Chapter 435: A False Witness
Corvin drew himself up, a small, satisfied smile playing at the corners of his mouth, though it appeared a rather ugly thing given the bruises marking his face — some from the ice that had struck him, the others from Jacinta's own hand.
"I observed suitor candidates," he said, "disporting themselves with women they had smuggled in from beyond the palace walls."
"And how is that possible?" Jacinta asked. "No soul departs this place without the guards being made aware of it."
"I cannot say how they contrived it, Your Highness," Corvin replied. "I know only what I witnessed with my own eyes. They were moving through the abandoned garden."
"The garden," she said, with pointed emphasis.
"The portion of it no longer maintained," he clarified.
Jacinta's smile tightened. His speaking of the garden's abandoned quarter was precisely the matter she wished put a stop to, and yet the man before her seemed altogether incapable of receiving so plain a hint.
