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“You will go third, as our designated laggard.”
    I curtsied, abashed.
    He waved a hand irritably. “Wait your turns in the antechamber. I have a fearsome headache and can’t bear the sound of nervous squirming.”
    The lute master, whose trial was first, followed a page boy out to wherever Princess Glisselda awaited her lesson. The rest of us
    © 2012 Rachel Hartman
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    filed into the narrow antechamber. It had a bench along each wall; Orma and I sat opposite the troubadour. Orma put his feet up on the troubadour’s bench, rudely blocking the walkway until I swatted his knees. I kept myself occupied by composing motets in my head and watching the troubadour. He wore silk hose he probably couldn’t afford, held his plumed cap in his lap, and looked anx-ious. Beside me, Orma jotted notes in a little book. I glanced over.
    He’d written Books to Look for in the Queen’s Private Library .
    “You can’t go to the Queen’s private library,” I whispered harshly at him.
    “Then this list is for you,” he said, not bothering to whisper.
    “You’ll have access, surely, when you get the job. I’ll list the books in the order I’d like to read them.”
    “ When I get the job? Twelve percent, Orma!”
    He shrugged. “Twelve percent if you don’t do anything
    unpredictable. There’s a sixty-eight percent chance that you will surprise me. I can show you my work.”
    He turned a page and began calculating. I closed my eyes, exasperated.
    An hour and six pages of algebra later, the lute master returned, raging, flailing, and blackened from head to toe. He brushed against the troubadour’s knee in passing, leaving a dark smudge, marched into Master Viridius’s office, and slammed the door. Even so, we heard him plainly: “I will not be humiliated in this manner! I withdraw my name from your consideration, sir!”
    He burst open the door and stalked out, shedding a cloud of coal dust behind him. The troubadour, dabbing at his dirtied silk
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    with a handkerchief, met my eye and smiled weakly. It was down to the two of us now.
    The page boy returned with the next summons. The troubadour straightened his doublet, made St. Ida’s sign, and left. The door of Master Viridius’s office opened; I turned to see the old man standing there, propped with two canes, staring after the troubadour. He noticed me watching him and scowled from under his bushy eyebrows. “The lute master is an idiot,” said the old composer gruffly. “Never even gave the brat her lesson, because he got lost down a coal chute. I’m sure you need not worry about a thing.”
    I hadn’t been worried until he said that, of course. He pulled his head back into his office like some cranky, liver-spotted turtle and closed the door.
    I turned to my moral support, suddenly needing some—but Orma was gone.
    Anyone might receive a call of nature, even a dragon; I didn’t require an elaborate narration of where he was going every time he left the room. Anyone else , however, might be relied upon to come straight back. Minutes crawled by, and I grew more con-vinced that he’d wandered somewhere he shouldn’t.
    The page boy skipped back into the room. I thought he was summoning me to the princess’s lesson, but he said impudently,
    “Are you here with that beardy villain? The one with the nose?”
    “Yes,” I said, already on my feet.
    “He’s met with a bit of awkwardness; he said you’d help him.”
    “Where is he?” I said.
    The lad gave me directions—up the stairs, to the right—but 5
    © 2012 Rachel Hartman
    showed no inclination to accompany me. I rushed up the corridor as fast as I dared; the Queen’s council had just been dismissed, and the hallway was full of my betters. When I reached the grand marble staircase, I hoisted my skirts and took the steps by twos, earning disapproving looks from descending ladies-in-waiting.
    My face grew warm with embarrassment and exertion, but I didn’t slow down. At the top, I