The following week at lunch everyone was a little tense, as they knew the first of their Solstice visitors would be arriving that day - and with a large contingent, based on their room requests. Capsim had ridden out to meet his family and Karl had elected to eat in his rooms, so Adam was mentally reviewing the family names of all the guests coming between spoonfuls of soup when he heard his father clear his throat. He looked up.
King Randor smiled at his son. "Adam, you've spent much time with our three – now two – guests this year. What do you think my reasons were for asking these specific three young men to come stay with us?"
Adam leaned back to think. Dreus had been sent home in disgrace two months prior for completely expected reasons, and, after a heated exchange with Randor, Dreus's father had sent a large sum of money to support a laundress and a wagonmaker's daughter and the children they were expecting. Capsim had been an ass for the first several months and it had taken the combined efforts of Adam, his parents, and the entire palace staff to teach the boy to treat others with some measure of kindness and respect, but he was now a tolerable companion who, Adam suspected, was struggling to overcome serious insecurities. Karl, extremely bitter that his father had not sent him to the Academy, initially had refused to attend any lessons, but now he was studying military tactics, history, and engineering alongside Adam. With such flaws, Adam did not think the three young nobles' personality traits had contributed much to their selection, unless it was to show him how awful people could be and that they could be reformed with time – unless they were Dreus.
But Adam had learned that Dreus's and Capsim's fathers, who controlled adjoining swaths of land, bickered constantly over trade and boundary disputes. And each had sisters of marriageable age. He'd also learned that Karamino, Karl's family holdings, contended with bandits and other outlaws who lived in the Magnetic Mountains and emerged to make raids, only to disappear back into the mountains as soon as the duke's guards arrived.
Finally he answered. "Well, I suspect you may have hoped that Dreus and Capsim would learn to get along, or at least when their families visited for Solstice that the families would mingle in a social context and perhaps someone even might be interested in someone else's sister?" Adam ventured, and his father nodded. "But Dreus's behavior unfortunately prevented the latter from happening."
"As for Karl, he and his father were having a difficult time. Did Duke Karn reach out to you? I'm not sure how else you'd have learned about it and decided Karl needed a change of scenery."
Lord Councillor Tonio, who had joined them for lunch, answered. "The duke wrote to me to see if Karl could spend some time at court. After his father denied Karl's entry into the Academy, father and son apparently could not be in the same room, and Karl was lashing out at everyone. And he already had surpassed their Master of Arms in skill and needed new training partners."
King Randor continued. "That letter actually got me thinking about whether other young men might benefit from coming as well. And how you would benefit from learning about other areas of Eternia from people who lived there, as well as forge deep bonds with them. And there's an additional reason to bring Karl here."
Adam shook his head to signal he didn't know it. His father continued. "Adam, in the past you've surpassed all your training partners except Teela, and she's no longer here. I wanted you to be challenged and to challenge someone else." The king started to say something else, but a knock on the door interrupted him. Capsim's family had entered the city and would be at the palace in a few minutes. Adam inwardly groaned, not looking forward to spending the next several days playing host instead of enjoying the Solstice preparations, but followed his father to greet their first holiday guests.
During introductions Capsim's parents, Earl Quikim of Emittaun and Lady Jena, quickly made clear that any one of their daughters would be delighted to spend time with Adam. Supper continued along the same vein and before Adam realized it, he was promised to take eldest sister Androma on a tour of the gardens the next morning and middle sister Pamona to the Eternos central market the next day. Before Lady Jena could get Adam to commit to taking young Amanda to the lake, the Queen intervened and noted that, with Solstice only six days away and more guests arriving, she would need Adam available to help entertain all (she emphasized the word) their guests. Adam sent his mother a silent smile of thanks and thought that if she hadn't been stopped, before the end of dessert Lady Jena would have had him scheduled to marry one of her daughters.
As he left the dining room with the other guests to go to the drawing room, Androma having claimed one arm and Amanda the other, Adam wondered if he would have any peace in the coming week.