“Pocket!” Cordelia sat at the center of the circle of girls—holding court, as such—her hair down, blond curls to her waist, a simple gown of lavender linen, loosely laced. She stood and approached me. “You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt, or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again?”

I tipped my hat, a slight, contrite jingle there. “I was lost, milady.”

“A dozen times?”

“Finding my way is not my strong suit. If you want a navigator I’ll send for him, but hold me blameless should your melancholy triumph and you drown yourself in the brook, your gentle ladies weeping damply around your pale and lovely corpse. Let them say, ‘She was not lost in the map, confident as she was in her navigator, but lost in heart for want of a fool.’”

The ladies gasped as if I’d cued them. I’d have blessed them if I were still on speaking terms with God.

“Out, out, out, ladies,” Cordelia said. “Give me peace with my fool so that I might devise some punishment for him.”

The ladies scurried out of the room.

“Punishment?” I asked. “For what?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, “but by the time I’ve thought of the punishment, I’m sure there’ll be an offense.”

“I blush at your confidence.”

“And I at your humility,” said the princess. She grinned, a crescent too devious for a maid of her tender years. Cordelia is not ten years my junior (I’m not sure, exactly, of my own age), seventeen summers has she seen, and as the youngest of the king’s daughters, she’s always been treated as if fragile as spun glass. But, sweet thing that she is, her bark could frighten a mad badger.

“Shall I disrobe for my punishment?” I offered. “Flagellation? Fellation? Whatever. I am your willing penitent, lady.”

“No more of that, Pocket. I need your counsel, or at least your commiseration. My sisters are coming to the castle.”