I didn't say anything at the table.
I ate my own meal and I talked with Zeron about the border rotation schedule and I listened to Pryor outline the three items he considered most pressing from the stack that had accumulated while I was at Ashcrest and I gave my answers on each one and I let the meal happen around Isla without making her the center of it.
She ate one more small piece of bread before the meal ended. That was all.
When she excused herself and left the room I stayed where I was until she was gone and then I told Zeron to send the head of the kitchen to my office in ten minutes.
She arrived in eight.
She was a practical woman who had run my kitchen for six years and who understood that being summoned to my office was not a social visit and came prepared to listen rather t
