Chapter Fifteen - Stories

(Part III)

Their place was at the table but one removed from the throne, it transpired, reserved for nobles of repute and important members of the royal household. Sara felt a little thrill as she settled into her cushioned seat, feeling the closeness of the King’s table as keenly as a sudden flame. She saw him settle into his place, face to the hall, fair and assured, the Queen at his side, her gold red necklace gleaming. Around them, the highest nobles in the land were taking their places; Lord Korin of the South Realm with his puffy red cheeks and green doublet, old Lady Frindella sipping suspiciously at her wine, Lord Royce sitting at the fringes, easy smile not touching his dark eyes. She wondered if her father would be there, had he been in Uldoroth. The Bloodless with her ruined face had dissolved into a giant shadow beside the Night Throne, near Sir Varos and the other Black Guard, watching silently, her swollen head pale as ice. Sara suppressed a shiver.

On the second table, the handmaidens found themselves in the company of the next tier of noblefolk and dignitaries. Lord Arinath and his sharp teeth had found his place beside his cousin Glada, ready stories leaping to his twisting tongue. Sara knew a few more by name, after the Fox’s lessons, Lords and Ladies of the Dirge, Lorath, High Rock, Sandhill; the Lord and Lady of Karsath had visited her father’s hall once, several years before, and she returned their polite smiles as they took their seats.

Beyond, the remaining tables were laid out in an array of confusion as the crowded hall came to their places. First, another table for the noblefolk of the middling houses, their gleaming collection of fineries slightly less bright than their higher fellows. Then, the Masters, surrounded by an eager throng of climbers and minor Lordlings, flashing the crafts of their knowing. Beyond them, at the table closest to the door, the exotic dignitaries from beyond the Sea of the Maker, a strange conglomeration of different styles and colours and tongues. Sara decided at least some of them must speak Valian. As she watched, the Keepers danced in and out of the tables, and lines of candles suddenly sprung up across them, adding their light to the countless gleams from the vast, shifting arches of the nightglass ceiling overhead.

‘This is the best part.’ Dana whispered beside her, just as the doors of the hall swung open. A gold rippled layer of torchlight swept in, chasing a river’s worth of plates, trays, trestles, spits and baskets, bobbing high over the heads of several score more attendants, hurrying about their work with the practised ease of swallows in flight. A few moments later the tables had been filled to the brim with a veritable cornucopia of more variety than she had ever seen in one place. The meats rose the tallest; great roasted carcasses of pig, lamb, and mutton, of course, but also pheasant, goose, chicken, and several others she did not recognise, all glazed to a golden readiness and flanked by patchwork patterns of salted fish and bacon. There was bread from the mills of the South Realm, peppered and powdered and fresh as cut grass, potatoes in oil and rosemary crisped to a crackle, carrots, cabbage, asparagus… Sara’s eyes were wide and darting as the last plate settled onto the table before them. Her stomach rumbled, and she might have blushed, had she thought anyone could hear it.

As the last of the food arrived, the King raised a hand, and the Black Guard stamped their spear butts down in unison, thumping against the stone floor. The hall fell silent in a heartbeat, and the King rose to his feet, suddenly bathed in the light of five hundred gleaming eyes.

‘To those I have not greeted in person, forgive me, for I am but one man.’ he began, voice ringing out in the sudden quiet. Not a soul on the other tables made a sound, and not one eye was not on him. Sara looked too, though that was hardly unusual. ‘To those I have already spoken, let us pretend I was a better host.’

Polite laughter, just loud enough to seem genuine, rose in a soft wave from the assembled feast-goers, and the King paused whilst it subsided. Sara watched his eyes, dark and waiting, the subtle impatience of his fair brows. As she watched, her eyes flickered over her. Then they moved on, and he raised his gem-studded glass to the room.

‘To all, eat! May Temur give you winter of short storms, and the First Maker watch over this house.’

