Arc 4: Chapter 20: Invitation and Reunion
I collected Emma, then we went to see Laessa Greengood.
Lady Laessa had been given quarters in the bastion. As a guest of the Empress, she’d been treated well since her arrival. I doubted she had any desire to return to her manor in the city after what had happened there, and with the risk of retaliation from the Priory.
A whole set of chambers and corridors in the bastion had been converted into something very like an embassy for House Greengood, with servants and guards belonging to the noble family moved to supplement Rosanna’s own household. The guards, given warning of my arrival, admitted me into a comfortable room far less cold and bare than the one I’d spoken to Laessa in before.
I found the lady painting.
She stood before a tall canvas set on a wooden stand in the middle of the room. Natural light provided by a set of windows illuminated her work, which she concentrated on with a furrowed brow and stubbornly pursed lips. She’d tied her shiny black curls into an almost painful looking rope behind her neck, keeping them clear of her face.
The figure she was in the process of painting turned out to be Ser Jocelyn of Ekarleon, the Ironleaf Knight. He wore his armor, his horned helm tucked under one arm, its pale plume hanging nearly to the ground.
When the maid announced me, Lady Laessa jabbed her brush at Jocelyn as though threatening him with a sword. “Do not move.”
The knight remained impressively still. I don’t even think I saw him blink. I might have caught a small quirk of amusement at the corner of his lip, but nothing more.
The young lady turned to me. To my shock, her dark face brightened when she saw me.
“Master Alken!” She tucked her brush into an ear and stepped forward, an almost feverish energy in her movements. Her eyes, very near obsidian, glimmered with some barely contained emotion.
I motioned to Emma. “Lady Laessa, this is Emma Orley, my squire.”