Unsurprisingly, when it came to what a king actually ate for breakfast, Shep had missed the mark by a fair margin. Highlights from Matrick’s table the next morning included tottering columns of fluffy gold pancakes drenched in maple syrup, steaming loaves of mouth-watering bread alongside delicate porcelain dishes of salted butter, perfectly browned toast served with a staggering variety of jam—blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, apricot, grape, fig, and something called marmalade that Moog couldn’t pronounce regardless of how many attempts he made to do so. There were slabs of pork belly, plump sausages, and eggs so airy and fresh Clay swore he could hear hens in labor beyond the kitchen door.
To drink there was fresh-squeezed juice—apple, orange, cranberry—and crisp white wine; a tea made of fragrant, flowery leaves; cool water flavoured with tart southern limes; and even strong Phantran coffee that Matrick gulped down as if it were the antidote to a poison burning through his veins.
Clay might have dubbed it one of the very best breakfasts of his life—or it had been, anyway, until Lilith, who was seated opposite the king at the far end of the long table, went ahead and spoiled it all by announcing she was pregnant.
The king, caught entirely by surprise, had a mouthful of pancake at the moment and Clay had to wonder whether the timing of the queen’s confession had been artfully planned. Around the table drinks froze on their way to lips and clattering forks fell silent, excepting those of Matrick’s five children, all of whom continued eating and talking with one another, as children did when adults said whatever it was adults said.
Besides Clay and his bandmates, there were several others in the hall as well. Servants bustled in and out of an arched doorway, clearing away dishes and setting down more as fast as the king and his guests could finish them. Soldiers stood at attention between the tall windows on one side of the room, and the queen’s personal guard cut an impressive figure standing a few feet behind her. A northman by the look of him, the same one who had appeared shirtless in the king’s bedchamber the night before. He was younger than Clay had first perceived, but seemed a capable sort, if a touch too handsome for his own good. His nose, like those of a great many Kaskars Clay had met, was hooked like a falcon’s beak, and his eyes had been rapturously fixed on Lilith all morning.
Clay was fairly certain he was fucking the queen, which made her declaration just now all the more interesting.
Moog broke the silence with a slow clap that left an even more uncomfortable silence in its wake.
By then, at least, the king had managed to swallow both his pride and his pancake. “That’s … wonderful news, honey.”
“Isn’t it?” Lilith’s grin was frosted with spite. “The augurs tell me it will be a boy. You’re going to have a new little brother,” she said, addressing the quintet of children seated along one side of the table.
Clay watched each of them react in turn. The twin boys were the youngest; they simply giggled at each other and kept on eating. Lillian, whose nut-brown skin contrasted the vibrant blue of her eyes, looked unimpressed, probably dreading the prospect of yet another brother to harass her. The fat one, Kerrick, wore a look of surprise. His jaw had dropped so low Clay could see the food still in his mouth. The oldest, Danigan, red-haired and freckled, simply nodded without looking up.
“But I don’t want another brother,” said Kerrick.
“Neither do I,” Lillian added her voice in protest.
Their mother regarded them coolly. “Well I didn’t want to give birth to a twelve-pound monstrosity, or to a girl at all, for that matter. But life isn’t fair, is it? Kerrick, share some of those peas with your sister. You’ve had more than enough, I think, and she’s skinny as an urchin boy, I swear.”
Clay felt his own mouth sag open. Needless to say, both Kerrick and Lillian began crying at once, which in turn set the twins to bawling. Only the eldest remained silent, spooning eggs into his mouth with evident disinterest.
Matrick swiped a hand through his thinning hair. “Now, children, your mother didn’t mean to upset you. She just …” He looked despairingly down the length of the table. “It’s the baby,” he said. “It just makes her cranky, is all. Isn’t that right, dear?”
“That must be it,” said Lilith. “And dreadfully tired. I think I’ll have a quick … nap before we leave for the Council. Lokan, would you be so kind as to escort me to my room?”
“With pleasure,” said her guardsman, in a tone that all but confirmed Clay’s earlier suspicion.
The two of them left arm in arm, but if it bothered Matrick at all he didn’t let it show, concerning himself instead with placating the children. “Go ahead and finish your peas, Kerrick, they’re good for you. Lil, can you please pass your little brother his juice before he knocks it over? That’s a good girl.”
He managed to cajole the kids into cleaning their plates, and Clay watched throughout with utter fascination. The Matrick he’d used to know had been devious, foul-mouthed, and drunk more often than sober. He’d had a different woman on his arm every night—or on either arm, if he was feeling especially ambitious. He’d been a master thief and a vicious killer, wielding Roxy and Grace (the knives he’d named for the prostitutes to whom he’d lost his virginity) as though they were a pair of bloodthirsty fangs and the entire world his prey.
Who’d have thought he’d make a good father? Or a competent king for that matter? By all accounts, Agria was a flourishing kingdom, and even without Lilith’s help he seemed to be raising some half-decent children. Each one of them asked to be excused and kissed him good-bye before being trundled off to their tutors.
Matrick asked the guards to leave as well, and after the servants refilled the coffee he dismissed them as well. Clay looked on in horror as Moog upended half a bowl of sugar into his.
“I like it sweet!” said the wizard.
Matrick produced a flask from somewhere and spiked his own drink, and for a while just stirred it idly and stared at nothing. Moog finished his cup and began transferring sugar from the bowl directly to his mouth with a saliva-dampened finger.
“Well Matty,” said the wizard, “I sure wish—”
“Shhh!” The king cut him off with a raised finger, glancing quickly back at the kitchen door before leaning across the table and whispering, “Get me the fuck out of here.”
Gabriel blinked. “What?”
The king mouthed the words again with exaggerated slowness. “Get me. The fuck. Out of here.”
Moog looked puzzled. “Why? Matrick, you’re the king! You said yourself you had lots on your plate. The kids—”
“—aren’t mine!” finished Matrick. “Did you get a look at them? I love the little bastards like I love free cake, but I sure as hell had no hand in making them!”
“Are you,” Clay began, and then lowered his voice. “Are you saying—”
“I am saying I was fishing in Phantra when the twins were conceived. I’m saying that Lillian has her father’s eyes—and mine aren’t fucking blue! I’m saying Kerrick is bigger at ten than I was at twenty, and Danigan, well …” Matrick made a frantic gesture that encompassed his head in general. “You’d think the red hair would tip me off, wouldn’t you? But oh no, it took me four more kids to realize they all looked a bit like Lilith and a little like the castle librarian, or the ambassador from Narmeer, or the bloody rose gardener—who I thought was gay, by the way. No offense, Moog.”
The wizard popped the finger out of his mouth. “Why would I—”
“And now she’s pregnant again?” Matrick’s laugh was a bitter thing. “I’ll bet my kingdom that boy comes out tall as a tree and as hungry for his mothers’ tits as noble Sir Lokan, that flea-bitten Kaskar whoreson!” Matrick was fairly screaming by now, unconcerned whether anyone lingering in the kitchen might hear.
“Then why don’t you just leave?” asked Gabriel.
“I’ve tried!” Matrick moaned. “The guards won’t let me. They’re fiercely loyal to Lilith—I have no idea why.”