The party planners had outdone themselves this year. He had never seen so many pumpkin lanterns. They must have bought every candle in the city. The Artisan Quarter would be dark but happy that night. At least the candlemakers would be smiling, not to mention the pumpkin farmers. He chuckled and shook his head at all the bales of hay and straw. Only the privileged would dream of making a castle appear like a barn. Already several bales had broken, the floor scattered with brittle straw and dry clover. They would be cleaning up for weeks.
Kegs of beer and trays of sweetmeats graced every room, accompanied by casks of cider. Barrels had ladles hanging off the sides and slices of apples floating—fruit that would be prized by the end of the night, having absorbed the fermented cider. Streamers that mimicked the color of falling leaves spilled down from the rafters and looped the banisters. A number of the real ones lay scattered across the floor, escapees from the large pile of leaves mounded in the center of the reception hall that the younger attendees had been diving into.
When at last he reached the main floor, the music stopped and everyone took a knee.
“Welcome, my friends, to my humble home,” he said with a loud voice that boomed and bounced. “Please rise.”
The room rumbled with movement. “Tonight we celebrate the bounty that Maribor and Novron granted us this year, and they were generous indeed. All of our provinces report a surplus, and not just in the fields, for the year was good to the forests as well, and game is plentiful. The coming winter will indeed be a merry and safe one. But our joy is doubled as we also celebrate the appointment of our new chancellor. The son of the Earl of Swanwick, who married my wife’s recently passed sister, making him Duke of Quarters, the same man who just three years previously had distinguished himself by winning the Silver Shield and Golden Laurel, not to mention taking the Grand Circuit Tournament of Swords Master title at the Highcourt Games. A man whom my own wife has declared possesses the Valin tongue, the Pickering physique, and the bold determination of the Exeters!”
This brought a round of laughter.
He called for a glass of wine and looked over the crowd. “Where is my brother-in-law anyway?” Heads turned, looking around.
“Here, Your Majesty.”
Amrath spotted the new chancellor’s hand rising out of the sea of heads, and those who hadn’t realized turned to face him. Amrath lifted his glass. Those who had drink followed suit. “To the new Lord High Chancellor, His Excellency, Percy Braga.”
“To Percy Braga,” the room echoed back. They clinked, drank, and applauded.
The musicians in the gallery began playing once more and he and Ann waded through the room. Always like fording a river, the king thought. Everyone was seeking his attention for a word, which always started with flattery and was followed by a request. Luckily the gala was a local affair. To his knowledge only Melengarian nobles were in attendance. Little solace, as they were just as annoying, but at least he wouldn’t have to weather Imperialist rhetoric. If he had to sit through one more debate over the need of a central authority or how kingdoms like Melengar were an abomination in the eyes of Novron, he’d likely strangle someone. That was one of the benefits of these events—no swords. In a room of unarmed men, he wasn’t just the king; he was the Bear.
Amrath and Ann joined Leo near the hearth. Pickering sat on a table, legs stretched out and his boots resting on a nearby cider barrel. Between his teeth he puffed from a long-stemmed clay pipe.
“Just make yourself at home,” Amrath growled playfully, swatting at his boots.
“Already have, Bear.”
“Where is Belinda? I thought she would be here.”
Leo got to his feet to speak to the queen. “She and Lenare are visiting her mother in Glouston. She’s not well.” His expression suggested it was more than a simple cold.
Voices erupted behind them.
“The shield belonged to Cornick,” Conrad the Red told Heft Jerl. His voice was loud and getting louder.
Not again, thought the king.
The two neighbors, the Earl of West March and the Earl of Longbow, faced each other over a cider barrel. Both were in their forties, grizzled old roosters cleaned up for the day. They each wore fancy doublets, and their combed hair didn’t suit either. These were men at home sitting on dirt with their bare feet resting on the backs of hunting dogs. He imagined their wives had had a say in how they arrived at court.
“It belonged to Hinge,” Heft Jerl, the Earl of Longbow, replied. He was matching volume with Conrad and sloshing the cider in his cup, as he was another of those men who couldn’t speak without moving his hands.
“It has a mountain on it,” Conrad insisted as he ladled a cup of cider, struggling to scoop up an apple slice.
“No one knows what it has on it.”
“Open the tomb and you’ll see.” Conrad caught the apple and grinned.
“No one is digging up the sacred grave of my ancestor!”
“Sacred? It’s just old bones … and a shield—a shield with a mountain crest—Cornick the Red’s shield!”
“Just because you keep saying that doesn’t make it true. Besides, the mountain wasn’t even your family crest until …?” Heft looked to Amrath.
“You two aren’t seriously debating that again, are you?” the king asked.
“They’re on their eighth cup,” Leo said. “What did you expect?”
“Eight already?”
“They arrived early.”
Amrath sighed, not because two of his earls were well down the happy cider path but because waiting on his wife had left him seriously behind in the cup race. “You two need to find something else to bicker about, if for no other reason than to provide a little variety for the rest of us forced to listen. What about the Ribbon River?”
Heft looked at him, wiping dribble from the front of his doublet with the sort of concern that came from having been warned not to muss his clothes. What have we become? Amrath felt the old depression coming on. We used to be men. Now we’re dress-up dolls for women.
“What about it?” Heft asked.
“It’s changed course over the centuries. One of you has gained land while the other has lost some. That sounds far more sensible than this old argument.”
“That’s just land,” Conrad said. “This is the honor of my fathers. It wasn’t Cornick the Red who failed to hold the flank. It was Hinge Jerl.”
“Every story tells of the red mountain shield being driven from the battle,” Heft declared.
“Go to Drondil Fields,” Conrad said. “Look at the painting next to the charter. It’s Hinge Jerl holding Cornick’s shield! Cornick lent it when Hinge’s broke. If you’d just stop being so damn stubborn, admit your whole family have been cowards for centuries, and open your bloody tomb, my forefathers could be vindicated.”
“You’re drunk,” Heft said, which made Amrath smile given Heft’s own wobbling stance.
“Hinge’s arms were the hammer.” Conrad clapped his hand on the hammer symbol embroidered on the front of Jerl’s now hopelessly stained doublet. He struck harder than necessary to make the point. Eight cups of hard cider had that effect on him.
Jerl shoved Conrad back and didn’t see what everyone else—who hadn’t had eight cups—saw, which was that Jerl was too tipsy to judge distances fairly and that he didn’t mean anything by it. Jerl’s shove was badly timed, catching Conrad off balance. He staggered back, caught the barrel with his heel, and fell on his backside, spilling a full cup of cider and losing his coveted apple slice in the process. This brought laughter from everyone in the hall, except Conrad.
Conrad the Red had always been hot-tempered—all Reds were—and he never needed to be drunk to take offense at being made a fool. When he came up from the floor, he had his dagger in hand. While swords were not allowed, daggers were considered ornamental. Conrad thought differently. His glassy eyes were focused as best they could be on Heft Jerl.
Amrath heard Ann gasp. That did it. The king stepped between the two.
Amrath was like a mountain—Conrad could not get to Heft; he could not even see him. The king’s massive hand took hold of Conrad’s wrist. “It’s a party, Conrad.” Amrath spoke softly but deeply—a warning growl.