The mid-morning sun poured in through the windows of the small dining room where Mouse sat sipping a cup of thin ale and gnawing on a tough end of bread. The ache in her head was at last beginning to subside, but the shame she felt at her conduct the night before was as potent as ever.

  It was not like Mouse to be provoked to anger. Her patience had been forged over years of practice, tested by the constant goading of people like Johannes, and seasoned by servility. Her resilience to the incessant needling of others, her fortitude in the face of insults and annoyances had always been her strength.

  What had become of her? she wondered. How had she allowed the General to get so far beneath her skin as to make her act in a way that contradicted her very nature?

  Mouse looked over to the far side of the room, where a little girl in a yellow frock shook her fists and wrinkled her face in frustration, struggling to free herself from the arms of her maid.

  She had not just leveled a powerful accusation at the General, she had made him a promise as well, a promise that his men in the Chatti lands would sooner or later be returned to him. And though it was destined to be the case, what had made her think she had the authority to say such things? She may be dressed in the Empress’s clothing, but she was not the woman herself.

  A horrible pit started to form in her stomach as her imagination began to conjure up the possible implications of her actions. Wars were started over less, and Mouse could not bear the thought that her indignation, her lack of restraint in the face of the General’s aggravation might stir up something that could not be remedied with a simple apology. She put the end of the bread down on her plate, what little appetite she had suddenly abandoning her, and dropped her head into her hands.

  “Are you well, Your Majesty?” a small voice asked. Mouse lifted her head to see Maria, the General’s third eldest child looking at her.

  “Very well, I thank you,” said Mouse, forcing a smile. “Only I felt a bit warm for a moment, is all.”

  She took another sip of her ale.

  “I can have the curtains drawn, if you like,” said Maria, “or the windows opened to let in some air.” Mouse replaced her cup, and this time her smile was a genuine one.

  “That is quite alright, Maria,” she said, looking into the girl’s eager face. “But perhaps you might recite something for me. Do you know The Bellman’s Elegy?”

  With this invitation, the girl’s face lit up like a chandelier, and she waited for no further urging before beginning her recital.

  Mouse had woken with a shiver in her drafty room just as the first fingers of morning light were beginning to creep under the bed curtains. Agatha had not climbed into bed until well after she had fallen asleep, but somehow in the course of the night, had managed to pull all the blankets from Mouse's side of the bed onto her own.

  Failing to wrest her share of the blankets from the sleeping Agatha, Mouse had relented to the chill of lying exposed upon the feathers and risen, her head aching with every movement. She had only time to splash some water on her face and don a woolen gown before there came a knock at her door and the invitation to break her fast with the General’s children had been issued.

  Mouse sat now in the dining room, attended by the General’s five youngest children, and apart from the servants, was the only grown-up person in the room. Privacy, however relative, was a luxury few would ever know. But such were the affordances granted the Empress, and so Mouse was given to delight in the quiet of a room little occupied.

  The two eldest of the General's children, Bertram and Inga, were absent, as they were both of an age to be elsewise engaged—Bertram as a page in his father’s household, and Inga, no doubt, in practicing needlework or some other ladylike pursuit. But the rest of the children, Mouse was pleased to find, were all lovely and fair and mild-mannered besides. The eldest in attendance, Maria, was nine years of age and tall for a girl of her years, while the smallest, Juda, was so young as to have hardly outgrown her nurse.

  The idea of Mouse's meeting the children had arisen from her desire to meet one in particular, namely Leopold, the second eldest of the General’s sons. When Sir Conrad had approached her the evening before in request of an audience, the conversation that followed had quickly turned to the boy. Specifically, Sir Conrad had asked whether the child might not be allowed to accompany the Empress’s retinue back to Kriftel. Leopold was nearly of an age to become a page, and Sir Conrad had expressed a deep concern that were the boy to remain at Pothes Mar, he would forever live in his elder brother's shadow, unable to inherit and prevented from distinguishing himself by a sense of familial duty.

  Mouse found it curious that Sir Conrad should take it upon himself to forward the boy's cause; however, she had been quite sympathetic to the idea overall. Perhaps it was because she had a keen sense of what it was like to live in someone else’s shadow, how crippling it could be to one’s own sense of worth to forever be in servitude to one who was, by nature, in every way superior.

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  Ribbons of warm light danced across the room as Mouse listened to Maria recite her verses while stealing glances at little Leopold. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the boy as far as she could see, nothing that should make one more sympathetic to him than to the rest. He looked no different than most children his age, and there was nothing in his manner to suggest he might be especially promising. But these were all superficial observations, Mouse supposed, just as the notion that there was something in his face, something about his sandy blond hair, which lacked the unruly curls of some of his siblings, that seemed, in a way, almost familiar.

