September 1069

Larissa returned about a minute later with no response for me, and immediately set about devouring the other half of the cookie.

I, meanwhile, went back to my sketch work.

Later, I started hearing a slight bustling outside my room, and for the first time in hours I looked out the window and checked the time. The sun had just passed the horizon, by my estimate, but twilight was still settling in and it was still fairly bright. Adding the timing together with the sound, and I figured that meant it was dinner time. And I was hungry; I hadn't had lunch at all and breakfast had come extremely early.

I left my staff and sword behind in my room, though I checked the capacity of my force rings before I left. They hadn't been building up energy for very long, and I didn't currently have any way to accelerate that process, like a punching bag, so the total force was very small. An ugly sucker punch at best, rather than a head on collision with a car. Still, useful, in certain circumstances.

I followed the stream of nicely dressed nobles to the large dining room, ignoring the looks they shot me, and just took in the surroundings.

Dinners at Berkhamsted Castle seemed like mini-feasts. Not proper celebrations or courtly events, which would probably take place in the main hall where the throne-and-dais were. Instead, it just felt like a smaller social event in a smaller room, with a U-shape arrangement of three long tables. Skirmishes rather than a battle, to use a not entirely inappropriate metaphor.

Now, I'd been to some high-falutin events before, I knew the dress codes and expectations. Which is why I showed up in my large leather duster, worn over a smaller, plainer brown tunic, with trail pants, and the accumulated fuzziness and morning shadow of a few days without a shave. Very fancy, my look. Drew all the appreciating stares.

Lucille was conspicuous by her absence. The social group that had clustered around her back at that first court meeting I'd walked in on was instead orienting around and/or fawning over Tim, who stiffened so hard a blind man could have seen it the moment I walked into the room. I arched an eyebrow at him, and after a few seconds he forced a smile onto his face and looked away.

You know, now that I think about it, I should see if Lara and her father's around, when I have the time. The latter, just to preemptively murder, and the former, to see if she's around, workable, and shouldn't be preemptively murdered. She may have been better than her father, but she hadn't really been any less of a monster. Just a more reasonable one.

Beyond that, let's see… there was Eadric and Cuthbert, sticking out like sore thumbs. Mostly for the simple reason that they were actually fancier than what almost everyone else was wearing. The cloaks almost all the men wore were fairly similar in cut and shape, differing by color and occasionally fur, but Eadric and Cuthbert's tunics were longer, more embroidered, especially on the cuffs, and they wore stockings rather than pants. Cuthbert was actually receiving enough genuinely or faux interested looks that he looked extremely uncomfortable.

Man, the first few months were going to be rough for him. But definitely interesting.

Then there was Eva, where Elfleda had clearly indulged… someone, either her or Eva or even just both. From what little I had observed and absorbed regarding feminine fashion, Elfleda had decided to blend cultural fashions there. There was a white chemise that went all the way down to her feet, which was only a little visible over the knee-length grass-green gown that was bereft of embroidery. Then she'd mixed that up with a large, blue, hooded cloak that trailed almost all the way to the ground and was clasped at the front with a silver brooch. The hood was up but not tight, showing off some of Eva's black hair.

Yeah, if Cuthbert planned to beat off suiters with a stick and/or a sword, his life was going to get really interesting. I probably wouldn't interfere too much on that front, so long as Eva was comfortable and not getting pressured and the age difference wasn't inappropriate. Though, looking around, that did knock out basically everyone, so I guess I was going to get involved eventually.

Elfleda had also gone a step further by color-coding with Eva, though in her case the colors were inverted, in part: white chemise, blue gown, and a smaller, hoodless green cloak that exposed her own blonde hair.

The extent of my involvement and interactions that night were eating, chatting aimlessly with people that went up to talk to me, saying that yes, I would be sticking around, and trying to keep my aura relatively under control so it didn't freeze all the food and drink. The one event of note, beyond Robert declaring that the mustering army would be leaving in two days to meet with another Robert's army – is Robert the Norman Eadric, namewise? – was when Eva had tried approaching and talking to Tim. The vampire had just stiffened, completely ignored the stares and glares coming from her family, and glanced my way.

I slowly, lazily, arched a single eyebrow.

I wasn't entirely opposed to the possibility of Eva and Tim, I just doubted it was motivated by anything more than simple lust and teenage girl's first crush on Eva's end. My brother had proven rather definitively that it was possible to have a… mostly healthy and truly loving relationship despite his nature, so hey, maybe Tim could too. And if Eva got together with someone that could actually reasonably expect to live a rather long time, like her, then more power to her.

But there were so many ways that relationship could go wrong, and I would definitely watch it like a hawk if Eva was still interested after I explained what vampires were to her. Which would have to be soon, in all likelihood. Especially if Eva kept crushing on Tim, and he and his sister stuck around.

Then the dinner mini-feast wrapped up, I went back to my room, and decided an extra long stretch of sleep was in order.