The usher directed her to the seat on the Count’s right; and there was a sudden tormenting smell of things grilled and boiled and simmered as the wheeled trays came in. The archbishop rose and said an elaborate grace; he was three seats to the left of the Count. The ceremonial jeweled saltcellar was at the junction of the upper and lower tables; the Count, his lady, principal landed vassals and noble officers like the city castellan were at the upper table. She noticed Baron Tucannon, both because of the distinctive red hair and because they’d been discussing him earlier. And if she was any judge, a number of the other vassal barons were listening to him very carefully.

Below the salt were the important commoners. Those included the Lord Mayor of the city, the guildmasters who headed their militia regiments, and a middle-aged abbess and a younger attendant in the dark blue habit and white wimple of the Sisters of Compassion, a medical order who’d spread widely in the last generation and who were apparently in charge of the hospital and clinics in the area.

And in a lot of places they’re the only medical care the really poor see, the ones without a guild or confraternity or even a lord.

Tiphaine did more listening than speaking as the meal was served; the locals were talking business, and to the point, although they were also often taking up arguments and discussions they’d been at for months or years. Most of them seemed to be in good heart, and not just because of the Sword and the return of Rudi and Mathilda.

And I’m not one of the youngest present. I’m not even below the average. That’s happening more and more often. It’s a Changeling world, or at least the world of the Changelings and their elder siblings. People like me, who’ve spend most of their lives in the modern world.

Meanwhile she ate; tiny venison sausages with candied apples, a green salad with goat cheese and the famous sweet onions of the area, a frito misto of seasonal vegetables, and . . .

She chewed a bite slowly and swallowed. “That is possibly the best steak I’ve ever tasted,” she said. “And I like steak.”

Tender, the firm marbled meat brushed with an oil infused with garlic and herbs before it was put on the grill, slightly seared at high heat on the outside and red in the center . . .

“We have sacrificed a good deal of our demesne herd of Aberdeen Angus,” Countess Ermentrude said. “With the disturbed conditions it was necessary.”

She was a pale willowy young woman in a chocolate-colored cote-hardie and twin-peaked headdress, about five months pregnant and with a roundvoweled accent that Tiphaine took a moment to identify as from one of the very northernmost baronies.