Chapter 18: Dinner Anyway

"We're feeding him," said Mother.

It was the morning after the lesser hall, and we were in the south solar again, and the plan of the great hall was still on the big table under its teacups, with the wooden horses scattered across it where nobody had bothered to put them away. Father was standing at the window. Adriana was in the chair by the hearth. Mary had her book open, though I noticed she had not yet written anything.

"Evelyn," said Father.

"He's a guest. He came fifteen days up a river. He asked for my daughter and my son's wife as if they were bolts of cloth, and they told him no, and he took it standing up, and he hasn't left yet." Mother set down her cup. "So we're feeding him. Tomorrow night. A proper dinner, with everyone, and Helena's lamb, and the good wine."

"Why?" said Father. He didn't say it unkindly. He said it the way he says things when he actually wants to know.

"Because that's what this house does," said Mother. "We don't stop being who we are because someone was rude in our hall. If we did, he'd have won something, and he hasn't. He hasn't won anything." She looked at Adriana. "Tell him."

"She's right," said Adriana. "And he'll be watching to see if we change. Let him see that we don't."

Father was quiet for a while. Then he turned from the window.

"Not in the great hall," he said.

Everyone knew why. Nobody said it.

"The inner court," said Mother. "Under the lanterns. It's summer. We'll eat outside."

Mary picked up her pen.

* * *

So that was how, on the evening of the fifth day since the barge came around the bend, I found myself carrying trestles across the inner court with Roderic while Melody stood on a ladder hanging blue lanterns from the wires between the windows.

They were the Orselle lanterns. The ones from Mary and Melody's wedding, nineteen years ago, which I don't remember, because I was four, but which everyone else in the castle remembers so well that I feel as if I do. Blue glass, from the glassworks on the coast, with little brass caps. Melody brings them out for everything that matters. She hung the last one, and climbed down, and stood back with her hands on her hips and her ears tipped forward, and said, "There."

And when the sun went down and Helena's kitchen boys came out with tapers and lit them one by one, the whole inner court went the color of deep water, and the long tables under them were blue and silver, and the stones were blue, and people's faces were blue, and it was so beautiful that for a moment nobody said anything at all.

Then Loki said, "Can I talk now?"

"Yes," said Mother. "You may talk now."

Loki rubbed his hands together.

* * *

He went straight for Severin.

Of course he did. Severin came down from the east wing at sunset in his plain gray coat, with Iselle a pace behind him, and paused at the edge of the court to look at the lanterns, and before he had taken three steps onto the stones, Loki was in front of him, bowing.

It was the same elaborate, ridiculous bow from the great hall, with one arm swept out to the side. But this time he had a cup in his hand instead of a jug, and this time he came up out of it talking.

"Envoy," he said. "You asked my name. Three days ago. In front of everyone. And I have been dying."

"I noticed," said Severin.

"Did you? Good. I wanted it noticed. I've never held my tongue that long in my life. I think something in me may have permanently sprained." Loki put a hand on his heart. "Loki. Son of Laufey. Father of Fenrir and Jörmungandr, and several other things we don't discuss at dinner. Breaker of oaths, maker of nets, occasional mare. God of mischief, fire, and the space between what you said and what you meant." He beamed. "And cupbearer, apparently. Recently. I'm very good at it."

"You are," said Severin gravely. "That was the finest cup of water I have ever been served."

Loki's eyes lit up like a child's.

"You liked it?"

"I was thirsty."

"Oh, I like you," said Loki. "That's terrible. I wasn't supposed to like you. Sit next to me."

And before anyone could stop him, he had steered Severin down the length of the long table and sat him on a bench with his back to the north tower, and sat down beside him, and poured him a cup of wine from a jug that I am absolutely certain had not been on the table a moment before.

Severin looked into it.

It was wine. Dark red, all the way to the bottom.

He looked at Loki.

"I'm on my best behavior," Loki said. "For about another hour."

Across the table, Mother closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again and went on serving the lamb.

* * *

I sat where I could see him. I couldn't help it.

He ate well, and slowly, and praised Helena's lamb to her face when she came out of the kitchen to watch people eat it, which made her go pink and pretend to be cross. He answered every question anyone put to him, which wasn't many. He drank the wine Loki gave him, and when Loki gave him more, he drank that too, and did not seem in the least affected by either.

And Loki needled him.

Gently, at first. Then less gently. The way you might poke a fire to see what's under the top log.

"Your oarsmen," Loki said, over the second course. "The two on the barge. Do they eat?"

"I've never seen them do it."

"Do they sleep?"

"I've never seen them do that either."

