Chapter 382: A Very Poorly Kept Council

Evelyn waited until Io had left the room before taking Lexander’s breakfast away.

He watched his plate move out of reach.

“Have I done something?”

“Not yet,” Adriana said.

I lowered my cup.

That was generally a dangerous answer.

Evelyn sat opposite him while Adriana took the chair on his right. Together, they managed to make a quiet breakfast table resemble the beginning of an inquiry.

“When is Io’s birthday?” Evelyn asked.

Lexander looked from one to the other.

“Why?”

“Because she helped us discuss six other birthdays the other day without mentioning her own,” Adriana said.

“That sounds like her.”

“When?” Evelyn repeated.

He glanced toward the door through which his wife had disappeared.

“Four days after Julian’s.”

I sat forward.

“Soon, then.”

“Very soon,” Adriana said.

Lexander reached for his plate.

Evelyn kept one hand on it.

“Does she have anything planned?”

“A normal day, if she has her way.”

“That won’t do.”

“She’ll say everyone is busy.”

“We are,” Evelyn replied. “That doesn’t prevent supper.”

Adriana smiled at her, and I knew a decision had been made before either announced it.

“We should surprise her.”

Lexander looked at me.

I raised both hands.

“You can see I’m outnumbered.”

His expression softened as he looked back toward the door.

“What did you have in mind?”

“First,” Evelyn said, sliding his plate back, “you are going to tell us what she would actually enjoy.”

Io preferred smaller gatherings to formal ones, Lexander told us, especially when she could sit with people rather than spend the evening receiving them.

She liked music she recognized. She liked food served while it was still warm. She disliked having to discover, halfway through a celebration, that someone expected her to make a speech.

“She also likes the pear cake from the Concordia kitchens,” he added. “The one with the thin honey glaze.”

Adriana looked pleased.

“That is useful information.”

“I had thought so when you took my breakfast.”

Evelyn ignored him.

“Flowers?”

“Yes. But don’t arrange them so high that she has to talk around them.”

“Dancing?”

“If she isn’t being watched by an entire court.”

Adriana reached for paper.

Lexander watched her begin writing.

“There is something else.”

We waited.

“She’ll enjoy whatever you arrange. But if she thinks you’ve exhausted yourselves doing it, she’ll spend the evening trying to look after you.”

Evelyn glanced at Adriana’s stomach, then at my healing arm.

“Then we share the work.”

“And nobody tells her?” I asked.

Adriana gave me a patient look.

“That is usually the central feature of a surprise.”

“I wanted to establish the difficult part early.”

By noon, we had a planning council.

It included Evelyn, Adriana, Lisbeth, Lysandra, Cassia, Thor, Mirelle, Julian, and four children whose presence made secrecy considerably less likely.

Lexander attended as the principal source of information about his wife. I attended because someone had to explain to Castellan why so many people were trying to reserve the same room without putting its purpose on the ordinary household list.

We gathered in the small activity room above the courtyard storehouses.

The children were told we were making something for Io’s birthday.

Seraphina immediately turned toward the door.

“I’ll tell Mother.”

Lysandra caught her gently before she reached it.

“This is a surprise.”

Seraphina stopped.

Then she looked delighted.

“She doesn’t know?”

“Not about the party.”

Ignatius frowned.

“Does she know it’s her birthday?”

“Yes,” Lexander said.

“Then how is it a surprise?”

Julian leaned forward.

“She knows about the day. She won’t know what we’re making.”

Ignatius considered this distinction.

Carol raised her hand.

Everyone looked at her.

“Can there be cake?”

“Yes,” Adriana said.

Carol lowered her hand, satisfied that the essential matter had been addressed.

Thor looked around the crowded table.

“We have conducted quieter military operations.”

“Those didn’t involve ribbons,” Cassia said.

Thor glanced at the basket beside her.

“Then we were fortunate.”

Julian’s birthday would come first.

Evelyn made that clear before anyone began combining lists or moving furniture.

“His celebration stays exactly as he chose it,” she said. “Io’s is four days later. We have room for both.”

Julian looked relieved, though he tried to hide it by examining a spool of thread.

Then he looked at Lexander.

“I’d like to help.”

“I know,” Lexander said. “But you don’t have to spend your own birthday preparing for hers.”

Mirelle touched Julian’s shoulder.

“We’ll make certain of that.”

Lisbeth suggested the west gallery for Io’s supper. It had doors opening onto a sheltered terrace, enough room for music, and no great dais to make everyone feel they had wandered into an audience with the court.

