At that hour of the morning, the great Map Hall smelled of warm wax, wet leather, and the fennel servants tucked beneath the flagstones to drive out the previous day’s odors. The tall windows had been opened despite the September cold. Wind lifted sections of the long map of Aurenne, and four secretaries held it down with felt-wrapped lead weights as though keeping an underweight patient in bed.
Isabeau placed two fingers on the March of Sorne.
“You’ve put the Vaudrans at the North Gate.”
Chancellor Villerac did not look at the map. He was reading the wedding precedence list, the one that had already cost three nights of quarrels among men convinced peace depended on the exact distance between a duke and an archbishop.
“The Vaudrans requested the North Gate.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
She followed the blue line of the Sorne toward the capital with her fingernail. On parchment, the river was obedient, almost decorative. In the city, it had flooded two weeks earlier, leaving cellars full of gray water the tanners were still throwing into the streets. The North Gate opened onto the mill district. Mérande’s procession was to enter there before dawn tomorrow, with eighty riders, thirty carts of gifts, King Gaspard’s musicians, and enough scarlet cloth to make the whole city believe peace could be bought by the roll.
“The millers must deliver flour before prime,” Isabeau continued. “If you send Matthieu’s escort that way, they’ll wait two hours. By noon, bread prices will rise because pages in velvet occupied the road.”
“Bread prices won’t rise in two hours.”
“You never buy it yourself.”
One secretary lowered his head to hide a smile. Villerac finally set down the list.
“Your Highness, tomorrow you marry a prince of Mérande. Today you can still choose not to start a war over a cartload of flour.”
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