Chapter 13: Ruined

For one breath the great hall was so quiet I heard a candle gutter.

Then four hundred people started talking at once.

A lady near the pillars sat down hard on the edge of a bench.

Somebody laughed, high and shocked, and turned it into a cough.

Alistair didn't look at any of them.

He looked at the Duke.

"You asked who she was with," he said. "Now you know. Write it on your page."

The Duke folded the guard's report very slowly.

His thin mouth curled up at one corner.

"Thank you, cousin," he said. "That's a great deal more than I hoped to prove."

He turned to the court and spread his white hands.

"The Crown Prince's mistress," he said. "Down in the King's still room, by her own lover's word."

"Which shall we write first, my lords? The poison, or the whore?"

I felt Alistair move beside me.

I put my hand flat on his arm, and he stopped.

Father came up the steps of the dais one at a time.

He didn't look at me.

He looked at the court, and his eyes were wet.

"My lords," he said. "I came to this palace with two daughters."

His voice cracked in exactly the right place.

"I have one."

He held up the green paper so they could all see it.

"Elinor Pellow is no child of mine. She doesn't carry my name. She doesn't set foot in my shop. God forgive me for raising her."

A murmur ran down the hall.

"Sir Oswin," I said. "You're holding the paper you put in my kit."

"You see?" Father said to the ladies. "Even now."

He pressed his handkerchief to his eyes.

Behind him, the Duke smiled at the empty throne.

Then Blanche walked out of the crowd.

She was in her lilac gown with her magnifying glass on its ribbon, and she wasn't hurrying.

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