“The long tables can come out,” she said. “We can use smaller ones and leave space in the middle.”

“For dancing?” Cassia asked.

“For whatever people decide to do.”

Lysandra leaned over the rough floor plan I had brought.

“And we can bring her in through this door. She won’t see the terrace first.”

“How do we get her there?” Thor asked.

Evelyn and Adriana looked at one another.

“We invite her to supper,” Evelyn said.

“That sounds suspiciously simple.”

“She comes to supper with us often.”

“True,” Thor admitted.

“No invented emergencies,” I added. “No injured people, missing children, or alarming messages.”

Adriana wrote that at the top of the page, then looked pointedly at Thor and Lexander.

Thor spread her hands.

“I hadn’t suggested anything.”

“We’re preventing inspiration,” Adriana said.

Lisbeth took charge of the room.

Mirelle offered to arrange the flowers and linens, with Helena’s help. Cassia and Lysandra would work on invitations and the practical details of bringing friends from Concordia without sending a conspicuous stream of people past Io’s door.

Thor said she would speak to the musicians.

This caused a pause.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Lisbeth said.

“I know musicians.”

“We believe you.”

Thor looked unconvinced by the reassurance.

Lexander quietly supplied the names of several tunes Io liked. Thor wrote them down and tucked the paper away with the same care she usually gave a patrol report.

Evelyn and Adriana kept the overall plan between them. They would arrange the food, ensure Io’s duties were covered for the evening, and find a way to make certain she had time to dress without explaining why that mattered.

“Tell her you’re dressing for supper too,” Lysandra suggested.

“We will be,” Evelyn said.

“That makes it easier to remember.”

Julian offered to help the children make a gift.

Garrick Grey leaned across the table.

“A big one.”

“How big?” Julian asked cautiously.

Garrick spread his arms as far as they would go.

“Manageable,” I said. “We are aiming for manageable.”

Seraphina had already begun drawing on the back of my floor plan.

By the time anyone noticed, the gallery possessed two additional windows, a flowering tree, and a horse.

Castellan would have questions.

The children’s gift took shape after lunch.

Julian suggested a folding picture with four panels, one for each of them. Garrick Valewood could help make a light frame. It would stand on a table, and Io could see all four drawings together.

Ignatius wanted to draw his mother reading.

Seraphina wanted flowers and a picture of herself beside Io.

Carol announced that she was drawing everyone at supper, because Io should always have people to sit with.

Garrick Grey wanted to include Lexander, Bruni, a horse, and an extremely large sun.

“That may be crowded,” Julian said.

“I can make the horse smaller.”

“A promising start.”

He divided the paper and set out the colors while Cassia tied cloth over the table to protect it.

Lysandra sat beside Ignatius, who was having difficulty deciding how many fingers to give the person in his drawing.

He counted his own twice.

Then he drew six.

“Would you like to try that hand again?” she asked.

“No. That one can hold more.”

Lysandra looked at Cassia.

Cassia pressed her lips together very firmly.

Across the table, Julian helped Carol move one chair so the people at her supper could actually reach the food.

He did not redraw it for her.

He asked questions, waited for her answers, and let her decide.

I watched him for a while before returning to my papers.

A year older soon, and already learning when helping meant leaving the pencil in someone else’s hand.

The first threat to the surprise came before dinner.

Io found us leaving the activity room.

“What have you been doing?” she asked.

Four children stopped walking.

Julian looked at the ceiling.

Cassia looked at Lysandra.

Lysandra looked entirely innocent, which I had begun to recognize as a warning.

“Drawing,” Evelyn said calmly.

Io smiled.

“May I see?”

Ignatius hugged his paper to his chest.

“No.”

Io blinked.

Seraphina stepped in front of him.

“It’s wet.”

“It is,” Julian said quickly. “We’re letting everything dry before we show anyone.”

Io looked at the dry blue smudge on Garrick’s nose.

“All right.”

She bent to kiss Ignatius’s head.

“Show me when you’re ready.”

He nodded with great solemnity.

After she had gone, Thor let out a slow breath.

“That was worse than the bridge.”

“It was not,” I said.

“You weren’t holding the invitations.”

She opened her hand just enough for me to see the folded papers she had hidden beneath a supply note.

I reconsidered.

“Fair point.”

Lexander came to see me that evening.

He stood in the doorway of my study for a moment before coming inside.

“She thinks I’m behaving strangely.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“That may explain it.”

He sat opposite me.

