Three for a Letter

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A tempest broke across the end of the dining room.

Signified by a terrible hammering on metal sheets, the raging storm tossed sailors across a makeshift deck and into blue-painted waves surging where the banquet table ended.

The impression of watery peril created by the acrobats tumbling around the motionless wooden stage was too realistic for John. While a mercenary in Bretania, the man who would eventually become Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian had seen a comrade in arms drown in a swollen stream and barely escaped with his own life. He averted his gaze only to realize his plate was graced with liver forcemeat molded into the shape of a fish.

“Uncle Zeno should have arranged to borrow one of those thunder-making machines from the theater,” remarked his neighbor, a young man with dark hair and the regular features of a classical Greek statue. “It doesn’t really sound as if heaven’s sending a real storm. It’s more like a rapping on the front door.”

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