"Not just them, my Lady. Not just them."
From out of the darkness came a voice like a winter's wind in springtime, biting through lamb's wool and freezing the good seed. It was accompanied by a tallish woman dressed as a tatterdemalion, the only colour the gaudy yellow of an old paper crown atop her head.
"There are those who dwell upon the road, Lady, away from high castles and high politics. The Gone-Away-Queen and her Lurking Court will run for you. Aye, run, for no beggar or wanderer or homeward-bounder stays to fight, but none do see them, fair Lady mine, none have a care to look upon them. An idly tossed ha'penny and a kick from the guards for free, and we are put from their minds like filth for a midden. But we see, so we do, oh yes, we see..."
The figure walked forward, gait knock-kneed and stiff with cold, every movement jerky as a badly-made puppet's. "We do see all, fair Lady mine, and we are not seen. Tha's seen me afore today, mark you well, when I were a bright an' shiny little harlequin fer the merriment o' children and the like, but tha's not seen me since. My Court looks and sees and will report, in writin' for them as can read. I'll tell 'em to, fer I'm their Queen, a queen of rats and rottenness, a queen of the midnight alley, a queen of those who hide and are hidden.
"Tha knows me by another name, and tha'll remember if you dare. But now, my fairest Lady, tha'll call me by my deeds. Tha calls me liar and cheat and, yes, vagabond, as befits my Court. Tha calls me beggar and scrounger and mendicant, parasite and plague-bringer and drug-addled caitiff, an' all is true for it's a Lady as does the telling of it. Call me this, highborn."
The woman smiled, yellow in the candlelight.
"Call me Scapegrace."