“I asked whether she would like a quiet evening next week. She asked what I had broken.”

I tried not to laugh.

“I know,” he said. “Lysandra has already enjoyed that part.”

On the desk between us lay the ordinary business of two allied kingdoms: road repairs, garrison rotations, winter stores, requests for tools.

Lexander looked down at it, then toward the window.

“She remembers everything for everyone else.”

I waited.

“The children’s little preferences. Which visitor is uncomfortable at a crowded table. Who hasn’t had a letter from home. I don’t think she realizes how often she makes a place easier for people to be in.”

“Then we can give her an evening where she doesn’t have to do it.”

He nodded.

“I’d like that.”

“Have you chosen her present?”

“Yes.”

He did not elaborate, and I did not ask him to. Some parts of the celebration belonged to them.

Instead, I passed him the list of Concordia guests Cassia and Lysandra had prepared.

“Check these names before your sister invites someone who thinks a birthday requires a formal address.”

He took the paper immediately.

“An important precaution.”

Evelyn and Adriana tested the cake the next afternoon.

This required an extraordinary level of secrecy for something that smelled so conspicuously of pears and warm honey.

Lisbeth arranged for the tasting in a small kitchen used for meals that did not need to feed half the castle.

The Concordia baker who had supplied the recipe came through the gate with measured ingredients and strong opinions about the thickness of the glaze.

Adriana listened to every one of them.

I arrived just as Evelyn cut the first slice.

“Is my presence required?”

“No,” she said.

“That’s disappointing.”

Adriana moved a plate toward me.

“Your silence is.”

“I can provide that.”

The cake was soft, lightly spiced, and less sweet than I expected. Thin slices of pear lay across the top beneath a glaze that caught the light.

I took another bite.

Lisbeth watched my expression.

“Well?”

“I understand why we needed a meeting.”

Adriana laughed, then reached for a pencil to add something to her list.

Evelyn took it gently from her hand.

“What?” Adriana asked.

“You’ve been sitting forward for an hour. Lean back.”

Adriana considered objecting, then shifted against the cushion behind her.

The baby moved beneath her hand.

Her expression softened at once.

“Apparently someone agrees with you.”

“The youngest member of the planning council,” I said.

“Already sensible,” Evelyn replied.

We sent the remaining cake to the household staff with no announcement about its purpose.

It vanished quickly enough to suggest the recipe required no further adjustment.

Mirelle and Lisbeth inspected the west gallery while I spoke with Castellan.

We would need places to hang the children’s decorations, lights along the terrace, and a screen across the service door so the food could arrive without being seen from the passage.

Castellan listened without interruption.

Then he asked, “Is Queen Io to be denied access to this room?”

“No,” Evelyn said.

“Would that not assist in preserving the surprise?”

“It would also make her wonder why a room had suddenly become forbidden.”

He considered this.

“Then I shall continue ordinary cleaning and maintenance until the day of the celebration. The furnishings can be moved afterward.”

“Perfect.”

“I will require the final arrangement in advance.”

I handed him the floor plan.

He examined Seraphina’s additions.

“The horse presents difficulties.”

From the doorway, Lysandra made a strangled sound.

“No horse,” I said.

“And the additional windows?”

“Also unnecessary.”

“The tree?”

Mirelle leaned over the drawing.

“Could we bring in a few branches in tall jars? Along the wall, where they won’t block anyone.”

Castellan nodded.

“That is achievable.”

Seraphina, when told later, was delighted that one of her improvements had been accepted.

Thor returned from speaking with the musicians carrying two separate lists.

“One is the music,” she explained. “The other is everything they say they need.”

“Chairs?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Food?”

“Yes.”

“Anything difficult?”

“A room where nobody asks them to play while they’re tuning.”

“That seems reasonable.”

Thor nodded.

“I thought so.”

She sat beside Mirelle, who was sorting lengths of linen with Lisbeth.

For a few minutes, the goddess of lightning held one end of a tablecloth while Lisbeth and Mirelle debated whether it suited the smaller tables.

She followed the discussion with the same attention she gave a battle map.

Then Julian arrived with the four children and the first paper garland.

It sagged between them.

One of the stars was attached backward. Another had so many points that it resembled an alarmed hedgehog.

Mirelle accepted it as though they had brought something precious.

“Where would you like it?”

“Where Mother sits,” Seraphina said.

“Then we’ll put it near her chair.”

Ignatius tugged at Thor’s sleeve.

“Can you make it shine?”

