Cosima's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

After Rosalie left, Cosima slid the pendant back under her collar and sat with the gown on the chair. A bell rang somewhere down the hall. A maid came to say the king expected her at the family table that night. Cosima did not know how to sit at a king's table. She did not know which fork to lift or when to speak or how to address a man who had her mother in a cell. One wrong move and the court would know she had been raised in a kitchen, not a nursery. Then the king would have his proof that she was no princess at all, and Eleanor would stay below the stones. Lizbeth came back at dusk with a basin of water. She did not knock. She looked at the gown, then at Cosima's hands. "You've never eaten with a king," she said. It was not a question. Cosima shook her head. Lizbeth set the basin down. "Then listen. Sit when he sits. Lift what he lifts. Speak when spoken to. If you don't know a word, repeat the last one back as a question. People love the sound of their own answers." She tied the laces of the gown without asking. "Hands in your lap between courses. Don't reach. Don't thank the servants out loud. They'll know you meant it." Cosima walked the hall behind a steward and counted her steps to keep her hands still. The dining room held a long table and five faces she had to learn. William sat at the king's right, sword belt visible under the coat. Severin sat across, posture exact, amber eyes already reading her. Rosalie gave a small nod. Bryce slouched at the far end and watched her like a man who had decided nothing yet. King Dominic waited at the head. Cosima curtsied the way Lizbeth had shown her in the doorway, low and brief, and waited for him to sit before she did. The first course came. She lifted the spoon the king lifted. William asked where she had grown up. "A farm," she said. "North." He nodded once and did not press. Severin asked what she thought of the capital. Cosima said, "The capital?" Severin's mouth moved at the corner. She answered her own question about traffic and grain prices for a full minute. Bryce cut his meat and said nothing. Rosalie steered the table toward weather. Then the king set down his cup. He spoke of the duties waiting for her: a public audience in six days, a treaty signing, a tour of the northern holdings William had pulled back from. "You will stand beside the one you choose," he said. "The kingdom will see a princess returned. See that the kingdom sees a princess." He watched her over the rim of the cup. Cosima held his eyes and said, "Yes, Your Majesty." Her voice did not shake. He looked away first. Back in her chambers, Cosima sat on the edge of the bed with the laces still tight. She had not been caught. The king believed her. That was the trouble. He believed her enough to put her in front of a crowd in six days, on the arm of a sibling she had not picked, with Eleanor still under the stones. She had bought herself the table. She had bought herself the audience too. Lizbeth came in to unlace the gown and said, "You did well." Cosima said, "He gave me six days." Lizbeth's hands stopped a moment, then kept going.