and I were passing through Paimpont early this morning and stopped for a meal at the tavern, where we overheard. What a shame.”
Every eye in the room landed on her as they awaited a response. Lilac’s silence was deafening. She shouldn’t have expected anything different from Artus. He was probably garnering the town’s pity.
“I thought since it was news in Paimpont,” the woman explained, “that everyone knew.”
“That is enough, Agnes,” Henri said quietly.
“Agnes.” By the time they turned their attention back to Lilac, she’d left Piper’s and John’s side and made her way to the center table. On the way, she snatched a flute of champagne from the maid she passed and peered at the small, colorful frosted cakes arranged across the lace-strewn tabletop, dappled here and there with bonbons and truffles. Various shades of pinks, blues, and violet created the shape of a flower. “I don’t think we’ve ever met. Either way, that was not your news to share.”
Agnes flushed, taken aback. “Well, I?—”
“You thought since it was rumor you heard in the town, you’d revel in the satisfaction of being the first one to spread it here. At my fortress.” The room was silent. “You relish in spreading it, just as word of my Daemon tongue reached the moors and coasts without a single one of my town criers.”
Stunned at Lilac’s reply, Agnes gave a dramatically apologetic glance at Marguerite. Henri glared in the couple’s direction.
“I’m sorry,” Agnes whispered to them, pouting.
“Don’t apologize to her parents.”
Lilac looked up from the table. To her left, Piper was red as a beet, her attention fixed out the open doors even as she addressed Agnes. Every pair of eyes in the room immediately shifted to her. “They’re not the ones who’ve carried the burden of humiliation and public outcry.”
Agnes shuddered at being addressed by Piper. “No one askedyou.”
“My lady-in-waiting’s opinion is favored well over yours. It is, in fact, welcome without prompting.” Lilac lifted the flute to her mouth and picked the corner cake up, one that was blue-violet, the shade of early dawn. She turned it this way and that, examining Hedwig’s fine craftsmanship.
They would talk, regardless. Let her remind them, then, that the decision to accept the duty of marriage had been hers; she had not been cornered or beguiled into forfeiting her freedom. Lilac was no one’s puppet, and she and her circle were to be respected.
That’s what Piper was to her. Adelaide, Lorietta, and Garin. Even Bastion and Myrddin. John, Giles, and Herlinde, apparently. Those who didn’t owe Lilac a moment of their time nor a shard of respect, yet she’d never felt the need to question their loyalties.
Her mother had kept the women in this room close, only to be turned on once her family was in question and the stability of Henri’s power hung in the balance of their daughter’s fading favorability with the kingdom. In the aftermath of Lilac’s fifteenth birthday, no one had supported Marguerite. Lilac used to think they were too afraid to stand by their friend and former queen consort, but there was a sense of spite in the air now—one she couldn’t possibly have comprehended as a young child.
There was power, Lilac surmised, after years of her life being made so public over an ability she could not help, in holding some secrets close and forfeiting the need for validation. Her kingdom didn’t deserve it, especially those who would do no good with either truth or lie.
“There will be a funeral,” Lilac said briefly, licking icing off her thumb and biting into the cake. “Armand and Vivien are both dead. Plans are to be privately arranged with Armand’s father, and it will likely be held at the abbey. Sinclair remains in my custody. There was an investigation to be completed before drafting an announcement. You were supposed to be the first to hear it here, but it appears Artus had other plans.” She stared Agnesand her bewildered husband down. “News of it will go out to the squares today, along with my very first decree. Won’t it, John?”
Behind her, their scribe nodded. “It shall be announced in the nearest squares by this afternoon.”
