Chapter 18: The Queen Moves Her Pieces

It is a truth well understood among the senior servants of Redkeep that the Queen's private secretary does not carry summonses himself. He employs a junior secretary for the purpose, a young man of neat appearance and cultivated discretion, who had been in post for three years and had thus far managed the complicated professional challenge of delivering unpleasant instructions with sufficient grace that the recipients could not, quite, identify the moment at which their day had changed direction.

The summons arrived at Edwyn's office on a Wednesday morning, which was in itself unremarkable. What distinguished it from the ordinary flow of royal correspondence was the seal — not the working seal of administrative communication, which featured a simplified crown above two crossed keys, but the personal seal of the Queen's household, which featured a lion in raised relief and which Edwyn's two previous predecessors had both, it was noted by the historically attentive, received within a fortnight of their respective downfalls.

Edwyn was not historically attentive in this particular direction. He examined the seal with the mild interest of a man who notices the quality of stationery, noted that the paper was heavier than usual, and broke it.