Chapter 7: The Saintess in the Great Hall

"I said nothing," Eskil said at last. "I did not know if it was true."

Thessaly put her pen down very carefully.

"It isn't," she said.

"You have not been here a month."

"I have been here long enough to know I am not going back."

He looked at her, and she looked at the tithe roll, because the way he looked at her was making the room feel smaller.

"Go to bed, Eskil," she said. "Before you fall over."

It was the first time she had used his name.

He heard it too.

He went. She sat for a long while with the ink drying on her pen and her wrist still warm where his gaze had rested.

The next morning the Saintess came up the hill anyway.

She came with one wagon instead of twenty, and no white banner, and a single priest to carry her train.

She came into the Great Hall at the hour when the lords gathered to hear petitions.

She stood in the doorway until every head had turned.

"I beg the Duke's pardon," Iolanthe said, with her hands folded. "I did not come to give anything. I came only to see my friend."

Eskil, on the dais, did not rise.

Thessaly did.

She came down the three steps in her blue gown with her hair loose, and she stopped an arm's length from the Saintess.

"Lady Iolanthe," she said. "You have come a long way in the snow."

"For you, Thessaly. Of course."

Iolanthe took both her hands.

Her fingers were cold, and her face was radiant with sorrow.