Chapter 17Lavinia’s elbow was getting sore from propping herself up on the dining couch. The king reclined on a couch opposite her, still chewing loudly. The only sound throughout dinner had been clinks as he spat olive pits into a bronze dish. As Amata often reminded Lavinia, King Latinus hated being interrupted during meals. The queen herself did not recline, but sat up straight like a proper matron and ate little. Lavinia reached for the bowl of dried figs before her, but knew she could not eat until this was done.
She distracted herself by studying the heirlooms that hung from the walls. The leathern armour and ancient spears glistened like new. Wax death masks of Latinus’s ancestors going back a thousand years stared down from above the family shrine. Only one was missing, some dista