Thor looked at the paper.

“Not with lightning.”

He looked disappointed.

“But we can put a lamp behind it,” she added.

Castellan, who had remained nearby, inclined his head.

“At a safe distance.”

Lysandra crouched beside Ignatius.

“Shall we try it?”

They held the garland in front of one of the gallery lamps.

Light slipped through the small holes the children had punched into the paper. Gold specks appeared across Cassia’s sleeve.

Ignatius forgot to be disappointed.

That evening, Io almost discovered the entire plan through a chair.

Lisbeth had asked that we choose a comfortable one for the guest of honor. This was sensible.

Having Bruni carry three possibilities through the courtyard while Carol loudly evaluated them was less so.

“That one is for Aunt Io,” she announced.

Io was on the opposite side of the courtyard.

I saw Evelyn notice her at exactly the same moment I did.

“Aunt Io needs a chair?” Io asked, approaching us.

Bruni stopped with an armchair balanced carefully in his uninjured hand.

Carol looked up at him.

Then at Evelyn.

Then at me.

I had faced commanders with less formidable expectations.

“We’re rearranging the gallery for family suppers,” Evelyn said. “Carol has opinions about where everyone should sit.”

That was true.

It was also only the useful portion of the truth.

Io touched the arm of the chair.

“This one looks comfortable.”

Carol nodded vigorously.

“You can have it.”

“Thank you.”

Io smiled at Bruni.

“You should let someone help you.”

“It’s light,” he said.

“Your shoulder is still healing.”

He sighed and lowered it.

After Io had gone inside, Evelyn turned toward the assembled conspirators.

“No more furniture consultations in the courtyard.”

Carol raised her hand.

“Yes?”

“She liked it.”

Evelyn paused.

Then she smiled.

“She did.”

We ended the second day of planning with almost everything assigned and remarkably little completely finished.

The invitations were being delivered discreetly. Lexander had arranged for Io’s essential duties to be covered. Lisbeth knew which furniture would move and when. Mirelle had selected flowers that could be obtained without stripping every garden in Havenreach.

Thor had secured the musicians.

Cassia and Lysandra had solved three transport problems, disagreed over two decorations, and returned from Concordia laughing about an attempt to describe the celebration without using the word birthday in front of the wrong servant.

Julian had helped the children finish their drawings.

He had also spent an hour on his own waterwheel, because Garrick Valewood came to collect him when he began volunteering for a fourth task.

Evelyn and Adriana sat together that night, reviewing the plan while I watched the four children carefully carry their unfinished gift into a cupboard.

Seraphina remained beside it after the others left.

“What is it?” Adriana asked.

“Will Mother like it?”

“The party?”

“The picture. The party too.”

Evelyn held out her hand.

Seraphina came to stand between them.

“She’ll like that you thought about her,” Evelyn said. “And that you made something yourself.”

Seraphina looked toward the cupboard.

“I want her to look happy.”

Adriana kissed the top of her head.

“So do we.”

Later, I found Io in the passage outside the library.

She was carrying two books and a letter, looking pleasantly tired rather than worried.

“You’ve all been busy,” she said.

I kept my expression as ordinary as I could.

“There’s a great deal happening.”

“Julian’s birthday, for one.”

“Yes.”

“He looks happier about it now.”

“He’s choosing what he wants.”

“Good.”

She shifted the books against her side.

“Evelyn and Adriana invited me to supper a few days after his celebration. I told them I’d be glad to come.”

“That sounds pleasant.”

“It does.”

She studied me for a moment.

I had the sudden, uncomfortable impression that she could hear every conspirator in the castle holding a breath.

Then she smiled.

“Try to get some rest before then, Uriah. You look as though you’re organizing a campaign.”

“I’ve been receiving a great deal of advice.”

“I imagine you need it.”

She continued down the passage.

I waited until she had turned the corner before going back to the sitting room.

Evelyn looked up immediately.

“Well?”

“She accepted supper.”

“We know. Did she say anything else?”

“She thinks I need rest.”

Adriana leaned back in her chair, smiling.

“Then she suspects nothing unusual.”

On the table between them lay the final page of the plan. At the top, Julian had written Io’s name in careful letters. Beneath it, four smaller hands had contributed flowers, stars, a sun, and one person with six fingers.

Evelyn folded the page and put it away.

“Now,” she said, “we only have to keep it quiet until the day.”

From the next room, Carol called, much too loudly, “Are we still not telling?”

Adriana covered her face.

I began to laugh.