Chapter 7: The Cup

"Who handled this tea?" Thane asked.

"Lavinia gave it to me," I said. "She said the Stanmore cook brewed it before they left."

"Then she carried it in her own hands for two days."

"Yes."

His jaw went hard.

"I'll have her taken to the cells tonight."

"No."

He looked at me.

"If you do it quietly, she'll cry in a corner and say I drank bad tea," I said. "Jasper will say I'm raving with fever. Nobody will see it."

"What do you want?"

"The Midsummer banquet is tonight. Every pack in Highmark will be in your hall."

"Elsie."

"I want her to look at the flask in front of all of them."

Pippa, leaning in the doorway with a peach, whistled softly.

"I like her," she said to nobody.

That night the great hall glittered.

Long tables ran the length of it, with the seven packs in their best, a hundred candles, and a roast boar the size of a cart.

I sat at the high table at Thane's right hand, in a gown Pippa had pulled out of a chest and sworn was mine.

Lavinia sat three tables down beside Jasper, with a hand on her stomach and a soft smile on her face.

When the first toast was done, I stood and picked up the flask.

The hall went quiet from the high table outward.

I walked down the steps and across the floor, with every eye on my back.

I stopped in front of Lavinia and set the flask on the cloth in front of her.

"Fever tea," I said. "You made it for me."

"I did, Elsie," she said, warm as ever. "I'm so glad you're well."

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