Chapter 47: The Table

"What's in it?" I said.

Daphne let out a breath, and her whole face loosened.

"Mint," she said. "Honey. Hot water."

"The mint's from a pot on the sill in my back room at Pinecrest."

"Nothing else."

"Nothing else. You can smell it."

I could.

I bent my head over the mug, and it smelled of garden and summer.

"Who told you how to make it?"

"Nobody." Her voice wobbled. "I looked it up in Brigid's book."

"I made it three times before I got it right. The first two were awful."

"I bet they were."

"I drank them both."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

I took the mug out of her hands, and I drank it.

I drank all of it, down to the honey at the bottom.

It was warm and sweet, and it tasted of nothing but mint.

I put the empty mug on the table.

"Sit down," I said.

"What?"

"Sit. There's bread. You walked four miles."

Daphne pulled out the chair next to mine and sat.

She did not say a word.

She did not need to, and neither did I.

I buttered her a piece of bread.

She ate it with both hands, crying and chewing at the same time.

That night the Keep ate in the great hall.

Nobody had planned it.

The woman with the baby had started a pot of stew in the big kitchen.

A man from Greywater had brought a barrel of cider.

The quartermaster had pushed the tables together in a long line down the middle of the hall.

There were nearly two hundred people at the table.

The Elder sat at the head in his blanket, with the grey cat in his lap.

He had been given the best chair, and he looked deeply pleased with himself.

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