Beatrix Holloway

Beatrix had the great crossbow on the Keep’s north tower loaded and aimed when a dragon the colour of old gold came down the valley at midsummer noon. She saw what hung from its claws, a marigold pennant three centuries out of date, and she took her hand off the trigger. Half the town calls that the bravest thing anyone did that day. The Chancellor calls it dereliction.

The Holloways are a minor house with a good name and a leaking roof. Beatrix took her vows at nineteen in the Marigold Guard, Queen Hesper’s household knights, and spent eight years guarding doors that nobody attacked. She is broad and sunburned, with a laugh that carries across a parade ground and a habit of reading every inscription on every statue she passes. That habit is why she knew Queen Maudry’s pennant when she saw it.

She is devout in the plain way of the Guard’s chapel, which asks two things of a knight: keep your word, and never loose at a flag of truce.

• Keeps every promise she makes, so she has learned to make fewer of them.
• Talks to horses, children and dragons in exactly the same voice.
• Cannot lie convincingly and has stopped trying.

Beatrix’s player keeps a running list of every promise Beatrix has made. At the end of session three it read:

1. To Queen Hesper, taking the commission (session 1): “I will find the lease and learn the rent.”
2. To Orpiment, in the square (session 1): “I will not raise a weapon against you while the lease stands.”
3. To Clemency Vare, in the Wax Vaults (session 2): “If Jory can be found alive, we will bring him back alive.”
4. To Queen Maudry, at her bier (session 3): “The rent will be paid, and paid fairly.”