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Better not to reply. I stared at her, hoping she thought I was stupid.
“We will take supper now,” she added.
I kept silent as I walked behind her through the sleeping chamber and the parlor, into the hall, and across it to a finely appointed room whose windows looked out onto the lit courtyard. She sent me in ahead of her, alone.
A table set for four with china, silver, and glass graced the center of the room. Two bowls hanging from brass tripods poured cold light on the scene, and two pairs of candlesticks bled threads of cold light from their placement on each sideboard. A small side table placed beside the window held a platter on which rested an unusual, large-veined stone and a glazed earthen vessel scored with a geometric pattern in whose belly rested a spray of white flowers.
I turned as my husband walked in. He now wore a long dinner coat tailored from stunningly expensive “king’s cloth,” the color so rich a gold that the eye melted in ecstasy just to look upon it. According to my father’s journals, a mystic symbology was woven into the very pattern of the cloth, but because the Houses guarded their secrets with firmly closed mouths, no outsider knew what these signified. He sported also a knotted kerchief at his neck in the style known as “the diaspora,” so complicated in its magnificent folds and falls that I blinked in admiration.
His dark eyes narrowed. “I thought you brought appropriate clothing.”
“I did!”
“Why are you wearing this, then? To appear so, when they already think me—”
He broke off before I could further lose my resolve not to speak, for the two proud attendants—I knew no one’s name here except my own—entered the supper room, looking, like him, as pleased as if they had been asked to drink salt water. He walked to the sideboard, where we all washed our hands in a bronze basin. He poured from an open bottle into five cups, then took the offering cup to the window, poured a few drops onto the stone, and set the cup on the table beside the vessel. Returning to the sideboard, he handed out the other cups, first to me and then to the others.
We drank. The mead was honeyed and rich, burning down my throat to my empty belly.
“Not promising. I expected better.” He set down his cup and, before I realized what he meant to do, plucked the cup out of my hand. “You won’t want that, Catherine.”
My mouth opened, and then I remembered Aunt’s words and closed it. Our companions pointedly said nothing, but neither did they drink more.
A young male servant pulled out the chairs. We sat. The first course was carried in by four silent servers: a clear-broth fish soup, several lamb and chicken dishes swimming in bright sauces, platters of gingered beans, gingered rabbit liver, roasted sweet potato, and a pair of savory vegetable stews fortified with millet. How I wanted to display my offended dignity by spurning the food, but I was so very, very hungry, and it smelled so very, very good.
They set down the plates, and the woman spooned lamb in red sauce onto his plate for his approval. He tasted it and winced.
“Absolutely not.”
The chicken with an orange sauce.
“I can’t be expected to eat this.”
“I would be willing to try it,” I said in a low voice, but although the woman glanced at me, my husband ignored my words.
The lamb in gravy, the gingered rabbit liver, the beans, and the vegetable stews met with the same scorn.
“Is this all your kitchen can manage? It is not what we are accustomed to at the estate, but perhaps you’ve been so long away tending house here in the city that you’ve forgotten.”
I winced, trying to imagine what Aunt would say if she ever heard me speak so ungraciously. The servers carried away the offending dishes. I wanted to weep. I would have scraped the smears of sauce off his plate, just to get some flavor on my parched tongue. He considered the clear soup and the bland orange potatoes with disdain.
“These are so simple they can, one hopes, offend no discriminating appetite. Very well. Can I hope there might be a suitable wine, a vintage better than that sour mead? A cheese, perhaps, and sliced fruit?”
The woman’s expression was as emotionlessly correct as his was disdainful. “I will ask personally in the kitchens, Magister.”
She deserted the chamber.
“I have certain things I need,” said my husband.
“All that was requested is ready,” said the man in a tight voice.
“Is it?” my husband replied in a tone thoroughly insinuated with doubt. “I’m relieved to hear it, after this supper.”
The room lapsed into an awful silence. For the longest time he merely sat, looking out the frost-crackled windows into a dark courtyard. The heat rising from the floor warmed my feet and legs, but my shoulders were cold as I stared at the bright slices of potato and the cooling soup with its pure broth and moist, white fragments of fish floating among scraps of delicate cilantro. I thought I might really and truly start crying when my stomach rumbled.
“But after all,” said the man abruptly, as if his chain had finally snapped, “I’ll just go to the workshop and make sure.” He rose and left.
Without looking away from the window, my husband hooked the bell and rang it.