‘May it never fall!’ came the chorused reply. Then the Black Guard stamped their spears once more, and the hall fell onto the feast before them with the dainty fervour only nobles can possess. Sara lost sight of the royal table as her table-fellows surged forward, gracefully slicing at the meat with the speed of hummingbirds, scooping up platefuls of sundries like fishermen in roiling seas. The hall settled into the happy sound of mealtime conversation; the wine had done its work, loosening the tongues of the drinkers, and the gossiping turned to a more familiar tone. Nearby, she heard an elderly Lord discussing the lustful (and rather embarrassing) behaviour of his youngest daughter, beyond him, a woman in a pale blue dress complaining about the tightness of her bodice. The Lord of Arinath and Glada had snared a small audience to his most recent story (a sordid tale of a renowned gambler and his many mistresses), though at least two of the listeners were more interested in flashing secret smiles in his cousin’s direction than they were in the story itself.

With Dana at her right arm and Velis at her left, Sara was saved for the moment from the direct attentions of the rest of the table, which was just as well. She had begun to feel the pleasant lightness of wine, so she piled a modest serving of delicacies onto her plate and began to eat, doing her best to ignore the curious looks drifting her way from every direction. Dana kept a watchful eye on her, parrying niceties with the nearest noble couple on their right, and the feast drew on in haze of flickering candles, laughter and the easy flow of many voices. One thing was missing, Sara decided. Music. In her father’s hall, such as it was, there was always music. A ready lyre in a practiced hand, a soft voice to go with it. Here atop the Heartspire, in the colourless vastness of City of the Moon, there was no such song, and the absence of it left a layer of silence behind the wall of voices that nagged at her thoughts as she ate, thinking, for once, of home.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

*

‘… and that’s where she left him. Tied up in a hammock, naked, covered in more oil than a fried fish!’

Sara blinked, looking up to a sudden roar of laughter from the table around her. The heaps of food were somewhat diminished, and most of the feasters were sitting back with rounded bellies and happily red cheeks. By now, the charming Lord Arinath with his sharp teeth had gathered most of the table into the giddy folds of his raucous storytelling, and Glada gleamed like a tanned doll beside him, soaking in the attention as though it were the only food she needed.

‘What of the necklace?’ someone asked.

‘She made it as far as the docks before the guards clapped her in irons. Something suspicious about a whore with more gems than a princess around her neck.’ the Lord of Arinath told him, grinning, to another wave of laughter from his audience. Eorin was not so old; certainly not far past forty, with little lines etched across his tanned, bright eyes, a smiling mouth, and dull blonde hair handsomely flecked with a little silver. It was tugged back into a knot behind his head, as was the fashion with the sailing folk of north Valia, pressed against the edge of the Sea of Storms. One of few noble lines to find themselves bettered by the Rebellion, raised to prominence by the near complete slaughter of their ruling cousins during the sacking of Arinath by the northern horde and their longships. As Sara watched, he lowered his voice and cupped his hand to his mouth conspiratorially, winking. ‘Not outside of my hall, anyway.’

Another surge of laughter, and Sara smiled, blushing. The rest of the feast seemed an overly civilised affair by comparison; there was an infectious kind of carelessness to the Lord or Arinath that had quickly overtaken the better courtly instincts of the assembled dignitaries.

‘That’s a pretty smile, M’lady.’ Lord Eorin told her, looking her way.

Sara’s blush deepened, and Glada laughed her trickling laugh, putting a hand on her cousin’s arm.

‘There, you’ve made her blush, cousin.’

‘A gift of mine.’ Lord Eorin added, raising an eyebrow. ‘Who is this pretty little thing, Glada? I do not believe we have been introduced.’

‘This is Sara, cousin.’ Glada told him. ‘Sara of the Westmere.’

‘Ah, so this is the Rose of Westmere I keep hearing about?’ the Lord of Arinath replied, giving Sara another smile. Her blush deepened, and she could suddenly feel the eyes of the table on her. The sensation was not unpleasant. ‘I don't believe it. I have met Lord Westmere; he earned his name well, and I don’t see a shred of weasel in you!’

Another trill of laughter, a little less ready, this time. Dana was frowning, but Sara returned his smile.

