Chapter 18: The Wolf on the Wax

Linnet's POV

The council chamber was fuller than the day before.

Lords stood three deep along the walls, and the king looked as though he had not slept.

The viscount was waiting in the same black coat, with a flat leather case under his arm.

Edmund stood a pace behind him.

He looked fresh and rested, and he did not look at me at all.

"We are met on a new matter," said the chancellor. "The charge of embezzlement is set aside for the present."

My heart dropped.

If they had dropped the ledgers, they had found something worse.

"Viscount," said the king.

"Sire." The viscount opened his case. "Last night the king's riders stopped a courier on the northern road."

"A courier of Calder."

The room stirred.

Calder was the kingdom across the mountains, and the army had been fighting its border raiders for six years.

"He carried three letters," said the viscount.

"They offer to open the mountain passes to Calder's troops in spring, for a price paid into a Calder bank."

"Whose letters?"

"They are signed by the Duke of Wexmoor. And sealed with his wolf."

He held up the first sheet, so that the red wax caught the light.

I looked down at my thumb.

The duke's real ring was there, warm on my skin, and had been since dawn.

"Dated?" said the chancellor.

"Three weeks ago. Ten days ago. And last Tuesday."

I had been beside him on most of those days, and I could prove nothing by it.

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