We both were lying, of course. Across the small of my back I wore three wickedly-pointed throwing daggers—fashioned for me by the armorer to be used in our entertainments—and while I had never used them as weapons, truly flung they had spitted apples off the head of Drool, nipped plums from his outstretched fingers, and yea, even speared grapes out of the air. I had little doubt that one might find its way into Edmund’s eye and thus vent his bitter mind like a lanced boil. If he needed to know he would know soon enough. If not, well, why trouble him?

“If not a fight, then a murder it is,” said Edmund. He lunged, his blade aimed for my heart. I sidestepped and knocked his blade away with Jones, who lost a bell from his coxcomb for his trouble.

I hopped up onto the lip of the cauldron.

“But, sir, why spend your wrath on a poor, helpless fool?”

Edmund slashed. I leapt. He missed. I landed on the far side of the cauldron. Drool moaned. Mary hid in the corner.

“You shouted bastard at me from the battlements.”

“Aye, they announced you as bastard. You, sir, are a bastard. And a bastard most unjust to make me die with the foul taste of truth still on my tongue. Allow me a lie before you strike: You have such kind eyes.”

“But you spoke badly of my mother as well.” He put himself between me and the door. Bloody bad planning, building a laundry with only one exit.

“I may have implied that she was a poxy whore, but from what your father says, that, too, is not breaking the bonds of verity.”

“What?” asked Edmund.

“What?” asked Drool, a perfect parrot of Edmund.

“What?” inquired Mary.

“It’s true, you git! Your mother was a poxy whore!”

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, poxiness ain’t so bad,” said Shanker Mary, shining a ray of optimism on these dark ages. “Unfairly maligned, the poxy are. Methinks a spot o’ the pox implies experience. Worldliness, if you will.”