‘After the stories you’ve told, My Lord, I will bow to your expertise on rodents.’

Sara blinked. Had she said that? There was a moment of pristine silence, a rare, fleeting bubble in the refined din of the feast. Then Lord Eorin clapped his hand down on the table with a thump and gave a great belch of laughter, ponytail bobbing behind him. The table joined in, and the silence dissolved. Sara smiled, hiding her surprise at herself. Maybe she should not have had that last glass of wine.

‘She has you there, cousin.’ Glada told him, laughing.

‘Sharper than her father, too!’ He grinned. ‘You must indulge me my stories, M’lady. Now that Elkan and his pack of Northmen pirates have decided to leave me in peace, they’re all I have to keep me warm this winter.’

‘Far be it from us to begrudge you all that hot air, my Lord.’ Dana replied dryly.

The Lord of Arinath laughed again. ‘I see you haven’t yet managed to escape your sister’s watchful eye.’

‘Roses have thorns, my Lord.’ Dana told him. ‘I’m not sure she needs me to watch her.’

‘Sharp as moonsilver, these two!’ He laughed again, raising his glass. ‘A toast, then, to the Roses of Westmere.’

Glasses were raised. Sara’s joined them, and Dana’s too, albeit a little more begrudgingly.

‘And to Lord Eorin’s stories.’ Sara’s sister added, arching a brow. ‘May Arinath never be short of scandal.’

‘Here, here!’ Eorin agreed, stamping his feet. The rest of the table joined in, and the conversation settled back into its good-natured, wine-aided hubbub. Dana gave Sara a small look which she couldn’t decipher the meaning of, but they were interrupted before she could ask.

‘Come, you two.’ Velis said quietly beside them. ‘We should attend to the Queen.’

They made their apologies to the group, stepping back from the table. Glada, who had indulged in one too many glasses wines to be of much use, they left with her cousin, and the attentions of the handsome young nobleman with a sweep of ruddy hair beside them. The formation of the feast had dissolved with the food, and now little parties of conversationalists drifted like lily pads through the watery black channels between the tables, their voices light with the quiet contentment of full bellies and sweet-wine tongues. Overhead, the enormous milky shimmerance of the nightglass ceiling shifted in the flickering light like water set with stars, and the three remaining handmaidens of the Queen made their way slowly towards the royal table. Sara could see the King standing near the steps to the dais, speaking quietly with some of his counsellors under the watchful eye of Sir Varos. The Queen was still seated, entertaining the conversations of a half-dozen noble ladies, smiling thinly at their courtly chatter. The giant shape of the Bloodless loomed in the shadows behind them, but Sara tried not to notice her.

‘Ah, my little flock of ducklings.’ the Queen said dryly as they approached. ‘A timely distraction. How good of you to check on me.’

Velis opened her mouth, then closed it again, lowering her eyes. The other two shifted uncomfortably. The little circle of ladies babbling around the Queen had fallen suddenly, conspicuously quiet, staring at the waiting handmaidens. Sara felt her palms tighten.

‘Would you like us to fetch you anything, Your Majesty?’ she said suddenly, unable to bear the silence. ‘Wine, perhaps?

The Queen turned her dark eyes towards her, fixing her with an icy stare. If she had been drinking, it had not softened her gaze. Sara flinched, lowering her eyes.

‘Why yes, my pretty little rose. Now that you ask.’ the Queen said quietly. She reached out, taking hold of a jug of wine from the table, and tipped it slowly, deliberately, onto the floor at the waiting handmaidens’ feet. The wine splashed against the hems of their dresses, but not on of them dared move.

‘We do seem to have run out of wine. Be a dear and fetch us another jug, little rose.’

Sara could feel everyone watching her, eyes boring into her skin like knives. Dana and Velis did not stir. Her blood boiled against her cheeks. She was a Lord’s daughter. Her belly tightened, and she bit her tongue, tasting blood.

‘Of course, My Queen.’ she murmured, bowing her head politely. Then she turned and hurried away, practised grace forgotten.