All Chapters of A Crown Buried In Silence : Chapter 91 - Chapter 93

Wren POVThe Treaty of the Marches says an envoy of a house at peace with the Crown is a guest under any roof he enters, and may not be searched, disarmed, or refused salt, so by dusk the Malvern delegation had been given the whole east guest wing and Margery had been told to feed them. She took it the way she took most royal instructions, as a personal insult to be answered with excellent cooking. Their own wine came in on a mule, six small casks branded with a heron, and she had two of them opened in the yard in front of witnesses and tasted each herself, pronouncing it vinegar, before she let them past the kitchen door.The delegation itself kept the manners of a house at its best. Ten men in grey-green hung heron banners from the guest-wing windows, bowed to the servants, and tipped the stable boys a silver apiece for walking their horses. By noon Dorrie had carried up the tea and come down pink to the ears, reporting that the youngest of them had asked after h

Wren POVEmeric told it standing in the shed doorway with his good shoulder against the frame, the way he told me everything since the pump, in order and without softening. I kept grinding. Willow bark for Damian's tea, a spoonful to the cup, and the pestle went round while he gave me Merrick's figures and Corwin's three frightened Alphas and the green wash climbing the map like damp up a wall."He didn't refuse it," Emeric said at the end. "I watched it. He asked who Pryce was, and said Malvern would have his answer on the night of the confirmation, in front of the packs, and that nobody was to speak to you of figures before he did.""And what did Duskmoor put on the table?" I asked.He looked at his sling. "Two hundred swords and my word. Merrick said the Crown can only weigh what's laid on the table, and that I hold no pledge from you and no claim on paper." The corner of his mouth moved. "Then I looked at the map. Duskmoor's about the size of my thumbnail."I put the pestle down.