She went on the Thursday, alone, on a grey pony that belonged to the kitchens, wearing a cloak with no device on it, and she was not nearly as clever about it as she thought she was; two separate people saw her go and neither of them said anything, which is a different thing from not being seen.
The house was where they said it was — at the bottom of the wood, past the charcoal burners, in a clearing with a stream going through it and an extremely well-kept fence.
Isabelle had expected bones on strings. There was a fence, and beans up canes, and a goat.
"You'll be the princess," said the woman, without turning round.
"I'm — "
"There's one pony in the district with that gait and it belongs to your father's kitchens and it has been stolen four times this year by kitchen boys, and none of them wear French cloaks." The woman straightened up from the beans. She was perhaps fifty, with grey coming through, and forearms like a man who unloads carts. "Maeve."
"Isabelle."
"I know."
"They said you were — "
"Whatever they said, some of it's true." Maeve wiped her hands down her apron. "Sit down before you fall down. When did you last sleep?"
Isabelle opened her mouth to say something about the ride, and instead said, "Tuesday."
"Right," said Maeve. "Come inside."
The inside was one room and it was clean, which for some reason undid Isabelle more than bones on strings would have. There was a fire and a pot on it, and there were about two hundred small clay jars, and there was a shelf of books, which nobody in the kitchens had mentioned because nobody in the kitchens had imagined it.
Maeve gave her a cup of something bitter and sat down opposite her and did not ask a single question, which is a very effective way of getting an answer.
"There's a man in my room," Isabelle said.
"Go on."
"At night. He stands at the foot of the bed. He's in armour, black, all of it, with the visor down, and he never moves and he never speaks and he doesn't come closer, and I can't move while he's there, and there's water coming off him, all the time, running off the plate of him and onto the floor, and it doesn't make a sound." Her hands had started to shake. She put the cup down. "And in the morning the floor is dry, and I check it, I check it every morning, I have checked that floor every morning for eleven years — "
"Eleven," said Maeve.
"— and it is always dry, so I know what it is, I'm not a fool, I know it's a dream — "
"It's not a dream," Maeve said.
The fire made its small noises.
"What?" said Isabelle.
"Sit back down," said Maeve, "and drink that, because you're going to go a very unpleasant colour in a moment, and I want you to hear all of it."