Chapter 6: The Small Council Feast and Lord Vane's Honey

The invitation arrived on a silver tray, which was how Elizabeth had learned to distinguish the mandatory from the merely expected. Ordinary summonses came on paper. Commands came on silver.

She held the card at the angle that caught the morning light and read it twice. A Small Council dinner, formal, three days hence. Her presence was requested — the phrasing chosen with care, since requesting implied the possibility of refusal and the king's household did not refuse itself the satisfaction of the pretense. The card bore no personal seal, only the embossed lion of the administrative secretariat, which meant either that no one considered the invitation significant enough to personalize, or that someone considered it significant enough not to.

She set it on the table beside her cooling breakfast.