Chapter FourGathered in the Baronial dining hall, there were about thirty-five people, most of whom Pandia saw at a glance were very old.
Two or three others arrived after she had come downstairs and, as they chose what they wished to eat from a table groaning with food, she was thankful that nobody seemed to wish to talk to her.
“Suppose you sit down,” Lord Silvester said, “and I will tell the servants to bring you what I think you would like.”
“Thank you,” Pandia replied.
She was overawed at the enormous choice there was of great sides of roast beef, chicken, game, a boar’s head and innumerable other dishes about which she had only read in books, or heard described by her mother.
Because it appeared that it was not known how many would be coming to The Castle, there were a number of
