Shana Abe by The Promise of Rain

peasant’s gown, certainly nothing suitable in which to be presented to the King of England.
    Yet it was all she had, and no one had sent her anything else. Kyla met Henry’s gaze without flinching. Beside her Roland was rising from his bow.
    “My liege,” he said now, taking a step back to stand beside Kyla.
    “Well, Strathmore, you have done it, We see.”
    Scattered to the corners of the room were clusters of Henry’s most favored nobles, advisers, ministers, knights. They grouped together in jeweled shades, radiating suppressed excitement, an occasional glint of metal from the firelight glancing off a ring or a clasp, arms crossed, ears straining for every word that passed.
    Kyla inched closer to the fire, trying to absorb some of the heat to take the chill off of her body. Both Henry and Roland paused to look at her and she stared back, unruffled, not wanting to say anything she did not have to.
    It had been hard enough executing her curtsy to Henry. In a private compromise to the wild thing in her that had not wanted to move at all, she had made it less deep than it should have been to the sovereign, not quite dipping all the way to the floor. She wondered if Henry had noticed.
    Her skirts grazed the edge of the iron grate; she twitched the hem away from the heated metal, now keeping her eyes lowered for fear he might see the wildness for what it was: disdain, humiliation. Anger.
    Henry’s left foot was partially in view, velvet-shod, ermine-trimmed, a tumble of royal robes almost covering it. The marble floor was slick, cream and white beneath it.
    The floor in the room assigned to her was not marble, not at all. It was the same dull stone that had made up the floor of the room of the French man she had visited years ago, gray and dirty and worn smooth in a path in front of the meager window, a path that suggested endless pacing by its occupants.
    There was a pallet, not a cot, and several brass braziers, not a lone candle. But the rats were still there. And the seeping smell of desperation lingered as well.
    She thought of spending days there, weeks, but could not imagine spending even this night in that cramped little room. She would go mad with it.
    Their arrival at the Tower had garnered all the attention of a royal entourage, with shouted greetings and trumpets announcing them in blaring bursts. There would be no cover for her, no privacy, Kyla quickly realized, and so set her mind to capturing the air of supreme indifference she had been practicing these past days. It was much more difficult here, in a place where she had been so often before. She knew these people, she recognized many faces, but still they seemed foreign—pale, shiny masks with glittering eyes and moving mouths. The babble of sound surrounding them had drowned out the actual words. She heard her name repeated, her father’s, her mother’s.
    Roland had held her arm gently but firmly, guiding her through the steps she had often walked in eager anticipation as a girl. Kyla was grateful for his touch, enemy or not; it was warm and comforting, it was human and sane amid the chaos of the moment. He kept her close to him, pushing past the gathering crowd, smiling and not answering anyone, just moving them along.
    Inside the hall the throng followed, lesser now in the imposing grandeur of the entrance.
    A man had come to them in elaborate livery, a guard, who bowed to them both and then indicated Kyla was to come with him.
    She had felt Roland’s grip tighten then on her arm. He seemed to want to speak but changed his mind, releasing her, stepping away.
    The guard bowed again, waiting.
    Kyla had glanced up at Roland, who gave her that small, crooked smile. She couldn’t tell what it meant, that smile. Be brave? Go to the devil?
    She had turned away and followed the guard, not bothering to look back again. She heard Roland begin to speak to the remnants of the crowd but by then she was beyond listening, beyond caring what he told them. She was