Part IIain sat across the dinner table from Marcas Lord Calandel. On the white linen tablecloth, embroidered with black and gold ash leaves, were oysters with wine sauce, ham and pea soup, fig and cheese salad, with port wine dressing, venison tenderloin with green peppercorn sauce, baked bread pudding puffs, and chicken cream pie. Iain’s father looked at each one of them—at Marcas, and at his sons, Iain and Andrew—as he raised his wine glass to toast Marcas, second son of the Duke of Calan, cousin to His Majesty, Duncan III, King of Joria. Iain wondered what his father saw. The empty seats where Iain’s older and long-gone sister, and his older twin brothers, had once sat? Or did his father only see Marcas?
“Your health, Lord Calandel, and I assure you—ˮ
“Angus, do call me Marcas. If we
