When the Saints

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that agreements negotiated in the dead of night rarely last as long as those signed in daylight.

The hour was late, but candles still burned in the royal palace in Mauvnik. After a long day, the king’s first minister was still in his office. Cardinal Zdenek’s working hours were legendary, even now, but age was weighing on him at last, and tonight he truly felt his years.

He had just opened critical negotiations with a wily and dangerous opponent. She went by the name of Lady Umbral. She was grandly attired in a gown of white samite, shot through with silk thread; her jewels would have ransomed a minor king. From her lofty steeple hat trailed a gossamer veil that hid her features. When Zdenek had met her eighteen years ago, she had seemed older than he; but now his hands were gnarled and obscenely marred by age spots, while hers, which were all that he could clearly see of her, were creamy and smooth. She might not even be the same woman. “Umbral” was just a title, like “pope.”

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