Chapter 6: The Chancellor's Table

The Chancellor kept the warmest rooms in the Winter Palace.

A fire the size of a cart burned in his hearth.

The table was laid for two with silver and a joint of venison, and books lined every wall.

Lord Basil Thorngate sat Evander in the chair nearest the flames and cut his meat for him.

He had done the same when Evander was twenty-one and could not hold a knife without shaking.

"Eat, my boy," Basil said.

"You're thinner."

"I'm the same."

"You are a worrying thinness."

He poured red wine into Evander's cup and a smaller measure into his own.

Evander left his untouched.

He had drunk once, after Rask Hold, and lost two days.

He had not touched wine since, and Basil knew it and had never said a word.

"How is His Highness?" Basil asked over the rim of his cup.

"He's well."

"Yes?

"He does seem well lately.

"Better color.

"Better spirits."

His brown eyes rested on Evander, gentle, without a trace of suspicion.

"I'm glad," he said.

"He has had a hard life, for a boy with so much.

"His mother's death broke something in him.

"He signs whatever is put in front of him, you know.

"I used to tell the late queen that he would sign away the kingdom one day, out of kindness."

The venison sat in Evander's belly.

"That's how it happened," Basil said very softly.

"The Rask order.

"Forty papers on the day of the funeral.

"A child with a pen who wanted to go to his room and cry.

"I think of your family every year on the burning day, and I think, I should have read them all."

He reached across the table and covered Evander's hand with his own.

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