The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan Page A

laughingly to him, taking up her beaker to sip her drink. Christopher leaned in to whisper in her ear and she blushed pink. Wynter saw her grin around the rim of her cup.
    Rolling her eyes at their behaviour, Wynter turned her attention to another familiar face, Andrew Pritchard, who was taking a seat one place setting up from her on the right. They nodded politely to each other, before he turned to begin a conversation with the man beside him.
    A page exited the royal door to their left, and there was a ripple of tension all down the hall. Was the royal party coming? But the boy closed the door gently behind him and the crowd relaxed and conversations rose up again as he began to make his way down between the tables.
    On an errand for some councilman, no doubt , thought Wynter, following his weaving progress down the hall. Her relief didn’t last long, though, and a knot formed in the pit of her stomach as it became obvious that the page was heading for the commoners’ table.
    Oh God .
    She wasn’t the only person surreptitiously tracking the small figure through the crowd. No one entered or left the royal door without being taken note of, and more than a score of the assembly reacted with varying degrees of interest as the page approached the commoners and touched Christopher Garron on the arm.
    Wynter couldn’t hear what was being said, but she saw Christopher’s patent shock and confusion as the page spoke to him. She swallowed and leaned forward in nervous tension as the page gestured impatiently and ushered the baffled young man to his feet. Obeying the page’s gestures, Christopher began to make his way to the lords’ table.
    No! Oh God, was the King mad? Could he possibly be so crazed as to have ordered Christopher to sit amongst the lords? Did he hate him so much? Did he want him torn apart by wolves?
    Wynter watched in horror as the page led the mortified man through the wide space of no man’s land that lay between the commoner’s territory and that of the lords.
    Don’t abandon him! she thought, don’t just leave him here to find his own seat .
    But she knew, she just knew, that this was exactly what the page was going to do. More than anyone else, the servants would detest this outrageous breaking of rank, this terrible, terrible , insult to protocol.
    As she suspected, the page accompanied Christopher to the end of the table, gestured vaguely to the bench and walked off, his heels clicking in the now almost totally silent room. Christopher was left standing uncertainly at the end of a very long row of pointedly turned backs, all his brash certainty fled.
    There was an empty space, about ten persons up from where he stood, and Christopher gratefully made his way towards it. But as he walked up the narrow corridor between the bench and the wall, the lords and ladies shuffled and rearranged themselves so that, by the time he got to it, the space had vanished like a magic trick. Christopher paused for a moment, looking down at the rigidly turned back where his seat had been. Then he slowly began walking towards the next available space, the knowledge of what was going to happen burning in his cheeks. Sure enough, the space was gone by the time he actually got there.
    Once, twice, three more times Christopher tried to find a place, as the lords and ladies played their childish, shuffling game. Then he just stood there, rigid with anger, his flaming cheeks the only colour in his face.
    He’s going to leave , Wynter thought, he’ll turn on his heel and leave, and that will be the end of his life here. There will be no way to survive that kind of insult to the King . Of course, that was what the lords wanted. If Christopher left now, it would be seen as throwing the King’s generosity in his face, and he would have no hope of remaining at court. It would be the best thing for all of us if that happened , Wynter thought, watching the young man fume at the other end of the hall. Best for Razi, best for