Chapter 4: The First Measure

The hall exploded.

Chairs went over. Goblets smashed. A lady shrieked and dove under the table with her skirts over her head.

Kaelen didn't move.

He held me against his chest with one arm, his other hand flat on the table.

"Thane," he said.

Corin was already gone through the gallery door.

I could feel Kaelen's chest under my cheek.

It was silent.

Whatever had beat in it last night had stopped.

"Is everyone quite finished?" he asked the room.

Slowly, the screaming ended.

The lords picked themselves up and brushed off their silks and pretended they hadn't dived for the floor.

Isadora hadn't moved from her seat.

She hadn't even set down her goblet.

Corin came back a few minutes later with blood on his sleeve and a crossbow in one hand.

"Upper gallery," he said. "Mortal. Already dead when I got there. Poison, from the smell."

"Whose?"

Corin dropped a scrap of cloth on the table in front of Isadora.

It was gold, with the Montcalm crest stitched on it in black thread.

"From his coat," Corin said.

Isadora looked down at it.

"A servant I dismissed a month ago," she said. "He must have held a grudge against the king. How very sad for him."

"Very," Kaelen said.

"You can't think I'd shoot at your little meal in front of thirty witnesses, Majesty."

"I think you'd shoot at anything in front of anyone, if you thought you'd get away with it." He stood with me still in his arms. "Supper's over."