The Four Suitors

By Sophie Jupillat Posey

Quick-witted and confident, Princess Laetitia of Avaritia always gets what she wants—until her 17th nameday ball. The King and Queen, believing marriage will rein in their daughter's rebellious nature, surprise the Princess with not one, but four suitors: a philosopher, an astronomer, an artist and a necromancer. 

If Laetitia can't learn at least one suitor's craft and prove herself to be a worthy wife, she will lose her crown—the one thing she cares about most. Laetitia irks her suitors as much as she can while learning as little as possible about them—and their so-called "crafts." 

But when she and Sir Blaxton resurrect one of the many peasants who have died recently from an unprecedented disease, the corpse's cryptic words about his death set them on a race to find answers: What is the disease? How is it spreading so quickly? And why is it affecting only the peasants? 

As Laetitia tries to find answers, she uncovers a web of corruption with a stranglehold on her kingdom. Like it or not, she's going to need the help of all four of her suitors—even if they end up putting their own lives on the line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sophie Jupillat Posey
• Release date: Aug 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781536586756

Book preview

Prologue

THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD summon her at the vizier’s behest, did they? Her parents dared send servants she’d expertly given the slip to earlier, in order to force her back to the castle? She should have known such temerity would come from the king and queen’s association with this blasted vizier. Vizier Lazro. Even the name was stupid.

Princess Laetitia, heir to the Kingdom of Avaritia, the White Dove of the Line of Thadeya, if you please, rode into the stables, cracking her reins sharply. She barely spared a glance at the constable, who sputtered incoherently at her, or at her friend, Princess Morena, behind her, huffing as she struggled to dismount. Laetitia threw off her gauntlets and marched through the granary into the kitchen. The smell of cooking boar with coriander wafted to her, along with the subtler aromatic scent of manchet. Her mouth watered, and she snatched a piece of manchet the cooks had set aside. She ignored their squeals of dismay and proceeded on to the Great Hall.

Her parents, King Leonardus and Queen Maloria, sat on their thrones, more than a little annoyed. Vizier Lazro paced beside them, rubbing his chin, banging his staff irritably on the stone floor. He stopped as soon as he saw Laetitia. Morena’s footsteps stopped behind her. Laetitia sensed Morena bowing, but Laetitia herself did not.

Laetitia, daughter, we have important matters to discuss with you. Her mother leaned forward, her turquoise-colored tunic draping to the floor over bejeweled slippers, the fur trim dangling ridiculously from the hem of her gown.

You have shown much disrespect to our vizier and to us, her father said, deep creases between his bushy brows.

Morena, you may go now to your chamber. You can take a horse in the morning and our servants will escort you back to your palace, the queen said.

All right. Thank you, Your Highness, Morena said, bowing again and shooting an apologetic look at Laetitia.

Morena squeezed Laetitia’s hand in passing as she left the hall.

Laetitia, the vizier has informed us that your behavior is dreadful. You are constantly disrespecting him and the servants we have assigned to you. You wander away from the palace without informing anybody, at great risk. You are the princess. Act like one! Assume some responsibilities, her mother said.

Laetitia smirked. If only that were it. Off the top of her head, she could recite more antics: throwing rotting pears at the vizier’s face, smearing toadstools on the saddle of his horse, breaking his staff before important gatherings so he was forced to hobble in public, putting rocks under the soles of his boots, and sprinkling pepper on his wigs so he sneezed nonstop.

Vizier Lazro cleared his throat.

I have called the king and queen’s attention to more than just your despicable behavior. I find it appalling that a child of monarchy has no knowledge whatsoever. Your friend, the Princess Morena, has already started studies in the sciences, the arts, politics, economics. She is studying to be queen. You will be queen of one of the most prominent kingdoms in the realm and yet you know nothing. You are as ignorant as a babe. It is shameful. You must start lessons promptly to school you into becoming a wise, just queen. After a moment, he grimaced and coughed, My Princess.

Laetitia opened her mouth to speak but her father rose, his mantle sumptuous and blood-red over his horrid, yellow breeches and lime-green waistcoat.