"Do they have names?"

Severin paused with his cup halfway to his mouth.

"I've never asked," he said.

Loki looked at him sideways, for a long moment. Then he refilled Severin's cup, very carefully, right to the brim.

"You should," he said. "I've found people are much more interesting once you know what they're called. Even the quiet ones. Especially the quiet ones." He leaned back. "I have a son who never said a word for the first two hundred years. Turned out he was just waiting for someone to ask him something worth answering."

"Which son?"

"The serpent," said Loki cheerfully. "He's very chatty now. You can't shut him up. Last week he spent an hour telling little Uriah about tides."

Down the table, Seraphina choked on her wine.

"And your god," said Loki, a little later, as if he were asking about the weather. "The one you don't name. The emperor's father."

Severin set his cup down.

"I've met a great many gods, you see," Loki went on comfortably. "It's an occupational hazard. Old ones, new ones, little ones who live in lamps, enormous ones who think they're the sky. And I've noticed something about the ones who won't give their names." He picked a sprig of rosemary off the lamb and twirled it between his fingers. "It's usually not because they're too great to be named. It's usually because they're embarrassed."

Severin did not answer for a moment. The blue light moved on his face.

"His Radiance would not agree," he said at last.

"His Radiance," said Loki, "isn't the one I asked."

And for just an instant, I saw something cross Severin Dask's face that I had never seen there before. It was not anger. It was something much more dangerous to him than that.

It looked like he wanted to laugh.

* * *

Thor arrived with the third course.

We heard her before we saw her. Everyone in Greykeep always does. There was a sound from the lower hall like a door being kicked open by someone who had never once in her life been told to knock, and then boots on the stair, and then her voice, booming up through the passage ahead of her like thunder rolling in over a valley.

"Where is she?"

And then she came out into the blue light of the inner court, and every lantern on the wires swung, all at once, as if a wind had gone through them.

Thor is very tall. Taller than Aurethar in his human shape, and broader, with arms like a smith's and a long red-gold braid down her back that crackles when she moves. She wore a leather jerkin and riding boots, and her face was flushed and windburned as if she had come a long way in a hurry, and at her belt, as always, swinging with every stride, was the hammer.

She was not looking at anyone. Not at Father. Not at the tables or the food or the stranger in gray. She was looking around the court with her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, like a hound casting for a scent.

Then she found Carol.

"You," said Thor.

She crossed the court in about four strides. People got out of her way without being asked. She stopped in front of Carol's place at the table, and stood there, looking down at her, and her braid lifted off her back by itself and hung in the air, sparking.

"I felt it," Thor said. "In Concordia. In the middle of a council meeting. I was sitting there listening to some old fool talk about drainage, and all of a sudden every hair on my body stood up and the windows rattled and I thought, that's Carol. That's my little spark. That's her, all the way awake." Her voice cracked. "I came through the gate so fast I think I broke something."

Carol stood up.

She didn't say anything. She just reached up, the way she used to when she was very small and Thor would let her sit on her shoulders, and took hold of the end of Thor's braid.

The spark jumped.

I saw it. Everyone saw it. A thread of white light, from the braid to Carol's fingers, and back again, and the lanterns over our heads flared blue-white for an instant and then settled. And Thor's face crumpled up, and she grabbed my sister in both arms and lifted her clean off her feet and held her there, laughing, or crying, or both, while the whole table pretended very hard not to watch.

"Put her down, Thor," said Mother, after a while. "There's lamb."

Thor put her down. She wiped her face with the back of one enormous hand, grinned at everyone, and sat down on the bench beside Carol, which bent alarmingly. Helena appeared out of nowhere with a plate already heaped. Thor took it as if she had been expecting it, which she probably had.

It was only then, with a forkful of lamb halfway to her mouth, that she noticed the man in gray at the far end of the table.

* * *

"Who's that?" she said, through the lamb.

"The envoy from Kethra," said Father. "Severin Dask. He's our guest."

"That's the one?" Thor turned on the bench to look at him properly. She looked at him for a long time. "He's smaller than I thought."

"Everyone says that," said Loki.

Severin inclined his head down the table toward her. "Lady Thor. I've heard a great deal about you."

"I've heard about you too." Thor put down her fork. "I heard you asked for this one." She jerked her thumb at Carol. "For an emperor. With a crown made of cold."

"I did," said Severin. "And she declined. I'm sure you've heard that too."

"Not yet. But I can feel it." Thor's eyes narrowed. "I can feel it all over her. She told you no with the sky."

"She did."

"Good." Thor picked up her fork again. Then she put it down. "Why would your emperor want a lightning-girl, anyway? What's he going to do with her? You don't keep lightning."

