The Cup of the World Read Online Free

throng of people. Up in the gallery where she had been that morning, a group of minstrels were sidling into their places. Below them the court watched the father-and-daughter couples, approaching the thrones in their turn to announce that another girl, and yet another, had crossed the threshold to womanhood. She watched closely to see if the King spoke to any of the daughters. He did not. Why had he spoken to her?
    Septimus was still looking her way. She dropped her eyes quickly.
    The murmurs of the crowd were rising more loudly. Phaedra realized that much of the talk had nothing to do with the formal procession. The faces in the first rank – mainly women – were following the walkers intently, looking for matches for their sons. But behind them men were standing in twos and threes, whispering among themselves. Some were not even pretending to watch. Phaedra saw one man gesturing across the aisle to another, whom she could not see, but who must have been standing in the crowd not far from her. They were arranging to meet. Did they want to discuss marriages already? More likely it was to do with the hearings that had run for days, and must run a day or two yet before all the vanquished rebels had been judged and the loyal men rewarded. They would be talking over the outcomes – perhaps even trying to fix them, as someone had tried so murderously to fix the outcome of the case that afternoon.
    She could sense Father beside her, watching the hall as she was doing. He too seemed to have forgotten the exchange at the thrones. He was itching to be out intriguing among his fellows.
    Now the fifth and last of the couples was joining them, and beyond them the singer of the King had taken his place in the centre of the hall. The strings of the minstrels began to flow with their notes from the gallery overhead. In a high voice the singer began the well-worn opening phrases of
The Tale of Kings
, which related the coming of Wulfram and his seven sons over the sea to found the Kingdom. Around her, the group of fathers and daughters had begun to break up. Father was already bending to hear what some baron was whispering in his ear. She did not want to talk with anyone. She did not want to stand there, watching the court seethe with politics while the King carried on as if the ceremony was the only business, and all the land was at peace. There was a small door in the wall behind her – half-ajar, because someone had already gone down it. She hesitated. No one was looking at her.
    She knew it would be improper to leave the hall before it was time for the procession to the banquet. Father at least would be angry, if he realized what she had done. But the singer was telling a long version of
The Tale
, running through the deeds of generation after generation of kings, because the King on the throne wanted to remind everyone how important kingship was. So she would be a prisoner here for an hour or more before the procession began. Others had slipped out, quietly. She would go also, because she dared to.
    Obedience!
    A short passage led to an archway lit by the evening sun. The sound of the ceremonies diminished behind her. She found herself in a little paved court surrounded byold, white colonnades. Low fruit trees grew within its walls. There was a fountain here, its waters lying still in its wide bowl. Phaedra leaned her arms upon it.
    She remembered another fountain, very like this one, in the ruined court outside the walls of her home. She wished that they had never left Trant. She wished that they could be like some other families – including one or two of the greatest – which still held themselves aloof from the court. Why come just to grovel before the King? But Father was a king's appointed warden, and a king's man to his very heart.
    A voice spoke at her elbow.
    ‘Is it that you prefer Wulfram's stones to Wulfram's songs, Phaedra?’
    It was the oldest of the girls who had gone with her to the witch trial, standing alone