Laetitia, you know that we consider you an intelligent child, with the seeds of wisdom and gentleness deep within you. But Vizier Lazro is right. You have no schooling. You have much to learn about the throne and your kingdom. The queen and I have decided to assign you tutors and mistresses, to school you where you lack knowledge. You will have lessons every day. You will be taught how to housekeep, sew, weave, and spin. You will be taught to ride formally, to speak correctly, to dance properly, to sing and play an instrument. You will be taught to read, write, and discourse in our native language and in the languages of our allied kingdoms. You will be taught in the knowledge of grammar, logic, rhetoric, astrology, politics, and mathematics. This is our final decision.

Laetitia’s head spun. It was all so much. Her voice echoed shrilly through the hall as she scolded them all.

I am 11 years of age. Why should I learn to sew and weave? My servants and handmaidens can do that for me. Singing and playing an instrument? Our people will think I am putting on airs. And astrology and mathematics? Those are useless. Other people can do them for me. I don’t want to!

No arguing, Princess. Your lessons start tomorrow, the vizier said, pleased with himself.

Laetitia narrowed her eyes.

I demand that my tutors be the same as Princess Morena’s.

The king and queen shook their heads.

The Princess Morena is learning things you won’t need. There are things that you will need to know that she won’t. No, we have chosen tutors just for you. Respect them, Laetitia.

Laetitia shook her head in horror. She cast a flaming look at the vizier, who returned it. He smirked. Oh, she’d make them pay. All of them. They were going to regret having even thought of schooling her.

PRINCESS! HER SEWING and weaving tutor’s scream only made Laetitia’s fingers slip a little, as she continued to sew her tutor’s fingers together with gingerline thread. Her tutor’s free hand gripped at her tied-up hand, trying to pick at the needle and thread, but she couldn’t do anything decisive; no one could touch the princess without permission.

Laetitia continued her work then winced as the needle slipped and pierced her tutor’s thumb. The color drained from the girl’s face; not much older than Laetitia, the tutor fainted. Laetitia stood up and brushed the snarls and broken threads from her kirtle. She surveyed her handiwork in the chamber: bolts of cloth she’d stomped on still bore her footprints, and beautiful layers of fabric sported massive rips and tears from her hacking work with the needle. It pained her a little to do it. It was a waste of good cloth. But she had to make a point.

She walked out of the chamber and navigated her way to the entrance hall. She strutted up to the vizier, who was staring at the open castle doors, watching the tutors who’d schooled her earlier that morning race out of the castle without a word or second glance back.

I don’t think the sewing and weaving tutor will be continuing lessons anymore, she said.

He glared at her.

What have you done? he asked, some bewilderment leaking into his voice as yet more tutors jostled past them.

She’s a menace, the dance tutor huffed, hobbling past and out the castle door.

What has she done? the vizier insisted, but nobody answered.

Laetitia just smiled. Her smile widened as the vizier grabbed at a servant who was slinking from view.

What in the name of Ylus has the Princess done to these tutors?

The servant shot a fearful glance at Laetitia and wet his lips.

She... She frightened the constable’s horse so much it couldn’t trot or walk anymore. She stepped and stomped on the dance tutor’s feet so much she nearly broke his toes.

At the vizier’s darkening gaze, the servant swallowed but continued nevertheless. Laetitia hoped the servant would remember more. She had had a much more productive morning than that.

She broke some of the keys on the harpsichord and refused to sing. She spilled water on her tutor’s sheet music and on the tutor himself. She ripped apart the astrology tutor’s star charts and sprinkled them out the window. In her mathematics class, she played with the abacus beads and kept saying the same answer over and over. Do...do you...want me to continue? he asked, as the vizier let him go.

I’ve heard plenty, Vizier Lazro said in a low voice, rage shaking his bony little frame.

To his credit, the vizier insisted on another set of tutors, but again, Laetitia sent them away faster than a hare’s startled bolt. She purposefully spoke so crassly and brokenly that her language tutor thought she’d never learned the basics of her own language, much less how to read and write. Her logic and rhetoric tutor almost pulled his hair out when Laetitia kept asking dumbly, Why this? and Why that? to topics and questions he’d gone over multiple times. He couldn’t figure out how to rephrase them after the fiftieth, the seventieth time.

She got along with the politics tutor at first, but then she threw out so many despotic ideas and rules she claimed she would implement as queen that he grew angry and refused to teach her anymore.

There were more, and they all left without a word of farewell to even her parents. Angry as they were, they still believed Laetitia could be redeemed. Instead of tutors, they assigned more handmaidens and servants to her, hoping a female touch would soothe her spiny disposition.

