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incident, Queen Sophia forbade all further visits, declaring such exhibitions of emotion as highly unsuitable to a girl of my rank. I raged at her cruelty, but the woman's word was law.
    In her vigilance, or malice, or cold-heartedness—term it what you will—she barred me even from visiting my mother's grave. "The living require your attention more than the dead," she intoned. "We shall have time aplenty to attend our departed once they are laid properly to rest." As if in compensation, she ordered the masons to present me their plans for my mother's tomb. The block of rose-colored Ancienne stone they had chosen was lovely but anonymous, and the inscription far too grand for such an unpretentious, selfless woman. Even the title crushed me: "Princess Prudence."
Her name was Mother, or Pence; no one spoke of her otherwise. The formality of
Princess
and
Prudence,
the harsh and salivary double
P,
had no relation to the woman who had kissed my tears, assuaged my fears, and through her busy life provided me an unconfined childhood. I had lost my mother in life, and now it appeared I would lose her in death also.
    ***
    No news, good or ill, came of my father. No Drachensbett messenger arrived bearing ransom note, no woodsman raced to the castle gates with news of a discovery. Every dawn found me pressed to my library window, scrutinizing Ancienne for some sign of him. Soon as the morning rays illuminated the castle courtyard, I moved to the bedroom window, watching for the messenger who would surely arrive with news. More than once I saw my father stumble through the gates, gaunt or injured but beaming in joy at our imminent reunion; when I awoke from these dreams, my heart broke anew.
    Whenever possible I would catch the eye of Lord Frederick, imploring him for information, but he routinely turned away. At first I was devastated by these rebuffs, but I soon perceived that the gesture was made not for me but
for Sophia. Caution dictated that he display his loyalties to her and her alone, at least in public. When I encountered him in an unguarded corridor, however, he would murmur, "Nothing, I fear," or some such words that at once calmed and broke my heart.
    By keeping my tongue still and head low, I overheard many a conversation not meant for my ears, and so learned many facts and tales about the Badger Tragedy, as it was now called, and the fiendish role of Drachensbett. That no man had ever traversed Ancienne did not mean no man
could;
assassins trained in mountaineering might cross in only a few days, lie in wait for their prey, and retrace their route to escape. Indeed, in meeting with the queen after the interment ceremony, the king of Drachensbett had more or less confessed to the crime. Unfortunately I knew no details, for this conversation had apparently been so insulting that the queen forbade all discussion of it.
    Learning that the queen's white-lipped anger had little relation to me was some comfort, but still I burned to know how the king had managed to offend so thoroughly my nemesis. Revelation came at last during one of my interminable fittings. When I first moved into the palace, the
queen had not bothered to send for my wardrobe (employing that term in its most generous sense) of sturdy wool skirts, stained pinafores, and the thick-soled shoes favored by the mountain people: clothes meant for hard play and great adventures, neither of which was expected of me now. Instead she put her dressmaker to work on gowns suitable for a princess. Gleaming silks, lush brocades, fine laces, and delicate linens went under the blade in my name, though such fabrics had no place on a person of my temperament.
    The dressmaker, a sour-faced woman with a mouth forever pinched from years of holding pins, had as little interest in this assignment as did I, but as a loyal servant she diligently attempted to transform a kettle into a cake. Accompanying her were two girls from Market Town who found her bossy impatience a small price