The Tyrant's Pet novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: The Bride-Showing

Three days later the throne room was full of daughters.

Every pack on the river had sent one.

They came up the long black floor two by two in their best silks, each with her father or her brother at her elbow.

A herald called out the pack and the dowry.

The Emperor sat on the throne and looked bored.

I stood at his right hand, where the law said his pet stood.

Agatha had put me in a plain gray dress and pinned up my hair.

"Look dull," she'd said. "Let them underestimate you."

Lettice came up last.

The chancellor walked her up the floor himself, her hand on his arm.

She'd changed into white silk and she glowed in it.

She sank into a curtsy right at the foot of the steps and stayed down a long time.

"Lettice Weald of the Tarrow pack," the herald called. "Her dowry is a share of the Tarrow mine, in silver and in wolfsbane."

The court murmured.

Lettice rose and smiled up at the throne.

Then her eyes slid to me.

"Majesty, forgive me," she said sweetly. "I didn't know you let your pet stand. In Tarrow we kept her in the kitchen."

"Does she sleep at the foot of your bed?" Lettice asked. "Or is there a basket?"

More laughter.

The chancellor smiled at his rings.

The Emperor turned his head and looked at me.

He didn't say a word.

He was waiting to see what I'd do.

I came down two steps.

"Tell them what the wolfsbane is for," I said.

Lettice's smile didn't move. "It's a dowry, Ione. You wouldn't know about those."

"Tarrow doesn't sell wolfsbane. Tarrow uses it." I turned to the room. "They boil it to pull the silver out of the ore. Then they run what's left into a pond behind an earth dam at the top of the valley. The pond leaks into the river."

The room went quiet.

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