It was clear where she had to focus her attentions, even as she tormented the new handmaidens and servants. That vizier, that hedgeborn, that skamelar, that bespawler. He needed to vacate her castle, the sooner, the better. She didn’t like the way he latched onto her parents and guided and pushed them in every single diplomatic matter in the kingdom. Her parents were intelligent, wise rulers. They didn’t need this creep to hover over them for every decision. She had to find some way to free her parents from his presence once and for all.

Her opportunity came in Hay month during the succession of the new Kala ruler. Her parents decided to have the newly named King Jadflayer, who had been elevated to the throne despite being merely an archduke, come with his coterie to the castle along with representatives of neighboring kingdoms for a diplomatic meeting. Laetitia’s parents would advise him and re-establish the trade alliance. The other kingdoms would also have their say, arrange alliances and give advice to the new king.

Vizier Lazro flitted endlessly around the castle on the eve of King Jadflayer’s arrival. He constantly pestered Laetitia’s parents on what they should negotiate, what they should give as gifts, what they should establish regarding hierarchy of power. It made Laetitia’s blood boil. Her parents had survived long before this man came to the kingdom. He did not need to be so pushy. She wanted to sabotage him, ideally during the diplomatic meeting. He’d said he would do most of the talking, a fact Laetitia intensely disliked. It was the role of the king and queen to head a meeting and guide new monarchs. Vizier Lazro should keep his trap shut. She wanted to make it impossible for him to interfere with the meeting. She didn’t know how she could do that, though. Maybe humiliate him so badly he would have no choice but to flee? She knew dignity and poise meant everything to the vizier.

Laetitia paced around her bedchamber, rubbing her chin. In the background, her handmaidens and servants talked quietly amongst themselves. They knew not to interrupt her while she was ruminating. Laetitia drew back the jade-filigreed curtains from her window. The royal procession would be here soon. She had to humiliate the vizier. She could find ways to make him break out in a rash, rub some nettle and poison ivy in his clothes... But he kept his chambers locked, and neither he nor his servants would ever let her come close. Maybe she could sneak some foxglove into his soup? But she didn’t know proper dosages. She didn’t want to kill the man. She could use flowers from the hop vine to make him fall asleep. But that was too boring. She didn’t know enough about herbs and flowers to do anything that wasn’t dangerous. She didn’t want to consult a herbologist down in the village; that would be admitting her lack of knowledge. No, she needed something drastic.

She let out a whoop of glee as an idea sprang up in her mind. She whirled around, her cream-colored houppelande twirling like moth’s wings about her. She went to a little chest on her night table and rummaged through the bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and hair ornaments until she found something small, cold, and metallic-colored. The antimony pill Morena had given her and which she had used to play her detested servant Astoria. Laetitia had observed that the effects of the pill were immediate. The best part was that the pill could be used again and again; the digestive tract couldn’t dissolve it.

This was the perfect way to humiliate Vizier Lazro! She could slip the antimony pill into his meal as the dishes were set in front of each person. She was small and fast enough to drop it in without anybody seeing. She knew the cooks would be making Chykonys in Bruette and Pottage de Porrada. It would be hard to see the pill with all the meat and vegetables floating around. He would never sense it. He would swallow it and hell would ensue for him.

When the King of Kala arrived with his cabinet trailing behind him, Laetitia and her parents bowed respectfully—neither too deeply nor too quickly. Avaritia was a much more powerful kingdom, but the king and queen wanted to extend ties of friendship and reassurance to the new, unconventional monarch. While the king, queen and vizier talked to the new ruler of Kala, the cabinet members fretted and whispered among themselves in the hall, gaping at the lavish decorations. The cooks came from the kitchen with the steaming dishes of pottage. They arranged them carefully around the table and waited for the royal coterie to stop talking. Laetitia watched them with a hawk’s eye.

The vizier would want to sit the closest to the new king. Her parents had decided to seat the new king at one end of the table, directly across from King Leonardus. The vizier had a terror of sitting on the right side of anybody. He thought it was bad luck. He was an oddity, obsessed with death and strange traditions. Maybe it was because of the necromancy books she sometimes caught him reading.

