Description
'She has dropped a stone in the sea; it is too late to wonder what damage the waves will cause.' Aged eight, Branwen Harwood was the only daughter of a minor family. Now she lives at the High Palace, among the queen's ladies. She is the sister of First Commander Dewi Harwood. She is married to Lord Ranulph Clare, one of the kingdom's most powerful men. And she is Queen Cerys' closest friend. But a rise like this does not come without making enemies, those who question her hold on the queen and kingdom. And when war comes to the kingdom, Branwen makes a crucial mistake; she pleads for mercy for a childhood friend - who is not only not her husband, but who is lowborn. Starved of scandal and desperate for any distraction from the battles in the north, the women of the court seize the story. Branwen finds herself the object of attention in a way she never has been before. She expects it to pass. She's wrong. Her enemies are massing, emerging from the High Palace's tapestries and gardens, and among them are people who would stop at nothing to see her pulled back down to where she began, if not lower...
The Season of the Ladies. Prologue.
