I Married the Emperor to Kill Him novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Supper

"He set that fire," Cassien said.

"Did he?" said Ilvessa.

"Your army took the citadel. The tower burned the same night. My brother was inside it."

"All true."

"Then what are you telling me?"

She tapped his fallen blade with the tip of her cane.

"I'm telling you to ask him at supper," she said. "You owe him one."

Isandor's private dining room was smaller than Cassien had expected.

It held a round table, a fire, two chairs, and a desk in the corner piled with papers.

There were no servants, because Isandor had sent them out.

He had changed into a dark robe with long sleeves.

He did not stand when Cassien came in, because he was reading.

"Sit," he said. "I'll be one minute."

"I'm here because I lost, not because you whistled."

"Then sit because you lost."

Cassien sat.

Isandor was reading petitions.

The top one was written in a clumsy hand and signed at the bottom with a soldier's widow's mark.

There were dozens more.

"What are those?"

"The convoy at the border ford." Isandor signed the page. "Forty men in the escort. Thirty-one had wives. I answer them myself."

"That was fourteen months ago."

"They're still writing."

He put down the pen and looked across the table.

"You look like a man who's going to ask me something."

"Did you set the fire in the Bell Tower?"

The fire popped.

Isandor looked at him for a long time.

"I'm not going to tell you about the tower," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because you would decide I was lying, and I would hate that."

"You don't hate me now?"

"No," Isandor said. "Unfortunately."

He lifted the lid off a dish.

There was roast quail, and pears in wine, and a soft white cheese Cassien had not seen since he left home.

It was Lisvaine cheese.

Cassien stared at it.

"Your cousin told my aunt you liked it," Isandor said.

"Maelis talks to your aunt?"

"Everyone talks to my aunt eventually. It's easier than not talking to her."

Cassien did not want to laugh, and he laughed anyway.

Isandor watched him do it with a look that made him want to throw something.

They ate.

Cassien had not meant to eat, but the quail was good and the cheese tasted like the dairy at the citadel, and Isandor talked.

He did not talk about the war.

He talked about his aunt teaching him to ride at ten, by putting him on a horse and slapping it.

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