Consequently, to hide the feeling of self-conscious care, Pinch studied those at the table as hard as they studied him. Passing the outer wing, the rogue gave only cursory interest to faces that confronted him, concentrating on guessing rank and position by their dress and badges. These were the minor lords of the court, those who wanted to be players in the intrigues but were only being used by the masters. For the most part these factotums and their ornaments were dull as cattle, unaware of who he was and content with their petty positions and their ordained superiority over the common masses. They worried over who sat next to whom, dripped grease into their ruffed collars, and catted about whose looks had been enhanced tonight by some illusionist's hand.
Still, here and there, a pair of bold eyes met Pinch's or a snide comment was whispered to a neighbor as he passed. Pinch took special note of these: the forthright showed some hopes of cunning or fire, the gossips were clued enough to have heard already who he was. Both might be valuable or dangerous in times to come.
Past these room-stuffers, invited mostly to fill the table, was the second tier, and now Pinch's interest became keen. Here the rogue noted faces and made brief nods to ladies and lords he remembered. Every lord and lady sitting here was a prince's ally. Pinch recognized the proud Earl of Arunrock, commander of the navy, by the out-of-fashion goatee he still kept trimmed to a point. Farther along, the rogue almost gave a start to see the merchant Zefferellin, who used to broker loot from an inn near the market. Judging from his robes of severe opulence, business must have been good enough to buy respectability. Next there was a lady he didn't know but definitely wanted to. She had a refined elegance that suggested she could break the spirit of the purest man. Finally, there was the Hierarch Juricale, a woodcutter-sized man whose black eyes glowered at people over his long bent nose and spreading white beard. He was a man whose word could inspire the faithful to kill for his cause. Even at the table he sat aloof, apart from all the others as if he alone were above all this. It was a lie, Pinch knew. There was no man more directly involved in the court's intrigues than the Red Priest.
These were the hands that held the knives of the princes and the Lord Chamberlain. There was nothing to distinguish them in dress from the pawns of the lower tier-who believed that clothes determined rank through the strange alchemy of fashion-but this inner tier knew where the true power lay. They had chosen their sides. Which wing, which side, how close to the center of table, all these were clues waiting to be deciphered.
At last the regulator reached the center, where he turned to the table and casually bowed. Along the opposite side of the curving main table sat the princes four, their backs safely to stone walls. Interspersed between them were the rest of the family: Duke Tomas and Lady Graln. At the very center, in the king's normal seat, sat Cleedis, Lord Chamberlain and Regent of the Assumption.
Pinch waited to be recognized, but now it was their turn to make him wait. Cleedis continued with his story.
Unlike the others, Bors the idiot prince, was the only one who seemed to show interest. He was still an idiot, that was clear. Flabby faced and jaundiced, he dumbly mouthed Cleedis's words, barely understanding most of it. His napkin, tied under his chin, was awash in soup spill and crumbs, and it seemed to take most of the First Prince's effort to get his spoon to his lips. Every once in a while, he would giggle softly about something that amused only him.
Next to Bors, and looking none to happy for the seat, was Duke Tomas. Had he been two seats over, Pinch would have mistaken the duke for Manferic, his late brother, even though the duke was gleamingly bald where the late king had had a full head of hair.
'Dear coz, the years have made you forget your manners.' The jab brought Pinch back to the front and center, and he bowed quickly before even looking to see who had stung him. It didn't matter; even after fifteen years it was impossible not to recognize the voice, a baritone of biting silk ripe with arrogance.
'Quite true, Prince Vargo. Otherwise I would have remembered your impatience, too.'
Across the table glowered a muscular man, Vargo, second son of Manferic. He was several years Pinch's younger, although his face was hard and sharpened to a point by his impeccably trimmed Vandyke. His casually tossed blond hair offset the red of his beard, and he easily could have been a dashing cavalier if it weren't for the unsatiated savagery that twisted even his brightest smile.
