Chapter Text

Yolande knocked gently on her master’s door. “My lord?”

“Yes?”

“The messenger said that his majesty found the rain rather charming.”

Cassius paused, taking a moment to compose a reply. “Have him tell King William that it has done my marigolds well.” He enjoyed the irony of the night porter sending a message predicting his own doom.

He picked a heavy, wax-sealed envelope off a shelf. “And have the messenger deliver this.” In the letter, Cassius confirmed that William could take the human for his own use, and outlined the sorts of favours that he would one day expect in return.

“As you wish, my lord,” Yolande replied.

He nodded. “You are dismissed.”

“Thank you, my lord.” She curtsied and rushed over to the drawing room where the messenger was waiting to receive the second letter and third cryptic remark of the evening.

Yolande pondered over what she’d just heard. She had worked for Cassius for a hundred and twenty years. Back in her youth, before she had gotten involved in all of this, it was popular for friends and suitors to send each other messages using flowers. Each bloom had its own meaning; there were dictionaries printed that kept track of them all. She fondly remembered giving a card featuring a drawing of a mimosa flower to an overly eager suitor: the flower, a symbol of chastity, had told him that she would not provide him with what he was after.

Marigolds were the flowers of grief, so she idly wondered if there had been a recent death.

She had known for a long time that Cassius’s letters and cards were full of symbols and hidden meanings, but there was no dictionary that could begin to decipher them.