On that cheerful note, I left the kitchen, with a couple of sweet cakes I had light-fingered from a tray. I had not gotten far before a page stood before me. “FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry?” he addressed me cautiously.
His wider cheekbones marked him as probably being Bearns stock, and when I looked for it, I found the yellow flower that was the Bearns sigil sewn to his patched jerkin. For a boy of his height, he was wretchedly thin. I nodded gravely.
“My master, Duke Brawndy of Beams, desires that you wait upon him as soon as you handily may.” He spoke the words carefully. I doubted he had been a page long.
“That would be now.”
“Then shall I show you to him?”
“I can find my way. Here. I should not take these up there with me.” I handed him the sweet cakes, and he received them doubtfully.
“Shall I save them for you, sir?” he asked seriously, and it smote me to see a boy put such a high value on food.
“Perhaps you would eat them for me, and if they suit you, you might go in the kitchens and tell our cook Sara what you think of her work.”
No matter how busy it was in there, I knew a compliment from a skinny boy would win him at least a bowl of stew.
“Yes, sir!” His face lit at my orders and he hastened away from me, half of one cake already in his mouth.
The lesser guest rooms were those on the opposite side of the Great Hall from the King’s rooms. They were considered lesser, I suppose, mostly because their windows faced onto the mountains rather than the sea, and hence the rooms were gloomier. But the chambers were no smaller, nor less handsome in any other way.