Chapter 161: Five Men For Princess Lyria
Olly tilted his head.
"Normally," he said, "the dukes go first, aye?"
Brianna nodded vigorously, as though she had been waiting for someone to ask this exact question.
"That's what I thought," she said.
Jacob scratched at his jaw.
"Aye, that's how it should be," he said. "Dukes first, then the rest in order. That's always been the way of it."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"So why's he been put at the end?"
A few heads turned. Not all at once — just that slow ripple of attention that moved through Mercer's Row when something was being said that people wanted to hear properly.
"Perhaps it's the royal family," one of the patrons said.
He was a heavyset man, the kind who took up space without apology, with rough hands and a face that had seen enough seasons to stop being surprised by much of anything.
"They're doin' it to get back at him," he continued. "That's what it is."
"For what?" someone else asked.
