Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

yet.
    She hid a yawn behind her hand, and Harald smiled tiredly at her from the chair opposite. Unlike Julia, he slumped bonelessly in his chair, his long legs stretched out on to a footstool, his toes quietly toasting before the fire. Fatigue had shaded heavy bags under his eyes, giving him a dissipated, brooding look.
    His crooked smile suggested that he'd like to be pleased with himself, but was too tired to make the effort. A cup of hot mulled cider stood on a small table beside his chair, and he sipped at it from time to time, in an absentminded way, as though seeking to rid his mouth of an unpleasant taste. Julia smiled at the thought. She'd tried some of that cider herself, and how anyone could drink the stuff voluntarily was beyond her.
    King John sat between the two of them in an old, high-backed chair, pulling thoughtfully at his beard and frowning into the fire. He still wore his thick fur coat, wrapped around his shoulders like a grandmother's shawl, and every now and again he shivered, as though in response to a cold wind only he could feel.
    Julia watched him worriedly. Tired though he obviously was, he should have been elated, or at the very
    least pleased — he had broken the rebellion before it even got started, killed most of the ringleaders, and avoided a civil war that would have destroyed the Forest Kingdom. But instead his mouth was grim and his gaze was troubled, and in some subtle way he looked . . . older.
    Julia looked away. The King's private chambers were much smaller than she'd expected. Her father lived in rooms large enough to drill troops in, where fabulous tapestries hung from every marble wall, gorgeous mosaics covered the floors, and huge glass windows filled every room with a blaze of light. Of course, the Duke's palace was draughty as hell and impossible to heat, but the Duke never gave a damn.
    He had a position to maintain and appearances to keep up, and on bad days the Duke seemed to believe that if he so much as entered a room less than fifty feet square, he was slumming. Julia smiled tightly.
    There were things about Hillsdown she missed, but her father's palace definitely wasn't one of them.
    Neither was her father, come to that.
    King John's rooms were altogether different. Not one of them was more than fifteen feet square, and they all seemed to have been furnished with comfort rather than fashion in mind. Julia looked approvingly about her at the combined sitting room and bedchamber, and smiled indulgently. The room had that comfortable, cramped cosiness that only men living alone can achieve. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling and overflowed on to the tables and chairs, where they fought for space with plates and cups and papers of state. Chipped statuettes and faded miniatures filled every nook and cranny, jostling each other for position. Much of the room's furniture was worn and battered, and had the look of something retained long past the time when its usefulness was over, simply because it was old and familiar. Even the many rugs that covered the floor from wall to wall were threadbare in patches.
    A log cracked loudly as it shifted position in the fire, and John stirred uneasily in his chair. 'Can't get used to being in my winter quarters this early,' he grumbled. 'Feels all wrong. Here it is, autumn, and already there're snowdrifts a foot deep and ice covering the moat. The leaves have barely left the trees, and yet without a roaring fire close at hand day and night, my old bones ache from the cold. And the damn servants have set up my furniture all wrong. They did it on purpose, just because I shouted at them a few times.'
    'We did make our migration a little early this year,' said Harald. 'You have to make allowances.'
    'No I don't,' snapped John, 'I'm the King!'
    Harald and Julia laughed, and after a moment John smiled sheepishly.
    'You're right, I shouldn't have shouted at them. But when you get to my age, the little things in life become more important than they should. In my rooms there's a place for everything, everything in its place. Oh you can smile, Julia, but all you see is a clutter. Well, maybe it is a mess, at that, but it's a mess of my making, and I'm used to it. If I wake in the night and it's dark, I know I can just reach out my hand and find the candle in its usual place. Not that it ever is dark now, I have to be sure the damn fire is properly banked before I go to bed or risk spending half the night shivering under the covers.