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“Try not to embarrass us,” my brother says. “If you can. ”

We stand at the center of a semicircle of nobles, Mother two steps ahead of us. I sidle back, wishing I could leave. Lord Daerilin, standing to my left, raises a hand to hide his smirk but that only calls more attention to it. I clench my teeth and glare at the gates, waiting.

My patience is rewarded when a sentry calls down to us, trumpeting the arrival of our guests. The party trots through the open gates, tack jingling, the first riders pulling to the side to let those behind through. And through. How many are there? I count a score of men, all in light armor, before I realize there must be at least double that. At their center ride five men, all similarly dressed. But where is the king?

“The carriage,” my brother says to himself, watching it roll in behind the last of the guards. But that makes no sense. What king would leave himself unprotected from behind? Especially when traveling with near fifty fighting men?

With perfect discipline and with no audible command, the whole crowd of horses and men resolve into formation, the guards mounted and lined up two deep to form an aisle between us and the five men that had been at their center.

“His Majesty, the King of Menaiya,” one of his men announces as the king steps forward. I ignore the rest of the introduction: long lists of titles and genealogy. Instead, I study the king. He wears the traditional summer cloak of his people: a flowing, unhooded affair with arms and an open front, silver embroidery cascading along the edges and accenting the midnight blue cloth. Beneath he wears a knee-length tunic lightly embroidered with silver and stones, and the curious, loose pants of his people. His hair falls free to his shoulders, black laced with silver, setting off the warm bronze of his face and softening an otherwise hawk-like countenance. A fine tracery of wrinkles gathers at the corners of his eyes, lining his brow and accenting his mouth. He glances over our gathering of nobles and smiles, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in that smile. I cannot tell whether he despises us, or finds us no more impressive than Lord Daerilin might a mob of villagers; I cannot tell anything at all.