I noticed Anton looking around, obviously trying to locate Belinda, who was nowhere in sight, presumably sitting at a far end of the table with the lesser mortals. I couldn’t help glancing at Matty and my gaze went straight to her mouth and neck. They looked perfectly normal but then she was wearing a high-necked dress. She caught my eye and then looked down uncomfortably. I found myself checking out the guests at the table to see if any of them showed obvious bite marks on their necks. One woman at the far end was wearing a lot of strands of pearls, but apart from that their necks seemed to be pristine. Maybe vampires bit each other. What did I know?

The meal began, course after course of rich food, culminating in a procession carrying a whole roast wild boar with an apple in its mouth.

“Not the one we shot today,” Anton said. “Ours was much bigger.”

“Who actually shot it?”

“I did”—Anton lowered his voice—“but we let Siegfried think that he did. He cares about these things, you know.”

Throughout the meal Dragomir had been hovering in the background, directing servants like an orchestra conductor. As the main course came to an end he appeared at Nicholas’s shoulder and banged on the table with a mallet.

“Highnesses, lords and ladies, please rise,” he announced in French, then in German. “His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas wishes to drink a toast to the health of his bride and to her wonderful country.”

Nicholas rose to his feet. “If the toasts are to begin, then more champagne, if you please,” he said. “How can I toast my beautiful bride with anything less?”

“Forgive me. Of course. Champagne.” Dragomir barked instructions and bottles were produced, opened with satisfying pops and poured. And so the toasts began. An endless stream of toasts. At home toasting at formal banquets is a stylized and decorous affair with the toastmaster drawling out, “Pray be upstanding for the loyal toast,” and everyone murmuring, “The king, God bless him.” Here it was what my mother would have called a beanfeast. Anybody who felt like it could leap up and toast whomever they pleased. So there was a great deal of scraping of chairs and shouted toasts up and down the table.