  The boy kicked his feet happily as he chewed his honied bread, seeming to take no notice of the fact that Mouse was watching him. What was it about the boy, Mouse wondered, that had so attached Sir Conrad?

  Eventually, the children became restless, even Maria tiring of reciting her verses, and the remainder of the breakfast hour was spent in a game of copper kettle until at last Sir Conrad appeared in the doorway to take Mouse away to the jousts.

  Sir Otto’s black charger pawed at the ground, bobbing his head in anticipation of being loosed. His mane lay against his neck in tightly wound black braids, his dark eyes shining beneath the chanfron affixed to his head as Sir Otto sat composedly atop his mount, his gloved hands resting upon the pommel of his saddle. The gilded gadlings of his gauntlets gleamed in the sun as he awaited his challenger.

  At the other end of the list, a flea-bitten gelding threw his head in agitation, stepping back against the bit that pressed into his mouth. His rider, unaccustomed to his spurs, cursed in anger until the groom, a lanky boy of some thirteen years or so, came to his aid, taking his horse by the bridle in prevention of his backing out of the yard entirely.

  “All these half lords and hearth sons,” Sir Conrad said, leaning in toward Mouse so that his elbow rested on the arm of her chair, “more often than not, they’re on borrowed horses and in plate made to fit someone else.”

  Mouse smiled vaguely at the knight’s remark. She was more occupied in trying to determine whether Sir Otto looked familiar to her, her singular goal at present to identify at least one other knight whom she knew to have served in the Empress’s employ. She had been so certain of herself the night before, but now, in the harsh light of day, she felt a certain desperation to find evidence of her accusation against the General.

  The twinge of doubt Mouse had felt earlier was becoming an open sore, making her vulnerable to the infection of guilt and inadequacy. It was as though that singular instance of asserting herself had somehow upset the order of things. But she could not leave this thing half-done, she realized now. She must tell Cedric, engage the head of the guard and his men to see what they could find out. That was what she had told the General she would do, and that is what needs must be done.

  She leaned back in her chair now, having decided the course she must take, and fixed her attention on the field.

  Once the riders’ helms had been lowered into place and their shields and lances raised, the marshal sounded to release them.

  In an instant, the black charger was thundering down the list, his hooves tearing at the earth as he ran, while on the other side, the challenger’s gelding rose up on two legs before his feet came crashing back down, a cloud of dirt rising in his wake as he raced forward. Sir Otto, having the advantage of experience, was the first to couch his lance, and though it appeared for a moment as though the other man might miss his chance entirely, at the last minute, he was able to tuck his elbow into his side, bringing the tip of his lance in line with his target.

  It looked, in that moment, as though the points may land in any man’s favor. However, only one of the two was a knight.

  Sir Otto’s lance struck the other’s shield squarely in the boss, and rather than knocking it to the side as he might have if the other man had moved to deflect the blow, pushed it up and into the man’s chest, forcing him off balance and knocking him from his horse. The man careened backward, arms over his head as he fell. However, as his shoulders struck the ground, his right foot became caught in the stirrup, so that his horse, reeling from the upset, drug him around the yard until he could at last be caught by a groom.

  The crowd cheered the victor and laughed at the man being hoisted to his feet.

  “I imagine the only humiliation worse than being knocked down on the first pass is having to return home and tell your brother you lost his best mount in the process,” Sir Conrad said with the hint of a smile on his lips.

  “At least he’ll go back with his head still on his shoulders,” Mouse said, already feeling somewhat lighter about the decision she had made. “I once saw some poor man ride down the lists in a half-helm, and I'm certain you can imagine just how well that went.”

  “Indeed,” Sir Conrad laughed.

  The defeated man had recovered himself and was now making a show of admonishing his groom and spitting on the ground in front of the marshal.

  "Tell me, Sir Conrad," Mouse said, turning to the knight. “Do you never ride in the lists?” She looked him over. “I should think you a fine horseman.” Indeed, the man was tall and broad-shouldered, and though the better part of his youth was behind him, he looked somehow well-suited to the sport.

  “Your Majesty flatters me,” the knight replied. “I have indeed seen my share of the joust," he said, "but these days my duties tend to be of a more," he hesitated, "administrative nature.”

  The knight turned back to look at the field, and as he did, Mouse caught a glimpse of something in his countenance. Perhaps it was something in the way the light struck him, the way it danced in warm ribbons across his face. His dark blond hair was trimmed short, just long enough on the sides to curl back behind his ears, showing a strong jaw and angular face that starkly contrasted the heavy brow and ill-defined face of the General.

  “Ah,” she said, smiling at the sudden recognition, "far less dangerous but equally thrilling. Or is it the other way around?”