Her father sat down at the table first, then the new king, then her mother. Laetitia circled the table, the small, round ball held tightly in her fist. She passed around the new king and bowed to him. Then she pursed her lips and clacked her tongue in her cheek in such a way as to project the sound out into the hall, making everybody look elsewhere but at her. Startled, her parents got up from their seats and looked around the hall. Members of the royal coterie craned their heads nervously, unsure what to think. If Laetitia had been in their shoes, she would have thought the sound was a deranged bird, or that maybe something had been dropped in the kitchen. Quickly, before people focused back to the table, she glided to Vizier Lazro’s place—he hadn’t sat down yet—and dropped the pill in his pottage. Then she went to her spot next to her mother and sat down primly.

Eventually, everyone sat down and started devouring their pottage. Laetitia kept flicking her eyes over at the vizier, even as she chewed heartily and enjoyed the taste of the chicken and ale in her mouth. He seemed perfectly fine, his abnormally large head bobbing down repeatedly towards the soup. He smacked his lips, his wrinkled mouth disgusting to watch as he masticated.

Laetitia started as King Jadflayer commenced speaking. She kept a part of her focus on the conversation, and another part on the vizier. He seemed fine. Was he immune to the antimony? Did the pottage somehow negate the effects of the pill?

Anguished, Laetitia cast her mind back to the conversation. The almoner and the treasurer spoke over each other, trying to get Laetitia’s parents’ advice on how to manage finances in the Kingdom of Kala and which kingdoms to set alliances with so the economy wouldn’t flag.

The vizier stood up to intervene, and his brittle, husky voice sliced neatly through their jabbering. It is an imperative to always have extra in the coffers to pay back our debts and supply the villagers with coin when they have setbacks in their crops and cannot survive. The best kingdoms to have alliances with are the Umber and Arcadia kingdoms for—

Umber Kingdom? But that’s where all those sinful necromancers live, King Jadflayer interrupted. Surely we don’t have to associate with them.

The vizier smiled thinly. Laetitia tapped her feet under the table. When was the confounded pill going to do its job?

As a new monarch you cannot afford to antagonize other, older kingdoms, the vizier replied to King Jadflayer. Necromancy, as frowned upon as it is, is a noble art, and the Umber Kingdom practices it without endangering anybody. And Arcadia is a good kingdom to set an alliance with because of the value of their precious silkworms—

Vizier Lazro cut off, a grimace crumpling his face.

Laetitia perked up, steepling her fingers. The vizier pressed a hand to his stomach. He bowed down on himself and took a deep breath. His saffron-flecked eyes widened.

Are you all right? King Jadflayer asked, leaning towards the vizier.

The vizier shook his head and wobbled. Then he made a run for it, darting away from the table. The stomach-roiling stench of feces was left behind, though, and Laetitia struggled not to gag. The other people at the table likewise fought not to vomit. Laetitia fumbled for her nosegay to cover her smile. Her plan had worked beautifully. She had humiliated him spectacularly. Revulsion deformed the new King of Kala’s face, as if the vizier had personally affronted him.

The vizier looked back at the table, the shame reeking off of his pathetic, bowed, little body, his wavering staff, his pleading eyes. Laetitia couldn’t help it. She let out a strident giggle. Almost no one noticed, so absorbed were they with the smell, but the vizier shot her a look of unadulterated loathing, like he wanted nothing more than to crush Laetitia’s throat. The force of that loathing struck her dumb and she stopped laughing. He fled the hall, a dark stain on the bottom of his breeches.

LAETITIA’S DAGGER OF indignity hit Vizier Lazro hard. After the diplomatic meeting, he was nowhere to be seen. Long after Compline, he was still nowhere to be seen. When Laetitia went to bed, half-hoping he’d gotten stuck on his chamber pot, he remained nowhere to be seen. She smirked under her bed sheets. She was informed the next morning by a wry-faced Astoria, who’d been told by the valet, who’d been told by the chamberlain, who’d been told by the cook, that Vizier Lazro had decided to resign. He was in his chambers packing his belongings. He would head out to his native Valu Kingdom that very day.

Laetitia clapped her hands. She had won. No longer would she see him flittering about, a cumbersome shadow to her parents. Like a pestersome louse, she had flicked him away, harshly and unmercifully, as he deserved. She decided to go feed her mare and take a celebratory ride to the Forest of Ide.

