Book 4, Chapter 40: Supper
“Our cooks would have prepared a lovely supper for you, you know.”
“I know, Saph, I’m sorry. My generals insisted on replacing the kitchen staff with our own.” Sitting at the head of the table, Saph to my right and her back to the lower tables, I leaned across to her. She looked pale as ever, having lost her brother, but her fiery red hair and its white tips was vibrant against her black and red dress, “I find the entirety of this ‘celebration’ distasteful, and I’m sorry for it as well.” We sat in the Barclay castle dining hall, their equivalent of high table, but none of her siblings were present. They were young and mourning and this could not be healthy for them.
My soldiers filled the tables, the hall, outside into the courtyard, probably on the ramparts and all over the castle, and it was a grand feast. It was the first victory they’d had with their new weapons. And it was an overwhelming victory. They felt invincible and drank and reveled.
I put my hand on Sapphire’s. She was cold, so I put both my hands around hers, trying to warm her up. First, her father, then brother. Now the responsibility of the duchy was hers. Or would be tomorrow, when I pronounced it thus. I rubbed her hand in mine, “This cannot be easy for you.”
“It’s not.” She wiped an errant tear away from her cheek, then looked at me with her wide, green eyes, darker now with all the tears she’d shed, “Though I must thank you. My father betrayed and killed your family, and you spared us. My brother rides out to meet you in battle, and you spare us. Surely your advisors are warning against this course of action. Yet here you are with such forgiveness.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Saph. You didn’t have knowledge of it. And that bitch, sorry, the old hag, she poisoned your brother against me. I tried to tell him, get him to surrender . . . shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You did what you could.” She pulled her hand away, reached for her wine glass. “Though I’m not sure poisoned is the right word.”
I sat up straighter, frozen while reaching for my own wine glass, “What do you mean?”
“The grand magister spent some time here. He spoke with Roddard sometimes alone, sometimes with the dowager, sometimes all three of them.”
“Oh.” This could only be bad. “Do you, uh, know what they talked about?”
Her gaze on the table, she twirled her wine glass around in both hands slowly, “They didn’t include me. No one imagined that . . .” Her lips quivered and a tear rolled down her cheek that she quickly brushed away and, blinking and blinking, looked up, “I’m sorry. Cayce. Truly. I don’t mean anything by it and I’m not blaming you, of course. This is . . .”
I reached across again, led her hand to gently set down the wine glass, then held on to both of hers. “Saph, it’s a terrible and tragic situation and I can’t apologize enough. Whatever I can do for you, I am here. Listen, I’m not going to harm your family. I want you to have the duchy. I meant what I said earlier. I’m going to enshrine it in law that only the female heirs of Barclay can rule here as duchess.”
“That’s kind of you. Truly. But, what of my husband? What rank would he be?”
“You are married?”
She laughed, pulling her hands back, grabbing a handkerchief and wiping under her eyes delicately, “No! Oh, Cayce, sometimes . . . I mean, future husband. That old bag had matched me with some suitors, you know, and they were awful. But now that she’s gone, I’ll have them thrown out of the castle.”
I smiled. “Honestly, I don’t care what you call him, but you’re the one going to be ruling. Concubine? Lord?”
“It’ll be hard on him, then. Yeah. You know, men.”
“A man who’ll accept your rule would be a fine person to be married to.”
“Though who will want to marry me, to become so impotent?”
“Saph! You will be ruling the strongest duchy in our kingdom. And you’re quick witted, strikingly beautiful. You’ll have suitors lined up out the door. The problem is,” I raised my own glass and leaned forward, “they’ll all be lazy fucks who want to live as parasites off your lands.”
She cracked a tiny smile, a little mirth reaching her eyes, and the swear was worth it. “I’ll include the word ‘parasite’ in my search for suitors, then.”
“Just tell them it’ll be endless revelry and sex. No responsibility at all.”
“Cayce!”
We clinked glasses. Drank together. I kept my focus on her and tried not to look at the troops who were laughing and shouting, some engaged in drinking games, others stuffing meat into their faces. Or at their faces, depending on their level of insobriety. I guess they’d earned it, but it seemed tasteless to celebrate in the castle of the men you’d earlier killed. I had ordered the festivities to include the defeated troops and, on Brundle’s advice, ordered their arms confiscated until new oaths were sworn, new treaties signed.
What could they do? They accepted.
“It hasn’t been easy on the princess here, either, Your Grace,” said Morry, sitting across from Sapphire. He recounted our desperate journey, racing against the Ketzillians, the apparent kindness and safety we were given, only to be betrayed by Bechalle. And the scarification I endured.
“Oh my gods, Cayce, he tortured you?”
“Yeah.”
“You poor girl!” Perhaps a little drunk, she leaned across the corner of the table, squeezing my hands more tightly. “And Brin is your mistress of the bedroom now? How terrible!”
“She’s actually really good at it.” Saph gave me a look. “I know, I know, who would have thought? I’m even, very slowly, getting her to stop thinking nobles are better than everyone else.”
“I can’t imagine that. Brinley? I can’t even remember how many times she was punished for oversleeping and her terrible manners.”
“Really, she’s changed. She’s taken with . . . do you remember Tread? My little bodyguard?”
“No! She has a crush on him?”
“I’m sure of it.”
The big man said, lifting his own wine goblet, “I’ve taught the little man fighting technique and now I’ll have to teach him bedroom technique.”
“Morry! You are a bad, bad man.”
“Thank you, Princess.”
Sapphire sat back in her seat, picking up her wine glass again, a half-smile on her face, “My younger brother is going to be upset that he’ll never be a duke.”
“Well, was he going to be otherwise?”
Saph suddenly got a dour look on her face, “Only if . . .”
“Stupid thing to say. I’m sorry, Saph, I really am. I didn’t want him killed. I didn’t want any of this.”
“Cayce, we are the ones who betrayed and attacked you, and here you are, doing all of the apologizing.” She put her hand on mine this time, squeezing, her other hand lazily tracing around my knuckles, green eyes lingering on my lips, moving slowly up and into my eyes long and long again, “I apologize. On behalf of my family, my father and my brother. How we’ve behaved . . . you have every right to destroy us as a family. I am humbly and thoroughly sorry.”
I felt something awful just then. Cold. A shiver. A coming terror. Then, gone. Somehow, I refocused on Saph and managed a smile that wasn’t offensive or arrogant, but for her and her only, and the words whispered past my lips, “Thank you, Duchess Sapphire, I forgive you entirely. Will you forgive me?”
“It’s a terrible state that we find ourselves. Warring like this. I’m glad you got rid of the dowager. And the Barclay church needs purging. I would have been surprised if the commoners didn’t burn it down themselves soon. So, yes, Cayce, I forgive you and this, this outcome, well, no other paths were available for us, it seems.”
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