“Where on earth can she be?” The Queen directed her question to a figure sewing in the corner. A pair of hooded eyes looked up and met her green ones in the glass. ‘It’s past time for the feast,” Laveth added, “Long past.”

            The old woman gathered the material in her lap. Nan Maura, Laveth’s own childhood brought from Glynnis Fen, was embroidering a pillow for the youngest royal head. She pulled a final thread and snapped it with her teeth

            “Go down without her.”

            “I’ll not leave you alone with the boy.”

            ‘I’m old, Laveth, not an imbecile. I can care for him for a bit.”

            Laveth rose from the bench. The two women regarded each other steadily; one young and fair, the other with black eyes no bigger than raisins peeping from the creases of her skin. A coo of doves filtered through the window; the child kicked and stirred on the bed. The Queen broke the gaze first, throwing up her hands in exasperation. 

            “I know what you’re thinking. Can you never leave me in peace?”

            “There is no peace. Soon, the boy will walk. What then?”

            “That is weeks away,” muttered Laveth.

            “Days.”

            Laveth walked to the great bed and looked down at her son, Ruse, named so by his father, and heir to the Casorian throne. He lay in the center of the linen coverlet, a milk bubble pooled in the corner of his mouth. With the tip of her finger, Laveth wiped it away.

            “He’s beautiful. I can’t bear to see him go.”

            Nan Maura rose to stand beside the Queen. In her youth, the old nurse had been tall and thin; now she was thin and bent. She did, however, manage to convey her former height as she pulled back the coverlet.

            “Beautiful for now. How will he look with his throat slit?”