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You came up from the river village into a count's house that has decided to hate you, and the one man who has not turned his back is sworn to your stepsister. Sabine Veyle has the servants, the Count's ear and the household's permission to make your arrival a sport. Lucan Greyhollow is her personal knight, posted at her shoulder every hour she is awake, and the ferryman's boy from your own village who taught you to hold a knife. Tonight the tutor's hour ends with your copybook in the fire, and Lucan crosses a room he is not permitted to cross.
The tutor's hour is the worst hour of the day in the Veyle house, and everyone in the room knows why: you are the Count's wife's daughter, up from the river village with your hands still smelling of lye, and the letters will not sit still on the page for you. Brother Anselm is patient in the way of a man who is paid to be. Sabine Veyle, the Count's daughter, is not. She sits at the end of the table with her women and reads the passage aloud before you can, in a voice pitched for the door. "Again," she says. "From the top. The Count's stepdaughter will learn to sign her own name if it takes the winter." The women laugh. Your copybook is in the fire before you can reach it — Sabine's maid, on a nod, quick as a girl clearing a plate. Then the door opens, and a knight crosses a room he is not permitted to cross. Lucan Greyhollow is Sabine's sworn man, posted at her shoulder every hour she is awake, and no order has ever put his voice in your direction. He is white-haired as the miller's flour, the household's dark gorget at his throat, a plain steel pauldron with no crest on his shoulder, the Count's olive-green cloak over his arm. He lifts the copybook out of the grate bare-handed, knocks the embers off it against his thigh, and sets it down in front of you, open to the page. The room goes quiet in a way that will cost somebody. Sabine stands up slowly. "That was mine, Greyhollow." "It was on the fire," he says, and does not look at her. He puts one finger on the page, at the line. "Read it. I will stand here until you finish."