oil lamp stood set in a rough niche in the wall. It shone on the dull grey of another heavy iron door, a big round knocker upon it shaped like the head of a hungry imp, the knocker’s ring held in its wide open mouth. A strange chill came off the iron, a cold wind lapping at my skin, even though I was pressed up against the wall in the corner behind the tall guards.
The chief guard knocked, and the door swung inward. “We’ve brought the other girl, milady,” he said.
“All right,” a woman’s voice said, crisply. The guards parted to let Kasia through. A tall slim woman stood in the doorway, yellow coiled braids and a golden headdress atop her head, wearing a blue silk gown delicately jeweled at the neck and waist, with a train sweeping the floor behind her, although her sleeves were practical, laced snug from the elbow to the wrist. She stood to one side and waved Kasia in past her with two impatient flicks of her long hand. I had a brief glimpse of a large room beyond, carpeted and comfortable, and the queen sitting upright in a straight-backed chair. She was looking blankly out a window down at the glitter of the Vandalus.
“And what’s this?” the lady said, turning to look at me. All the guards turned and stared, seeing me. I froze.
“I—” the chief guard stammered, going a little red in the face, with a darted look at the two men who’d been last in their party, a look that promised them trouble for not noticing me. “She’s—” “I’m Agnieszka,” I said. “I came with Kasia and the queen.” The lady gave me one incredulous stare that saw every snagged thread and every mud-spatter on my skirts, even the ones in back, and was astonished to find that I had the gall to speak. She looked at the guard. “Is this one suspected of corruption as well?” she demanded.
“No, milady, not as I know,” he said.
“Then why are you bringing her to me? I’ve enough to do here.” She turned back into the room, her train swashing along after her, and the door slammed shut. Another cold wave washed over me and back to the imp with its greedy mouth, licking away the last of my concealing spell. It devoured magic, I realized: that must have been why they brought corrupted prisoners here.
“How did you get in here?” the chief guard demanded suspiciously, all of them looming around me.
I would have liked to hide myself away again, but I couldn’t with that hungry mouth waiting. “I’m a witch,” I said. They looked even more suspicious. I brought out the letter I still clutched in my skirt pocket: the paper was more than a little grubbier for wear, but the charred letters of the seal still smoked faintly. “The Dragon gave me a letter for the king.”
Chapter 18
They took me downstairs and put me into a small unused stateroom, for lack of anyplace better. The guards kept watch outside the door while their captain went off, my letter in hand, to find out what ought to be done with me. My legs were ready to give out on me, but there was nothing to sit on but a few alarming chairs pushed up against the wall, delicate fragile-looking confections of white paint and gilt and red velvet cushions. I would have thought any one of them a throne, if there hadn’t been four in a row.
I leaned against the wall for a while instead, and then I tried sitting on the hearth, but the fire hadn’t been lit in here for a long time. The ashes were dead and the stone was cold. I went back to the wall. I went back to the hearth. Finally I decided that no one could put a chair in a room and not mean anyone to sit on it, and I gingerly perched on the edge of one of the chairs, holding my skirts close against me.
The moment I sat, the door opened and a servant came in, a woman in a crisp black dress, something like Danka’s age with a small pursed mouth of disapproval. I sprang up guiltily. Four long gleaming red threads followed me unraveling from the cushion, caught on a burr on my skirt, and a long sharp white-painted splinter snagged in my sleeve and broke off. The woman’s mouth pursed harder, but she only said, “This way, please,” stiffly.