Laetitia put on her riding cloak, wrapping it around her as she walked from her chamber to the Great Hall. The cloak kept slipping under her boots and between her legs, making her stumble. With burning cheeks, she swatted the material away from her, shooting nasty glances at the servants around her. They weren’t even paying attention. A part of her liked that, but another part protested. They should be paying attention to her. She was the princess.

Casting her chin up, she continued across the Great Hall, past the dais where her parents’ thrones sat, past the rows of pillar candles that stood proudly, melting away to nothingness, past the sap green, mottled banners that drooped from the ceiling with the symbol of her house, the White Dove of Thadeya. As she passed an alcove where cinnamon and myrrh burned, to drive out the awful smell of the vizier’s accident the day before, she adjusted her cloak again. She’d have to berate the seamstress who’d sewn this for her. She hadn’t measured properly. What an insult! Laetitia made a note to go to the sewing guild and personally give the head seamstress a piece of her mind.

A damp hand grabbed her and yanked her into the alcove. She started screaming but was cut off as another hand pressed against her mouth. She tried biting it, but whoever it was had a good, firm hold. She drummed her feet against the marble floor. Her assailant let go of her only to wrap a hand around her throat. Laetitia froze. She recognized the peculiar scent of her attacker: dusty parchment paper and charcoal. The heady, slightly off-putting odor of chestnuts. Her eyes widened.

Hello, Princess, Vizier Lazro hissed in her ear.

You! she wanted to shout but couldn’t.

I have had enough of your devilish antics, your disrespect, your flouting of all conventions. You are unworthy of being a princess. Your parents are unworthy of being king and queen for having let you run loose like this for so long. You little hellion, you little chit, I will make you pay for what you did.

Laetitia bucked and wriggled, then finally stomped on his foot, hard. The vizier grunted and shifted, loosening his hand from her mouth. And she bit him. He howled, staring at the crescent-shaped mark she’d left. His skin was the consistency of tough, old duck. Fie!

Are you mad? You can’t lay hands on me. I’m the princess. No one cares about you. You’re just a vizier. You can rot in a dungeon the rest of your life for manhandling me like this.

The vizier laughed, his laughter like thrush burning.

You have no idea of the power I possess. You will find out, I promise you. You have humiliated me, but I will return the favor a thousand times over, Princess.

Laetitia didn’t know what to say. She wanted to laugh, but it was hard to. He looked so earnest. Never had she feared someone so small in stature. His carriage and his lurid, saffron-yellow eyes made her spine tingle.

You jest, she mumbled, trying to step out of the alcove so she could call for help.

Vizier Lazro smiled.

You wish. I can tolerate a lot of things, but disrespect I will never forgive. Farewell for now, Princess. This isn’t over.

He seized the incense in the alcove and sprinkled herbs from his pouch onto the floor. Laetitia wrinkled her brow. What was he doing? She opened her mouth to scream and choked as the incense intensified, burning her throat. He uttered several sharp words which made no sense to her, and the air seemed to turn to pudding around her: rotten, spoiled pudding. A waft of cadaver rot ensnared her senses even as, with failing eyes, she saw the vizier shimmer and vanish into a glaucous, gray haze.

Help me, she tried to say, but the gray mist around her prevented her from speaking, or even understanding what was going on.

She stumbled and fell, and soon that opaque haze of decomposition broke down her consciousness, plunging her into an unnatural sleep.

PRINCESS? PRINCESS? Are you all right?

Laetitia blinked slowly, sluggishly hearing the question thrown at her. She grabbed at silk sheets, her fingers sliding too easily through them. She recognized the smell of perennial roses.

She was in her bed. She looked to the side. The king and queen stood anxiously over her, and her handmaidens and servants stared stonily at her.

What happened? she groaned.

We hoped you’d know. What happened, Laetitia? her mother asked.

I have no idea. Wait, Laetitia said, sitting up and clenching her fists. The vizier. He confronted me. He said horrible things. Then, he vanished. There was this horrible fog, smelled of death... Laetitia trailed off.

Her father raised his eyebrows and her mother gave her an indulgent nod.

I know what it sounds like! But that’s what happened. I bit him.

She reached up to her mouth and throat, but she couldn’t feel any marks there. She glowered as her parents refused to look at her.

Her father cleared his throat.

It seems you need to rest more, Laetitia. We will send a messenger to the physician so he can inspect you and make sure you are all right.