'I present myself, Lord Chamberlain,' Pinch-now-Janol continued before his adversary could recover from the rogue's bon mot. 'I am Master Janol, royal ward of the late King Manferic.'
A susurration of muted surprise trickled from the outer wings, as those guests previously clueless of Pinch's identity grasped the import of his arrival.
'I… beseech… your permission to join you at table as was the courtesy my late guardian extended to me.' This part of the ritualistic greeting came hardest for the regulator. It was galling to go through the show of asking the favor after the old man had forced him here in the first place. Hiding a grimace, the prodigal courtier bowed once again, this time with more flamboyance. The fear that threatened to paralyze him was fading as the familiarity with the air around him grew.
Lord Cleedis raised a glass of amber wine as if this were the first time he had seen Pinch in years. The gold elixir sparkled in the light from the mullioned windows that lined the base of the dome above.
It was all a conceit. Everyone at the table knew the old man had gone to fetch the errant ward, though the thief couldn't imagine why the chamberlain had risked absence from the court for so long. Gods knew what the princes had done-or might have done-in the regent's absence.
'Truly we are pleased to see our long-absent cousin. I, who was your guardian's servant, will not dishonor his name by sending you from this hall. Prepare a place for Master Janol where he can sit with honor.'
In an instant the servants silently swooped on the diners, producing a chair, linens, goblet, and trencher. It had all been prearranged, of course, so there was no need for direction as they uprooted the foremost noble of the second tier and laid a place for the rogue. This displacement triggered a chain reaction of shifting and squeezing as each noble vainly refused to relinquish his position in the chain of importance. At the very end of the semicircular table, the lowest courtier of the lot found himself dangling off the end, trencher perched on his knees.
Pinch squeezed himself into place between Prince Marac and a glistening courtier simmering at the insult of being supplanted by a mendicant relative. The man sipped his wine through clenched teeth and eyed Pinch in way that was reminiscent of the lizards he used catch. Pinch considered being friendly, but the man was a reptile and hardly worth the effort. Instead the rogue ignored him, because it made Pinch's presence all the more stinging and that made Pinch happy.
'Prince Marac…' The rogue's cup raised in a genial toast.
Marac, youngest of Manferic's sons and the one Pinch liked the best of the slippery lot-because the youth had been easy to intimidate-eyed Pinch the way one neighbor eyes the other when his best hound has disappeared. He tried to look for the evidence of a bloody knife while trying not to seem like he was looking.
Marac was no longer the ten-year-old youth that Pinch remembered. That one had been replaced by a poor imitation of Prince Vargo. His face was fuller and rounder than sharp-cheeked Vargo, and his beard had the thin, brushed softness of youth, but already the eyes were hidden barbs. His straw-blond hair was longer than his brother's and straight where the other's was tangled. With all these differences, there was still a foundation that was Manferic's bloodline. Perhaps the two weren't Manferic progeny, but unfinished duplicates the wizard-king had fashioned in some long-forgotten laboratory, and their lives from childhood to death were one vast experiment. It would be so like the way he raised me, just to see what he could build, Pinch thought.
Prince Marac acknowledged the toast, and the glow of his face melted into a lipless smile. 'Your unexpected return is a pleasure, cousin Janol.'
That was all lies, from front to end.
The prince sipped at his scented wine while the servants dished out the next course, a sweetly stewed, steaming joint of some meat beyond the rogue's ken.
'An excellent cut, isn't it, Your Highness?' suggested the lizard-eyed noble at Pinch's other hand. The man was determined not to be left out of the conversation.
'Quite good hunting on your part, Lord Chalruch.'
As if the words were a signal, the table that had been so quiet while Pinch sat himself roiled into gossip and banter once more.
'Thank you, milord. I bagged him in a perfect-'
'So cousin, how fares it you've come back here? How long has it been?'
'I've been abroad on fifteen years, Prince Marac.'
'Not long enough,' Vargo suggested from the other side of the pearly Lady Graln.
She laid a hand on his. 'Vargo, you're being unkind.'
