Wicked by Jill Barnett

contingent was coming through. In the distance she could see golden brown dust still billowing in the air over the road. She heard the horses’ hooves pounding a hollow, echoing beat across the wooden drawbridge.
    It was probably only the King’s hunt party returning. They always rose at dawn, an ungodly hour, then went out to kill the animals in the woods. Sport was what they called it.
    In Sofia’s mind sport had nothing to do with killing animals that were a hundred times smaller than you and everything to do with water-filled pig bladders. She found herself smiling again, then she just giggled, because it was very, very hard not to keep gloating when gloating was so amusing, and she was all alone so no one would see her anyway. It was wicked to laugh so, but that certainly did not stop her.
    However, the sounds from below changed in pitch and caught her attention. There was the rattling sound of men dressed in mail and armor. The voices were many and unfamiliar. And there were too many horsemen. Those were not the sounds of a hunting party returning.
    Idle curiosity sent her leaning half out of the tower arch, her waist bent against the stone ledge, her long dark hair hanging thickly over her shift so she needed no robe to cover her.
    Her hands clasped onto the handles of the iron shutters to better see what was going on below, and she rose up on her bare toes. She could almost make out the first of the horsemen. Almost. His mount was side-stepping in and out of a darkly shadowed archway.
    The door to her chamber opened suddenly and Edith rushed in all excited, her voice almost a shriek. “Sofie! You must get up! Quickly!” She spotted her standing at the arch and paused. “Oh. You are up.”
    Sofia turned back to the window, staying where she was and trying to see who was below. “Aye,” she said distractedly. “I am up.”
    “Hurry. The Queen asked for you. I told her you were still in bed.”
    Sofia spun around, horrified. “You didn’t. I shall get fifty penance prayers for Sloth and have to sew with the Queen’s women every morn for a fortnight!”
    “Nay. I mean, aye, I did, but you will not be punished because then I lied. God help my poor wretched soul.” She made the sign of the cross. “I told her you had a great ache in your head.” She crossed herself again and muttered something about lying for friends that Sofia could not make out. “Eleanor said she would send Lady Mavis and Lady Jehane to help with your headache and to help you dress.”
    Sofia groaned. “Now I do have a great headache. Mavis and Jehane? Lud . . . ” She sagged back against the stone wall. The Ladies Mavis and Jehane were fiercely loyal and hell-bent to serve their Queen. The younger women of the court called them the Poleaxes behind their backs, because the two women were rigid as a mace shaft and they could slaughter you with their sharp tongues. Worse yet, they were Eleanor’s private friends as well as ladies-in-waiting, the Queen’s most trusted. Even the King’s men obeyed if either of them gave a command.
    Sofia sagged back against the stone wall. “Edith, tell me how can such a great morning turn into such a bad day?”
    “I do not think it is bad, Sofie. There will be a feast in less than an hour. You should see the panic belowstairs. The servants and the cook are having fits trying to prepare everything. The Queen herself has been seeing to everything. She says that this day is—” Edith cut off whatever else she was going to say and she looked suddenly ill.
    Sofia frowned for a moment, then turned to Edith and asked, “What makes this day special?”
    Edith shrugged and wouldn’t look Sofia in the eye.
    “Why would the Poleaxes need to help me dress? Who has come here?”
    “I do not know.” Edith turned away swiftly, her hand on the iron door handle as if she were trying to escape.
    “Edith! What is going on? What did you start to tell me. The Queen has been what?”
    “Nothing,” Edith