Laetitia shook her head vehemently.

I am fine! There is something evil about that vizier. I never liked him. What he did seemed like witchcraft. In fact, it probably was. Did you know he likes studying necromancy?

Her parents’ eyes widened.

Yes, he does. I’ve caught him with those disturbing necromancy books of his a few times.

That doesn’t mean anything. Necromancy isn’t a devil’s practice, her mother said.

A lot of people think it is! Laetitia said hotly. Why can’t you be like almost every other monarch on this continent and agree that necromancy is unnatural?

Laetitia, we won’t indulge this conversation any longer. We know you detested the vizier, necromancy or not. But he is gone. The constable saw him leave on horseback during Matins. Whatever you think you saw... Perhaps you have an imbalance in humors. Or you had too much pottage yesterday. Either way, Dr. Jolland will come see you.

Laetitia recoiled. She certainly did not want to be seen by the physician. She did not want to be poked, prodded, inspected and bled. But she also knew there was nothing wrong with her wits.

I know what I saw!

Her parents’ mouths tightened and they marched out of her room, closing the door abruptly.

Laetitia threw her fur-lined velvet slippers at her chamber door. They made disappointingly little noise. Laetitia threw herself out of bed and screamed so loudly dust shimmied its way down the crimson drapes of her four-poster bed.

Her servants shuffled quietly towards the door.

IN THE ENSUING WEEKS, Laetitia tried to fill her thoughts with something besides the vizier. No longer was she preoccupied with revenge—she’d achieved that. But she felt surprisingly hollow. Not even putting mice in her servants’ beds or placing hot pepper in their soup gave her a thrill anymore. Whenever she thought of his strange departure, doubts reared their crass heads, but she couldn’t answer them. Maybe she had imagined that fog-of-death episode, but she knew full well that the vizier had assaulted and threatened her. She wished her parents could send an edict to imprison him, but they’d never listen to her. She could forge their signatures and send an edict herself, but that smacked too much of treason to contemplate seriously.

Out of boredom, she decided to start studying. She never imagined herself wanting to pursue the fiasco her parents had started, but she was bored. She would never become a proper queen if she didn’t at least try to learn about the world. As much as she hated books, she needed them to understand what a queen should and shouldn’t do. She wanted to learn the history of her line, the history of the other kingdoms and the continent. She also wanted some sword fighting lessons. If she’d known how to defend herself, that wretched vizier would never have been able to hold her down.

Laetitia spent Wind month, Midwinter month, and Wolf month poring over history. It made for dull reading, but she could read fast. She holed herself up in the drafty solar with tomes heavier than she was and leafed through chapters about lineage, decrees, executions, social hierarchies, evolving castes, the laws of the land as they were during her ancestors’ time versus now, and the wars and conflicts between kingdoms Avaritia was now allied with. She crammed her brain as much as she could, taking fevered notes with an increasingly bent quill. Her studies kept her busy, so much so she didn’t play with Morena anymore.

Her parents were relieved to have her out of their hair, even though they had bigger things to worry about, like the chamberlain, the newly appointed chancellor, the treasurer, and the constable all dying at the same time.

Laetitia poked her head out of her studies just long enough to notice that those were bizarre occurrences indeed. And that her parents were starting to mishandle simple affairs. They made small gaffes during diplomatic meetings that left the concerned parties storming off in a huff. She read over their new laws, which made no sense at a second glance. The coffers started losing more and more coin as the king and queen spent it on futile efforts: building bridges that weren’t needed or remastering houses unnecessarily after they had already been renovated.

Laetitia figured her parents were becoming unfit; they were going senile. It was normal. Rulers did start losing their wits around their fortieth name day. This just made Laetitia throw herself into her studies even more, so that when her day to become queen came, she would be ready. And if the vizier were ever imprudent enough to follow through on his threats, she would be smart enough and have the resources to take care of him.

I will be ready for you, you stupid little man. You will not be able to escape my wrath as queen.

Chapter One

LAETITIA’S SEVENTEENTH name day

Laetitia stamped her foot so hard her heel throbbed. She stared mutinously at her parents. Who did they think they were?

Princess Laetitia, our child, you must be on your best behavior for the ball we are holding for you tonight, her mother said apologetically.

Laetitia cursed herself for not having done anything to deflect this disaster. She’d