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All gazes lifted to land on them. On him, specifically; it was a relief to know they were looking at him, rather than at Ragnar. They’d all met him, he realized. Ragnar had been speaking and dealing with all of them, from Lady Leda stitching his leg, to thanking Reggie and Connor for coming to Leif’s defense on the road. Ragnar had tried to portray that story with a casual air – “No need to thank them for saving your life, because I’ve already done so” – but his cheeks had colored, and Leif knew it had taken him no small effort to do so. He was rarely serious, and never thankful.
Through process of elimination, Leif knew that the man at the foot of the table must be Lord Edward. He might not have formally met everyone, but he knew their names, and which territories they were lords over, and his nerves dissipated. He was ready for the arguing, but less jittery about it than he’d been moments before.
“Everyone,” Amelia said, in a voice that managed to be both conversational, and authoritative. “I’d like you all to formally meet the Crown Prince of Aeretoll, Prince Leif Torstansson , Heir to the North, the Palace at Aeres, and the famed Great Northern Phalanx.”
Ragnar leaned into his side and elbowed him –ouch– with a laughing whisper of, “Gods, she’s playing you up, isn’t she? I’d have led with ‘he snores like a dying cow and finds smiling difficult.’”
“Along with his cousin, Ragnar of the Úlfheðnar clan. Leif’s most-trusted and valued second-in-command,” Amelia continued, and Ragnar went statue-still beside him.
Leif elbowed him back in kind.
In a formal tone, Amelia said, “I trust our allies from the North will be quite welcome at our council table, and that they will have unique contributions to make to our war effort.” Then she turned to Leif, and her expression was one of determination: she was going to make this alliance work, by the gods, that expression said. “Leif. Ragnar. Welcome. I’d like you to meet…” And she went around the table reciting full names, and titles, and listing off duchies and accomplishments. It was a lot to remember, and though Leif tried to take careful mental notes, he knew he would forget some tidbit. Hopefully, this bit of ceremony was just that, a bit, and the Southerners didn’t lean on it in ordinary conversation.
He'd been right about Lord Edward, and nodded back in response to the man’s slow, deliberate single nod of acknowledgement. No one bowed, thankfully, though he did receive a few “your grace”s. Amelia motioned to the chairs to her right, indicating that he should sit.
First, though, the princely part of him that he’d shoved down the past few months reared to the forefront of his consciousness. He ought to make some sort of statement. He imagined his mother watching in the wings, brows cocked in stern expectation, and found the words came more easily than he’d hoped.
“I thank you for your hospitality, my lords. My ladies. On behalf of my pack, and myself, I would also like to thank you for tending to our injuries, and offering us food and shelter during our recovery. It was nobly done. I should like very much, going forward, for us all to be allies in this common cause against the Sels.” He offered a fast bow, and Ragnar belatedly did the same at his side. Then he sat in the designated chair. “I hear there’s to be a march west? To the town of Merryweather?”
“I’ve given the prince a brief recounting of our planned mission,” Amelia said, taking her own seat. “His input would be welcome.”
He said, “If it’s secret you’re after, my wolves can pass quieter and quicker than a man on two legs.”
Thus the meeting began, and flowed forward, just as all the many he’d attended in Erik’s study had. Ideas tossed back and forth, maps unrolled, and passed around, and turned upside down for better perspective.
“The moment the strike team secures the chateau in Merryweather, two messengers must be sent,” Edward said. “One back to our lines to inform us of success, and one forward, dressed as a Sel rider, to deliver the message that will draw the general out of Kenmark. The message must be carefully crafted.” He sent a meaningful look around the table. “He needs to ride forth with enough men that we can don their armor and impersonate them, but no so alarming a message that he rides out with his full force behind him, and a missive sent in advance to the palace to warn of foul dealings in the Bridelands.”
“Agreed,” Amelia said.
Leda said, “I’ve been known to pen a convincing note or two in my time,” and the task was awarded to her.
Leif didn’t particularly like the idea of donning enemy armor to fool the guards, strictly on principle, after having grown up in Erik’s straightforward, boldly aggressive shadow. But after the ambush on the road, his body still aching and getting sorer by the minutes, as he sat upright in this stiff-backed chair, he saw the wisdom in deception. They didn’t have the numbers to face a general and his army. But by slipping in undetected, and securing pivotal gates, with a valuable hostage or two, they could get said army to lay down their arms and come along quietly.
A date was picked, and tasks were divvied out – Leif’s wolves would come in valuable for spying and for sneaking, and for fighting, when it came to that. Everything rubbed along well, and Leif was feeling positive about the path that lay ahead…
But then something he’d feared finally happened. Chairs were beginning to slide back, and there were murmurs of lunch, when Leif glanced up, and caught Edward’s gaze. The man was staring right at him, meaningfully, and Leif released the arms of his chair and stayed rooted, staring back.
The rest of the table quieted, as the others noticed their locked gazes.
Amelia said, “Edward?” A prompt.
He continued to match Leif, stare for stare – but then his gaze cut over, slowly and deliberately, to Ragnar, and back again. “He is a thrall?Yourthrall?”
It was one thing to deal with his family’s disapproval over Ragnar – but they were Ragnar’s family, too, and even if they now all thought Leif should have laid his neck on the chopping block weeks ago, they knew well the charm and temptation of him. These people here, though, knew him only as the wild man wearing a collar who’d dared to climb aboard Amelia’s temperamental stallion.
He’d expected a fight, once the truth came out.
He hadn’t expected a Southerner to know the old Northern ways in which Ragnar was bound to him, now.
He said, “You know what a thrall is?” And let his surprise color his voice.
Edward said, “My family is not originally from Aquitainia. I have made it my business to study the ways and customs of this continent, new and old, and those of their neighbors to the north. You have said this man is your cousin and ‘beta.’” Hint of distaste on the word. “But if he is your thrall, then he is your war prize, also.”
There was no sense lying; the torq was damning, irrefutable evidence.
“He is, yes.”
To his right, he heard the rustling of Ragnar’s hair as he shivered. Where their arms bumped together, he felt the goosebumps on Ragnar’s skin, and the tremors moving beneath it. The sharp scent of fear-sweat filled the narrow space between them, and Leif didn’t have to meet his gaze or ask a question to know exactly what it was he feared: a cage. Being thrown in irons and tossed in a wine cellar somewhere. Traveling in a locked trunk cut with ventilation holes, because the Southerners didn’t trust him, and thought him a liability.
