Alaric Adair's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Alaric found Crawford Chamberlin at the wine tables inside the feast hall, red-haired and short and already three cups down. Crawford was the only man in the realm who had ever told Alaric his smile looked stupid, and for that reason Alaric trusted him more than his own brothers. Alaric pulled him aside behind a pillar and named the problem in one breath. Astrid Ainsworth sat at the long table across the hall, eating with a knife and speaking to no one. Alaric had no seat near her, no errand at her end of the room, and no house tie to her march. If he crossed the floor without a reason, she would see him coming and turn her back before he arrived. Crawford drained his cup and looked at Astrid, then at Alaric. "You want a reason," he said. "I can give you a reason. You won't like it." Crawford's plan was simple and cruel. He would spill his cup down Alaric's sleeve in full view of the head table, then loudly beg the northern guest for the trick her people used on wine stains in wool. It was a real trick; Crawford swore his aunt had married a northern man and taught him the words. Alaric agreed before he could think. Crawford stumbled into him on cue, red wine bloomed across Alaric's white sleeve, and Crawford's voice carried the length of the hall. Heads turned. Astrid looked up. Crawford bowed toward her and asked, loud enough for the steward to hear, whether the lady would spare the salt and vinegar cure her march was known for. The hall waited. Astrid set down her knife. She said, "We don't have such a cure. Someone lied to your friend." Then she returned to her plate. Crawford went pale under his freckles. Alaric stood with wine dripping off his cuff and every eye in the room on him, and understood that Crawford's aunt had married a liar. He walked out of the hall before the laughter started. In the corridor he wiped his sleeve on a curtain and made himself think. She had spoken to him. Two sentences, in front of witnesses, with his name attached to a fool's errand. Tomorrow every guest would know Alaric Adair had been made a joke by the northern woman. He could not approach her again as a suitor. He would have to approach her as something else.