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was another silence. Sir John passed a hand across his face.
"When I am free of my duty here," he said, "I will go back to
Mersea. I will look to my account books and to my walls and I will stuff and
garnish my keeps. I will obey the King, but there will be hard times after he
leaves us."

CHAPTER 3
    Although the dinner hour was far later than usual, there was still
sufficient sunlight in the Great Hall to glitter on the jewel-encrusted gilt
and silvered goblets and on the gold plates set ready at five places at the
High Table. There were no such refinements at the long trestle tables placed at
right angles down the length of the Hall. However, the slices of manchet bread
that would serve as plates were thick and white and soft and the serving bowls
of lentils and greens stood so close together that no man would need to ask his
neighbor to pass a dish.
    Nor could any man claim that this profusion was to make up for
other deficiencies. There was roast lamb and baked mutton, boar roast on open
spits, venison and beef, boiled and spiced. There were pies and pastries,
high-seasoned with pepper or made sweet with honey. And to wash it down there
was ale and sparkling cider, hard and sweet. For the High Table there were
special dishes in addition—a swan stuffed with a goose, stuffed with a chicken,
stuffed with a dove, stuffed with a lark; a pheasant, refeathered and crouching
in a cleverly devised bracken of drawn and twisted pastry crust. The noble
diners of course drank wine, white and red, sweet and sour, all cooled in the
deep wells of the castle and served in chilled goblets.
    The seating arrangements at the High Table were a little lopsided.
Out of consideration for Alinor and because she did not know what state of
disorder she might find, the Queen had not brought her highborn entourage.
Alinor was too young to have children of gentle birth entrusted to her
upbringing. Thus, only she and the Queen were of sufficient quality to sit at
the High Table. The problem with the men was similar. Only Sir Andre, Sir John,
and Sir Simon, as knights, had the right to a place there. The squires were
highborn enough, but their duty was to carve the meat and serve the noble
diners, not to sit with them.
    The Queen's high-back and cushioned chair—specially carried down
to replace the backless eating benches ordinarily used—was set at the center of
the table. Sir Andre, the senior in age and authority of Alinor's people, sat
at her right hand, Sir John at her left. As there were no other suitable
guests, the table to the left of Sir John remained empty. One place below Sir
Andre, to the right, Alinor sat and, beyond her, Sir Simon.
    Aside from the compliments the Queen bestowed upon her, very
little conversation was addressed to Alinor. Sir Andre's attention was,
naturally enough, all for the royal guest, who was in any case a lively and
entertaining companion. Alinor had assayed some conversation with Sir Simon,
but she found him heavy at hand. He was perfectly polite; there was no sign
that he was silent out of contempt for her youth or her sex. It was plain that
he intended no discourtesy, merely that he was deeply abstracted. In fact,
Alinor had caught him twice staring at her when she turned to speak to him, but
both times he had had to ask her to repeat herself. Thus, Alinor could not
flatter herself that his attention had any personal cause. Certainly, she
thought with some amusement, he is not hanging on my words. And if I have a
smut upon my nose, I wish he would tell me instead of staring so. But she knew
she was not disfigured in any way. Sir Andre would have been quick enough to
mention any fault in her dress or person.
    She wondered at first whether Sir Simon was shocked by her
old-fashioned clothing. Alinor was well aware that she was not garbed in the
latest style. Except for riding out, when it had some purpose, Alinor did not
wear a wimple. Her grandfather had scornfully called that headgear a chinstrap
to support old