I Married the Emperor to Kill Him novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The First Pouring
Cassien pours the Emperor's first cup before the court with nightbell in it, Isandor sends his taster away and asks if he should drink, and Cassien's own hand knocks the cup away as the silver turns black; the Chancellor drags in the Lisvaine cook to hang.
Cassien burned the note in the barracks stove while the captain watched and did not ask.
"Feed them," he told the guard at the door. "Full bread. On the consort's order."
The guard looked at him as if he had asked the man to fly.
"If anyone argues, tell them to come and argue with me."
An hour before the feast, a kitchen boy found him in the corridor.
The boy was Lisvaine, freckled, about nineteen, in an imperial apron.
He said nothing.
He bowed, and when he straightened there was a glass vial in Cassien's hand, no longer than a finger.
The liquid inside was pale gold, like honey.
Nightbell tasted of honey.
Cassien had watched two men die of it at Tarrow Ford, the week someone poisoned the well.
It killed in an hour.
The First Pouring was an old Valdrecht custom.
On the second night of a marriage, the consort poured the Emperor's first cup in front of the court, to show the household had a new master.
The Hall of Lamps was full again.
This time nobody was kneeling, and everybody was watching Cassien's hands.
Isandor sat at the center of the high table in black and gold.
The Grand Duchess Ilvessa sat at his left with her cane across her knees.
Corvain sat further down and smiled at Cassien.
A steward put the silver ewer in Cassien's hands.
Cassien had already poured the whole vial into the wine, in the passage, with his back to the wall.
"Your Imperial Majesty," the steward announced. "The consort's pour."
Cassien walked the length of the table with the ewer.
His hands were steady, which surprised him.
He stopped beside Isandor's chair.
Isandor looked up at him with that small smile, just in his eyes.
"You fed my prisoners," he said.
"They were starving."
"I know. I signed the order an hour after you gave yours. Mine had a seal on it."
"Then why were they starving in the first place?"
"Because I didn't look." Isandor held out his cup. "I'm looking now."
Cassien did not know what to do with that, so he poured.
The wine ran dark red into the silver cup.
It smelled like a summer field.
An old man in a grey coat stepped up beside the chair with a silver spoon.
He was the food taster, seventy if he was a day, with hands.
He dipped the spoon toward the cup.
"No," Isandor said.
The old man froze.
"Go and sit down, grandfather. Eat your supper."
"Majesty, it is the custom."
"My consort's pour needs no taster."
The court murmured.
The old man looked at Cassien, and Cassien saw that he knew.
He had probably tasted for emperors for fifty years and could smell a man's fear.
He bowed and backed away.
Ilvessa turned her head slowly and looked at Cassien.
Isandor lifted the cup.
He did not drink.
He held it under his nose and breathed in, and his eyes came up over the rim to meet Cassien's.
"Honey," he said.
"It's southern wine. Isn't it supposed to taste of honey?"
"Not this one."
The court had gone quiet.
"Should I drink it, Cassien?" Isandor asked.
He asked it very softly, only for Cassien.
Cassien thought about his brother.
He thought about the Bell Tower burning against the night sky, which he had seen from forty miles away at Tarrow Ford.
He thought about Severen's signet ring on the chain under his shirt.
"Drink," he said.
Isandor held his eyes.
He lifted the cup to his mouth, and his lips touched the silver.
Cassien never remembered deciding.
He remembered his hand moving, and the cup flying out of Isandor's fingers, and wine spreading across the white tablecloth in a long red stain.
The cup rang on the gold floor and rolled.
Everyone was on their feet.
Cassien stood there with his hand still out.
Isandor had not moved at all.
He was looking at Cassien's hand, and then at the cup.
Where the wine had splashed it, the silver was turning black.
The black spread from the rim downward, until the whole cup lay on the floor dark as a burned log.
Somebody screamed.
"Poison!"
Corvain's voice cut over everything, soft no longer.
"The consort poured poison for the Emperor! Guards!"
Ilvessa said something sharp, but nobody heard it.
Two of Corvain's men came through the kitchen door at the side of the hall.
They were dragging an old man between them by the collar of his apron.
He had white hair, and his feet scrabbled on the floor.
He was the Lisvaine cook who had made the barracks soup.
He had grandchildren back home, and Cassien had met him that afternoon.
They threw him on his knees in front of the high table.
"There's the Lisvaine hand in the kitchen," Corvain said. "The consort is too precious to touch. Very well."
He turned to the court and spread his ringed hands.
"Then we hang the cook."
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