The King's Invitation

The morning after the door Aldric stood at his post in the Thorne sitting room and watched Elara eat breakfast and read correspondence and speak to Lady Thorne about fabric for a new dress. She was composed. Poised. Untouched. As though the night had not happened. As though the sounds he had heard through the door had belonged to someone else. As though the tears on his face had been rain.

She did not look at him. Not once during breakfast. Not when she gave him the day's orders. Not when she left the townhouse with Lady Thorne for a morning call on a courtier's wife. She walked past him in the hallway and her eyes passed over him the way eyes pass over furniture.

He was furniture. That was the point. That was what she had been telling him. In the room he was hers. In the hallway he was nothing. The transition between the two was not gradual. It was a door. Open or closed. Nothing in between.

He spent the morning in the training yard behind the Thorne townhouse. Lord Thorne had arranged access to a yard used by the household guards of several townhouses in the quarter and Aldric went there to work with his sword. The movement helped. The repetition of forms. The familiar geometry of attack and defense. His body knew what to do when his mind would not stop.

Other knights used the yard. Men from other households. They sparred and trained and talked and Aldric kept to himself and they let him. He was new. He was from a minor house. He had not yet earned the right to their conversation. He was fine with that. Conversation was not what he needed.

He needed to hit something. He found a practice post and he worked it for an hour. Basic strikes. Forehand. Backhand. Thrust. The wood was scarred from use and his hands blistered under the calluses and the pain was clean and simple and it pushed the other pain back. Not far. Not for long. But enough.

At midday he returned to the townhouse. A messenger had arrived while he was out. A royal messenger. The seal of the crown on the envelope. Elara was in her room and Lord Thorne was in his study and Aldric took the message to Thorne.

Thorne read it and his face went still the way Elara's had when she had received the letter from the queen.

"The King has invited Elara to a private dinner," Thorne said. "Tomorrow night. Just the two of them. No court. No attendants. Except her knight."

He looked at Aldric. "You. He specifically named you."

Aldric felt the cold start in his stomach. "He knows about me."

"He knows she has a knight. He knows the knight's name. That is not surprising. The King knows everything that enters his court. What is surprising is that he wants you there."

"What does it mean."

Thorne set the letter down. "It means he is not just testing Elara. He is testing you. A private dinner with no court means no witnesses except you. And if you are the only witness then you are also the only variable. He will want to see what you are. How loyal you are. How close you are to her. Whether you are a threat or a lapdog."

"How should I behave."

"Like a knight. Nothing more. Answer when addressed. Do not volunteer information. Do not look at the King directly unless he speaks to you. Do not look at Elara in a way that suggests anything other than professional service."

"And if he asks me questions about her."

"He will. Answer with nothing. Tell him she is a good mistress. Tell him your duties are ordinary. Tell him you have served her for three months and know nothing of her private affairs. Lie cleanly and simply because the King will know if you lie poorly."

"I understand."

"Understand one more thing. The King is not stupid. He is not crude. He will not threaten you directly. He will be charming and warm and he will make you feel as though you are among friends. That is when you are most in danger. When you feel comfortable. Do not feel comfortable. Not for one moment."

Aldric went to find Elara. She was in her room. He knocked and she said enter and he did. She was at the desk writing. She did not look up.

"I have heard," she said. "Thorne sent word before you arrived."

"How do you want me to handle it."

"The way Thorne described. Be invisible. Be dull. Be the knight from the country who does not know which fork to use."

"I can do that."

"I know you can." She set down her pen and looked at him. The first time she had looked at him since the night before. Her eyes were steady. Her face was the mask. But something in the way she looked at him was different. Softer. As though the mask had been adjusted slightly to let something through.

"He will try to separate us," she said. "Not physically. He will not take you out of the room. He will try to create distance between us by the way he talks to you. The way he looks at you. The way he positions himself relative to me. He will make you feel like you are on the outside of something. He is good at that. He has been doing it since we were children."

"I am on the outside of things my lady. I am used to that."

She flinched. It was small. He almost missed it. But it was there and he had caused it and the fact that he could cause it with a simple true statement gave him something he did not expect. Not satisfaction. Not power. Something quieter. The knowledge that she felt the distance too. That it was not just his burden. That she carried her side of it even if she would never admit it.

"Go," she said. "Prepare your armor. Make sure it is clean. Tomorrow night you represent me. Look the part."

He went to his room and he cleaned his armor. Every piece. He polished the steel until it reflected his face. He oiled the leather. He sharpened his sword even though he would not need it. The work was familiar and it calmed him and while his hands moved his mind worked on the problem of the King.

Aldous the Fourth. A man who smiled with his mouth and tracked with his eyes. A man who had announced his sister's return as a reunion. A man who wanted her dead and had not yet moved because he was still calculating.

Aldric thought about the men he had killed. Twenty three. Most of them had been straightforward. Bandits. Enemy soldiers. Men who fought with weapons and intent you could see. The King was not that kind of enemy. The King fought with invitations and dinners and questions that were not questions. He fought with charm.

Aldric had never fought charm before. He was not sure his sword could reach it.

That evening Elara came to his room. She did not knock. She opened the door and closed it behind her and stood with her back against it. She wore a nightshift. Her hair was down. Her feet were bare. She looked at him and her face was not the mask and it was not the woman from the room. It was something between. Something uncertain.

"I should not be here," she said.

"My lady."

"Tomorrow night he is going to look at you and he is going to see what I see. And then he is going to know. He is going to know what you are to me. Not everything. But enough. And he is going to use it."

"How would he know."

"Because I will show it. Without meaning to. Without wanting to. He knows me better than anyone alive. He watched me grow up. He knows my face. He knows what I look like when I am protecting something and you are the thing I am protecting and he will see it."

"Then do not protect me. Treat me as furniture."

"I cannot." Her voice broke slightly on the second word. She caught it. Swallowed it. Continued. "I cannot look at you standing in his room and not feel what I feel. And he will see it. And then he will have something he can use."

Aldric stood. He was in his breeches and a loose shirt. No armor. No weapon. Just a man in a small room looking at a woman who was afraid.

"What do you need me to do."

"I need you to make it easy for me to treat you as furniture. I need you to be cold. Distant. I need you to look through me the way you look through everyone else. I need you to give me nothing. No look. No gesture. No sign that we are anything other than lady and knight."

"I can do that."

"Can you. Because last night you cried outside my door and this morning I saw the marks of it on your face and I felt something when I saw it and that feeling is the thing that will get us killed."

"I will not give you anything to feel. I will be empty."

"You cannot be empty. That is not who you are."

"Then I will pretend to be empty. That is close enough."

She looked at him and her eyes were wet and she did not let the tears fall. She held them the way she always held them. By the edge.

"Come here," she said.

He crossed the room. She reached up and put her hand on his chest. Over the scars. She did not press. She just rested her hand there and felt his heartbeat.

"Tomorrow night you will stand in the King's chamber and you will be nothing and I will be his sister and he will smile at us and we will smile at him and underneath all of it this will be here. Your heart under my hand. That is the only real thing in that room. Everything else is theater."

"Yes."

She took her hand away. "I am going back to my room. I will not summon you tonight. Sleep. You need it."

She left. He stood in the middle of his room and his chest was warm where her hand had been and the warmth faded and he lay on the bed and he did not sleep but he rested and the rest was something and something was better than nothing.