It was meant as a joke, mostly. I think. Thor's jokes are hard to tell from her other moods.

But Severin had been drinking Loki's wine for two hours, and being needled by Loki for two hours, and I think he was more tired than he let anyone see. And he answered her plainly, the way he answered everything, as if it were simply a fact about the world.

"But we do," he said. "In Kethra."

Thor went still.

"The high plateaus used to have terrible storms," Severin said. "Every summer. Whole villages burned by lightning. Crops flattened. His Radiance couldn't allow it. So, a long time ago, he asked the storms to come to the golden city. And they did. They're held in the towers there. Eleven of them. There hasn't been a wild storm in Kethra in two hundred years."

There was a silence along the whole length of the table.

"Held," said Thor.

She said it very quietly. That was the frightening thing. Thor is never quiet.

"In the towers," said Severin. "They're quite safe. The lightning is drawn off to light the streets at night. It's very beautiful. You can see the city glowing from the sea, fifty miles out."

Thor stood up.

The bench went over backward. Her plate went with it. Every lantern on every wire over the court swung toward her at once, and the blue light went white, and the air smelled suddenly, sharply, of rain on hot stone.

She put the hammer on the table.

She did not slam it. She set it down, gently, with its short handle pointing at Severin. And the whole table jumped. Every plate and cup and fork rose an inch into the air and came down again with one great crash, and the wine went everywhere, and Roderic fell off the end of his bench.

"You cage storms?" Thor said.

Her braid was standing straight up off her head. Little blue-white threads of light were crawling down her arms and dripping off her fingertips onto the table, and where they landed the wood blackened and smoked.

Severin had not moved. But his hands, on the table, had gone very flat.

"Lady," he said carefully, "I meant no offense..."

"Nobody holds a storm," said Thor. "You hear me? Nobody. A storm isn't a thing. It isn't a horse to break or a dog to chain. It's weather. It comes and it goes and it doesn't belong to anyone, not even me, and I'm the one they pray to." She leaned forward over the hammer. "Eleven of them? In towers? Lighting your streets?"

Lexander was half out of his seat. Aurethar, by the arch to the kitchen passage, had taken one step forward, and his eyes had gone gold all the way through. Father had his hand up, palm out, and his mouth open to say something.

But it was Carol who stood up.

She didn't say anything. She just reached over and put her hand on the end of Thor's braid again, where it was standing up off her shoulder, crackling. Exactly the way she had a few minutes before. Exactly the way she had when she was two.

The lightning went into her.

Not all of it. Just the edge. Just enough. I saw it run down the braid and into Carol's fingers and up her arm, a bright thread of it, and I saw Carol take it and hold it, the way you might hold someone's hand when they're about to do something they'll regret, and then let it go, softly, up into the dark over the lanterns, where it broke into a hundred tiny sparks and drifted down over the court like snow.

Thor looked at her.

"Sit down, Thor," Carol said gently. "He can't hold storms. Nobody can. He just hasn't noticed yet."

For a long moment, Thor didn't move. The sparks drifted down around her, landing in her hair and on her shoulders, and going out.

Then she laughed.

It started low, in her chest, and came up through her like thunder over hills, and by the time it reached her face she was grinning so wide I could see every one of her teeth. She picked up the hammer, and hung it back on her belt, and set her bench upright again with one hand, and sat down on it.

"You hear that?" she said to Severin. "He just hasn't noticed yet." She wiped her eyes. "Oh, I like her. I've always liked her. Somebody get me another plate."

Helena was already there with one.

At the far end of the table, Severin let out a breath that I don't think he knew he had been holding. Beside him, Loki refilled his cup, very slowly, without a word.

And for the second time that night, I saw Severin Dask look like he wanted to laugh.

He didn't. But I saw it.

* * *

Roderic came and sat down next to me, rubbing his elbow.

"I fell off the bench," he said.

"I saw."

"In front of everyone."

"I saw that too."

He looked mournfully at the wine stain spreading across the front of his good shirt. Roderic is twenty, and he has his grandfather's chin and his mother's eyes and absolutely none of her stillness, and he has been falling off things in front of everyone his whole life. It has never once slowed him down.

"She saw," he said.

"Who?"

He tipped his head, very slightly, toward the far end of the table.

Iselle was sitting by herself. She had a plate in front of her with a little lamb on it, and she was not eating it. She was sitting very straight on the end of the last bench, near the arch to the kitchen passage, where the blue light was dimmest, and she was watching the court the way she always watched everything. As if she were memorizing the exits.

