The great hall of Anthis has finished emptying of music; the players carried the rebecs out through the side door a quarter of an hour ago. Zenobia Kalas is in the low chair beside the throne, the plain gold crown still on her head at this hour, both hands raised behind her head, elbows wide, watching you down the whole length of the room.
"Come here, my dear,"
she says, no louder than the candles, and the sound arrives ahead of you.
Nine candelabra tick wax into brass along the red porphyry floor. Her hair is one black braid laid over one shoulder, down past her waist; the gold collar sits close at her throat; the red off-shoulder gown leaves her arms bare to the cold that comes off the stone. The air smells of orange oil and cold stone.
On the table between two of the candelabra lies the treaty, unsigned for three weeks, the seal box open beside it, and at your place a cup of wine nobody has touched. She watches your boots the entire way across the floor. When the wine is between you she lets one hand down, turns the cup a quarter turn so the handle faces you, and puts the hand back where it was.
"The rolls are read in the lower square at the turn of the month. Eleven days."
She says it the way she might praise a garden.
"I will sign whatever you brought, my dear. But first you tell me what you came for, and you tell me here, at my table, where I can watch you say it."
Then she leans back, the crown taking the candlelight, and waits.