Chapter 23: My Father's Answer

My father arrived at dusk, with mud to his knees and his hat in his hand.

I had written to him the night before, one line, by the fastest rider the captain owned.

Come at once. I need you to hear something before the king does.

He stood in the doorway of Maud's sitting room, tall and grey and a little stooped.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Linnet."

"Father."

He crossed the room and held me.

He smelled of horse and wet wool.

In my other life, the last time I saw him, he had been walking to a scaffold.

"You are thinner," he said into my hair.

"I am quite well."

"You are not. Sit. Tell me."

We sat on the sofa with the fire between us and the door.

Maud had taken Wynne away to be fussed over.

Alaric stood by the window, and he did not come near, because he knew this was mine.

I told it plainly.

I started with the ball, and went back to the locked wing, and then to the day they hanged him.

I did not cry until I reached the scaffold.

He asked one question, whether the clerk had a name, and I said I had never learned it.

I told him I had wanted to die in that room for a long time, and that I had.

And then I told him what I meant to do tomorrow, in front of the king.

When I stopped, the fire had burned down to red.

My father did not say anything for a long while.

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