Dinner was a trial to me. I was ravenous, but manners forbade that I show it. I ate as I had been instructed, picking up my spoon when Verity did, and setting aside a course as soon as he showed disinterest in it. I longed for a good platter of hot meat with bread to sop up the juices, but what we were offered were tidbits of meat oddly spiced, exotic fruit compotes, pale breads, and vegetables cooked to pallor and then seasoned. It was an impressive display of good food abused in the name of fashionable cooking. I could see that Verity’s appetite was as slack as mine and wondered if all could see that the Prince was not impressed.
Chade had taught me better than I had known. I was able to nod politely to my dinner companion, a freckled young woman, and follow her conversation about the difficulty of getting good linen fabric in Rippon these days, while letting my ears stray enough to pick up key bits of talk about the table. None of it was about the business that had brought us here. Verity and Lord Kelvar would closet themselves tomorrow for the discussion of that. But much of what I overheard touched on the manning of Watch Island’s tower and cast odd lights on it.
I overheard grumblings that the roads were not as well maintained as previously. Someone commented she was glad to see that repair on Bayguard’s fortifications had been resumed. Another man complained that inland robbers were so common, he could scarcely count on two thirds of his merchandise coming through from Farrow. This, too, seemed to be the basis of my dining companion’s complaint about the lack of good fabric. I looked at Lord Kelvar, and how he doted upon his young wife’s every gesture. As if Chade were whispering in my ear, I heard his judgment. “There is a duke whose mind is not upon the governing of his Duchy.” I suspected Lady Grace was wearing the required road repairs and the wages of those soldiers who would have kept his trade routes policed against brigands. Perhaps the jewels that dangled from her ears should have gone to pay to man Watch Island’s towers.
Dinner finally ended. My stomach was full, but my hunger unabated, there had been so little substance to the meal. Afterward, two minstrels and a poet entertained us, but I tuned my ears to the casual talk of folk rather than to the fine phrasings of the poet or the ballads of the minstrels. Kelvar sat to the Prince’s right, while his lady sat to the left, her lapdog sharing the chair.
Grace sat basking in the Prince’s presence. Her hands often strayed to touch first an earring, then a bracelet. She was not accustomed to wearing so much jewelry. My suspicion was that she had come of simple stock and was awed by her own position. One minstrel sang “Fair Rose Amidst the Clover,” his eyes on her face, and was rewarded with her flushed cheeks. But as the evening wore on, and I grew weary, I could tell that Lady Grace was fading. She yawned once, lifting a hand too late to cover it. Her little dog had gone to sleep in her lap, and twitched and yipped occasionally in his small-brained dreams. As she grew sleepier she reminded me of a child; she cuddled her dog as if it were a doll, and leaned her head back into the corner of her chair. Twice she started to nod off. I saw her surreptitiously pinching the skin on her wrists in an effort to wake herself up. She was visibly relieved when Kelvar summoned the minstrels and poet forward to reward them for their evening. She took her lord’s arm to follow him off to their bedchamber while never relinquishing the dog she snugged in her arm.
I was relieved to make my way up to Verity’s antechamber. Charim had found me a feather bed and some blankets. My pallet was fully as comfortable as my own bed. I longed to sleep, but Charim gestured me into Verity’s bedchamber. Verity, ever the soldier, had no use for lackeys to stand about and tug his boots off for him. Charim and I alone attended him. Charim clucked and muttered as he followed Verity about, picking up and smoothing the garments the Prince so casually shed. Verity’s boots he immediately took off into a corner and began working more wax into the leather. Verity dragged a nightshirt on over his head and then turned to me.