She had not said a word to anyone all evening. Nobody had said a word to her.

I thought about the roof. About two people in every rule.

"Go and talk to her," I said.

Roderic looked at me as if I had suggested he go and talk to the moon.

"She's hardly said a word to anyone in five days."

"I know. That's why." I nudged him. "Go and ask her name."

"I know her name. It's Iselle."

"No," I said. "You don't. None of us do. Severin told us what to call her. That's not the same thing." I looked at him. "Ask."

Roderic looked at me for a long moment. Then at Iselle. Then he took a deep breath, the way he does before he jumps into the river off the mill bridge, and stood up, and walked down the length of the table, and sat down on the bench across from her.

I moved down a little. Not close. Close enough.

* * *

"Hello," said Roderic. "I'm Roderic. Prince of Greykeep. And Lyradon, technically, on my mother's side, though nobody there calls me that because my uncle Julian has a son now and..."

"I know who you are," said Iselle. "You fell off a bench."

Roderic stopped.

"That was Thor's fault," he said.

"You also had a sword. A Kethran one."

"It got halved."

"I saw. It was too heavy for you anyway."

"That's what Garrick said," said Roderic, a little sulkily.

"Your brother is right."

I want to be fair to my brother. He tried. He tried the thing he does with his eyebrows that makes girls at the college laugh. She did not laugh. He told her about the time he jumped off the mill bridge on a dare and came up with a fish in his shirt. She looked at him as if he were a slightly interesting stain.

"Do people usually like this?" she said at last.

"Like what?"

"This." She made a small gesture that took in his eyebrows, his good shirt, the wine stain, and most of his personality.

Roderic opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he said, honestly, because Roderic is nothing if not honest, "Three of them, at the moment."

"That's three too many," said Iselle.

Down the table, Seraphina made a sound like a kettle and put her face in her napkin.

Roderic sat there for a moment. I could see him thinking about giving up. I could see him thinking about going back to his own bench and his own wine and his three girls at the college, who all liked him, at least two of them, most days.

Then he looked down the table, and found me, and I don't know what he saw on my face. But he turned back to her.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

Iselle's eyes narrowed very slightly. "You've been asking me things for ten minutes."

"No. I've been telling you things. That's different. My brother pointed that out. I'm sorry." He took a breath. "What's your name? Not the one he gave us. Yours."

The blue light moved over the table.

Iselle looked at him. Really looked, I think, for the first time. Her face did not change. But something behind it did, the way the surface of a pond doesn't change when a fish turns over deep underneath it, and yet you know.

"Iselle," she said.

"Just Iselle?"

There was a pause. A long one. Longer than it should have been for such a simple question.

"Just Iselle," she said.

Roderic nodded slowly, as if she had told him something important. Maybe she had.

"What do you want?" he said.

"What?"

"It's the next one. In our house. Name, then want." He shrugged, a little helplessly. "So. What do you want, Just Iselle?"

She looked at him for a long time.

"I want you to stop talking," she said.

And Roderic, who has never in his entire life been able to refuse anyone anything, who once spent an entire summer carrying a goat around the lower market because a little girl asked him to, closed his mouth.

And stopped.

He just sat there. Across the table from her. In the blue light. Not talking.

They sat like that for a long time. Thor was telling a story about a sea serpent that I suspect was mostly lies. And at the far end of the last bench, in the dimmest part of the court, my little brother and a girl from across the sea sat in silence and did not look at each other, and did not leave.

Then, very quietly, without looking up from her untouched plate, Iselle said:

"That was the first thing anyone here has asked me."

Roderic looked at her. He did not say anything. She had asked him not to.

"It was a start," said Iselle.

She stood up, and picked up her plate, and carried it into the kitchen passage, where Helena took it from her without a word. And she went back toward the east wing, alone, without looking back.

Roderic sat there for a long time after she had gone.

Then he came back down the table and sat beside me, very carefully, as if he were afraid of falling off again.

"She said it was a start," he said.

"I heard."

"Is that good?"

"I think," I said, "it's the best thing that's happened to anyone this week."

* * *

It was only then that I looked down the table for Severin.

His place was empty.

Loki was still sitting there, beside the empty bench, with two cups in front of him. He was turning one of them slowly between his fingers, watching the wine go around.

I got up and went down to him.

"Where is he?"

"Went for a walk," said Loki, without looking up. "About twenty minutes ago. Said he wanted to see the castle by lantern light. Very politely. Asked if I'd mind." He turned the cup. "I said I didn't."

"Which way did he go?"

Loki looked up at me then.

There was nothing mischievous in his face at all.

"Down," he said.