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“And just where is this…” I search for her words, “partaking to occur?”
She stops and turns back toward me, her head tilting to the side the way I’ve seen birds do when they are listening to something.
“In dining hall, of course.” Again, she sounds bewildered by my confusion.
And again, I am stunned into silence.
The dining hall? I wonder if there are furs on the ground or if he plans to take me right atop the cold stone tables.
I grit my teeth and curse the woman who forced me to come here.
But of course, it scarcely matters how I feel, I remind myself. Not to Madame, nor the king, nor anyone else in this sands-blasted castle.
There is little use in delaying the inevitable. I muster all the dignity I possess, but the words still come out baked with resentment when I finally respond.
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Six
“The king is good man.” Sigrid’s incessant praises of the king have not stopped since we stepped out of the fainting room. I’m beginning to wonder if he has a kinder twin brother I know nothing about, or if the woman is truly insane.
If it was not for the signs of age in her voice and stature, I would ask why she hadn’t married the king herself.
Perhaps she isn’t as keen on public dining table sex as she pretends to be.
“Indeed.”
I should at least try to be charming, to ingratiate myself to the people here rather than making them like me even less, but somewhere between my frostbitten toes and my impending “partaking,” I can’t quite dredge up the energy for courtesy.
The steady hum of conversation reaches me as we near the dining hall, but once I round the corner, it cuts off entirely.
The sound of chairs scraping against the stone floor echoes off of the cavernous walls as everyone stands to greet me. Even Einar follows after a moment.
So, he is capable of chivalry. He just doesn’t bother when his people aren’t there to bear witness.
A second examination of the room stops me dead in my tracks.
Three long, empty, wooden tables with ten occupants on each side are aligned parallel across the room. One smaller table sits perpendicular at the end of the room, with only the king and an empty chair beside him.
There is no food anywhere, even though I am decidedly late. No servants stand by with covered tureens. Not so much as a single stein of ale or glass of mead clutters the long, rectangular tables of veiled and masked courtiers.
Just when I had begun to hope Sigrid simply possessed a truly horrendous sense of humor, I can see she was neither mistaken nor joking about what was to take place here.
I feel the blood drain from my face, and the ambience in the room turns even more tense than it had been. I am acutely aware of how veryotherI am here, in my red skirts with my bared stomach, dripping with ornate jewelry yet covered in the markings I now know they all believe to be dirt.
But I refuse to cower, or even to fidget under the weight of their stares. I make my way to the king, where he holds out a chair for me.
His face holds no sign of what’s to come, so I have little choice but to take my proffered seat. Once I am settled, the rest of the room follows suit. A lutist, likely the same one from the wedding, starts up a subdued tune, and gradually, a halting, stilted conversation overtakes the room. Though, none of it seems to be directed toward me.
No, I have the immense honor of being at a separate table with Einar as my only conversant, not that he has bothered to glance in my direction since I sat down.
And here, I thought this ritual couldn’t get any more awkward.
A servant places a chalice at my right, and I examine the contents for hints of poison. It was impossible to grow up in Madame’s household without a basic knowledge of alchemy. Having watched her do everything from turning a prince into a frog to outright murdering people, I had long since learned to be cautious.
Fortunately, though, all I can discern here are dark and frothy scents of barley and malt with a sweet, chocolatey undertone.
“It’s just ale,” the king grunts without looking at me, but I don’t miss the way his lips curl in disgust.
