The receiving-hall had been built for guests the Hold did not yet have, and Velvet kept it as though they might arrive at any moment and find the dust on the chair of state. She dusted it every morning. She lit the wall-lamps herself, one at a time, with a taper she held in her gloved hand so that the flame would not touch the silk, and she rehearsed compliments for the new Regent while the lamps caught.
Highness looks as a prince ought to look, which is to say, slightly unwelcome to the weather.
She set the taper down. That was not a compliment. She would have to try again.
The Regent’s coat was being braided. She had sent to the Mason’s Yard for the braid’s clasp, and she had sent to the Forge for a gift-piece to hold it, and she had been informed by Gaunt, in the doorway of the Forge, that the Chamberlain’s gift-piece would be paid for in wrought iron and not in flattery. She had enjoyed that. There was nothing so refreshing as a smith who objected to a thing in the same breath that he made it.
Her own copy stood in the glass beside the door.
