Chapter 16: Five Winters South

The last page of the five years was a treaty annex about salt.

Thessaly signed it with the same hand that had signed the other eleven hundred.

"That is the end of it," the Queen of Sunhallow said.

They sat in the small study above the harbor.

The sun came in sideways across the desk and the sea was loud under the window.

Thessaly blotted the signature and set down the pen.

She was twenty-seven.

Her auburn hair had been cut to her shoulder in the second year.

The court wore it that way, and she had needed something to change.

At her collar hung the black-and-silver chain of the Chancellor of Letters, the Queen's own office, which no ward had ever held.

"Five years yesterday, Your Majesty," she said.

"I know." The Queen turned the signed page and studied it. "I have not had a better secretary in thirty years."

"I would give you the Treasury, if you would stay."

"You have offered."

"I have offered twice. I see I am to hear it again," said the Queen.

"I am going home."

"To a cold keep," said the Queen, "and a man who has not written you a single line."

Thessaly's hand went to her breastbone.

Under the silk of her gown, on a leather cord, lay an iron key.

She had not taken it off in five years.

She had written to Eskil every month in the first two years, and every season in the third.

She had written, I am thinking of you.