Chapter 266: Dinner For Four

Thorne said nothing. But he laid a hand briefly on Draeven’s shoulder as he passed, and left it there a moment longer than courtesy required.

Then someone knocked.

It was a soft knock, polite and hesitant, at the door of the east study. All three of them turned. The door opened a hand’s breadth, and a dark-haired man in the house livery of Kaelen’s staff stepped in and bowed.

Lysander.

He entered and took in the room at a glance, the three kings, the cooling hearth, the faint ring of frost on the arm of one chair, and something in his face became very careful.

"Your Majesties." His voice was low. "Lady Morgana is waiting in her chambers. She says she is ready for dinner whenever you are."

No one spoke.

Draeven looked at Kaelen. Kaelen looked at Thorne. Thorne looked at the closed door through which Astraea had gone, and then back, slowly, at the two of them.

Do we tell her? said the silence.

Do we say nothing?

Do we sit at that table and watch her smile, knowing the mask on her is breaking?

Lysander waited. His eyes flicked from one king to the next.

Draeven drew breath to answer.....

***

*IN MORGANA’S ROOM*

Rowan had changed the gown three times.

The first was blue and far too grand. The second was grey and far too plain. The third was a deep wine-colored wool, high at the neck and fitted at the waist, with long sleeves that covered the bruises on her arms and a collar that sat just high enough to hide the one on her shoulder. Rowan stood behind her at the mirror with a hairpin between her teeth and worked a braid into a coil at the nape of Morgana’s neck.

"Hold still." She snapped.

"I am holding still."

"You are vibrating."

Morgana looked down. Her hands were twisting the folds of her skirt. She smoothed them flat. "I’m a little nervous."

"Of what? They’ve seen you in worse." The last pin went in. "They’ve seen you in chains."

"Rowan....."

"I’m only saying."

Morgana met her friend’s eyes in the glass. Rowan’s face was perfectly innocent, and perfectly watchful, and Morgana knew that look. It was the one she wore at the market when a stall-keeper saida fair price.

"Go on," Morgana said. "Ask."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You have been not-saying it since I came back from the study."

Rowan set down the brush. "You came back with a face like a shut door."

"I told them what Astraea said."

"Some of it."

"Rowan."

"I said I’d trust you, and I’m trusting. I’m only noticing." She took Morgana by the shoulders and turned her gently to face the room. "That’s allowed. Noticing. Turn round. Let me see."

Morgana turned.

Rowan looked her up and down, from the coil of dark hair to the toes of the soft slippers, and her mouth worked, and for a moment she looked as though she might cry again. Then she sniffed and straightened a fold at the collar that did not need straightening.

"There," she said. "You’ll do."

"Is that praise?"

"It’s the best you’ll get from me before supper." She tucked a stray hair back into its pin. "Eat properly. Not like a bird. And if Lord Kaelen pours you a third glass of wine, you say no."

"Why would he pour me a third glass?"

"Because he’s Lord Kaelen." Rowan replied.

A knock came at the door.

It was a pleasant knock, two raps and a pause, and Rowan crossed to open it with the air of a woman admitting a bailiff. The man on the threshold was dark-haired and easy in his shoulders, in the grey and silver of the east wing. He bowed with a faint smile.

"Lady Morgana. Mistress Rowan." His eyes were quick and kind. "Lysander. I’ve the honor of walking you down."

The corridors were warm with torchlight.

Lysander walked a half pace ahead and to the left, as a good servant does, and talked as he went. He told her which tapestry had been mended after Lord Kaelen set it alight in his seventeenth year. He told her which stair creaked, and that the third landing had the best draught for a man who liked cold feet, and that the head cook’s cat slept in the warm corner of the east passage and bit anyone who stepped over her.

Morgana laughed in the right places. Under it, a small cold knot sat in her stomach and refused to loosen.

"What are they like tonight?" she asked.

"My lady?"

"I’ve dined with them before." She kept her eyes on the flagstones. "I couldn’t tell you a single thing I ate. I was too busy trying not to say the wrong word."

"Ah." He glanced at her and away. "I’ll tell you the truth, my lady, and you’ll not repeat it."

"I won’t."

"In ten years in his Majesty’s service I have seen Lord Kaelen eat standing, sitting, running, and once on a roof." His voice was light. "I’ve seen King Draeven take his supper at a desk so often I thought the desk had a stomach. And tonight Lord Kaelen has sent the wine back twice, the table has been moved twice, and the King has asked me three times whether the candles are too bright."

"The candles?"

"I said no, my lady. He asked again."

She laughed, and it surprised her.

"They are nervous," Lysander said, and his face was mild and very careful. "I’d not say it to their faces. But I have never seen the three of them fuss so over a table."

They stood in the torchlight, and for a moment she thought he would say more. His gaze moved over her face, and something passed over his own, quick and gone, like a man who has swallowed a stone and means to carry it gracefully.

"Is something wrong?" she said.

"No, my lady." He smiled. "Only that the soup is hot and Lord Kaelen is impatient. Shall we?"