Lamentation

This, I thought, was how the real power-play went: conversations in corners and gardens, nods, shrugs, inclinations of the head. But nothing in writing.

I had made the suggestion to her more than once before; but it was an odd fact that the most difficult and hostile clients were often the most reluctant to leave, as though they wanted to stay and plague you out of spite.

Curiosity killed the cat, sir. Cats have nine lives, and perhaps mine are not all used yet.

One never knows if fools are always so foolish as they seem.

But those are all most folk can afford these days, with the rich land-grabbers and idle rout of nobles taking everything.

saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Let us work with Rich, and keep him close.’ There was a gentle knock at the door. Mary Odell and the Queen’s sister, Lady Herbert, stood in the doorway, bearing candles. They stepped aside to allow the Queen to walk into the room between them. Like the others she was dressed informally, in a gold-and-green caftan; there had been no time for the long labour with pins and corsets necessary for her to be dressed fully. Her auburn hair was tied back under a knitted hood. Under hastily applied whitelead, her face was tense. We bowed to her, my back suddenly stiff after the long day. She dismissed her ladies. ‘What news?’ she asked without preliminaries. ‘Please, tell me my book is found.’ ‘Not yet, niece,’ Lord Parr said gently. ‘But there has been another development, a – complication. I am sorry to request your presence at this time of night, but matters

Bridge; candles were being lit in the four-storey houses