Page 24 of A Gaze So Longing (The Fall of Livenza #1)
Breakfast turned out to be an unexpected ordeal.
When they arrived at the kitchens, Favian and Nia were informed that they would be serving this meal not in the normal dining hall or the larger one they would have been sent to were they to, for whatever reason, aid in serving the advisors’ meal today, but in a smaller room that frequently stood empty.
The siblings shared a look of equal unknowing.
Nia shrugged, and they followed the directions to the suite a few rooms down the hall.
A large table had been arranged in the middle of it, with benches on either side.
Someone had already set six plates, far too many for the royal family.
Were the majesties expecting guests today?
But if so, why would they move to a smaller hall?
It was customary that if guests were to attend, the meal would be hosted in the largest banquet hall.
The rustic benches in this room were not indicative of highly valued visitors, either.
Rather, they looked eerily similar to those in the central servants’ quarters.
“Good morning,” came a familiar energetic voice from behind them.
Favian whirled around, coming face to face with the prince.
It took him a moment to process what he was seeing.
Leonardo, dressed quite leisurely in a green robe over a tunic, no doublet, his curls tied together at the base of his neck, golden jewelry dangling on his chest and in his ears.
He was carrying a bucket of cutlery, forks and knives rattling within.
Only when Nia cleared her throat did Favian return to reality, taking a bow.
“Your Highness.”
Nia followed suit, though Favian noted that her bow was not as deep as it would have been in any other situation. Favian could tell she was itching to ask Leonardo what was happening but was waiting for her brother to do it.
After a second to collect himself, Favian did. “What is the meaning of this?”
Leonardo strode past them and placed the bucket on the table. He leaned onto it with one hand and used the other to remove a lock of hair from his forehead.
“I have decided to take my meals separately from my parents from now on. I have requested five of you to attend to me, and we can all have breakfast together.” He gestured to the bucket.
“And I will do my fair share.” The prince’s smile was wide, his eyes brimming with the eagerness of a child. He added, “We can all be equal here.”
Favian and Nia exchanged a look, equal parts confusion and worry.
“Your Highness means to serve alongside us?” Favian asked.
Leonardo tilted his head. “If you want to call it that. I thought of it more as a communal meal. We set the table together, eat together, clean it up together. That’s how we did it at the front. I figured it would be nice to share similar experiences with you.”
Favian was too stunned to speak, no coherent thoughts manifesting themselves as words.
“Your Highness,” Nia stepped in. “The amount of food typically prepared for one meal is tailored to Your Highness, His Majesty, and Her Majesty.”
This seemed to confuse the prince. “But don’t you usually throw lots of it away afterwards? Wouldn’t it be much better for you to eat it?”
“Of course that would be wonderful, Your Highness.” Favian hoped Leonardo did not pick up on the amusement in Nia’s voice.
“But Your Highness appears to have set the table for five more people than are usually considered. I believe it is unlikely that five more mouths will be filled by the same amount that is normally prepared.”
“Oh.” Leonardo’s voice was suddenly small. “It seems I didn’t think this through.”
Their conversation was interrupted by more figures appearing in the doorway: Rodrigo, Silias, and another Favian only knew in passing, her name Eleni.
“Your Highness,” each of them greeted in turn.
Eleni wore a jumble of confusion and intimidation on her face—Favian suspected she was not used to working in direct proximity to their employers.
Silias’ expression, by now at least somewhat used to the prince’s antics, was neutral, almost aggressively so, but Favian noticed the indicators that it was taking the man quite some effort to keep his composure—the twitching eyebrows, the uncertain posture.
In a similar vein, Rodrigo, too, masked whatever his true emotions were, shooting Nia a quick look full of questions when Leonardo regarded the table he had set.
The prince then explained the situation to the newcomers, apologizing for his miscalculation. When he was done, the room fell silent.
Once again, it was Nia who first found something to say. “If Your Highness wants, he could still take breakfast here rather than with Their Majesties.”
“That would be nice,” Leonardo replied. “And you don’t need to keep calling me that when we’re here. You can call me Leonardo.” Before Nia could reply, he addressed the room, looking, one at a time, at Rodrigo, Silias, then Eleni.
“All of you,” he added.
The silence was threefold.
Leonardo had not given the same treatment to Favian, whom Nia and Rodrigo knew to have a particular relationship with the prince. Now, Silias and Eleni knew it, too.
Favian didn’t need to look at Nia to know precisely that she was hiding a smile—she knew this to be a sentiment the prince had voiced many times before, only not to them. Accordingly, she replied, “Unfortunately, we cannot do that unless Your Highness commands us.”
Unlike his reaction to the repeated interactions he used to have with Favian, Leonardo nodded. “I understand why you say that. I can assure you that no harm will come to you if you address me by my name. But I won’t command you, so if you are not comfortable using my name, I will respect that.”
There it was again—the notion of comfort , the idea that any of them really had a choice here.
Leonardo did as he promised, though, and sat down to eat without another remark about the way he wished to be addressed.
The entire event was rather uneasy.
Leonardo offered for his servants to sit down at the table with him, insisting that he was asking rather than commanding them—to no avail. Silias and Eleni seemed perplexed by this turn of events, likely worried it was some kind of trick.
Rodrigo appeared particularly uneasy, his words slow and careful when he said, “Much like we cannot address Your Highness by his name, we certainly cannot sit down to dine with him.”
Favian supposed the boy was suspicious of the prince’s intentions, and he couldn’t blame him. Neither could he blame the others for their irritation; they barely knew the prince and had no reason to trust him.
Once Leonardo was finished, the table was cleared as it would have been on any other day. The prince, however, remained seated.
“Stay, please,” he asked when Favian was just about to leave.
As Favian handed the last of the unused dishes to Rodrigo to be taken to the kitchen, he noticed the younger one searching his eyes as if to ask what was going on.
Favian gave the faintest hint of a shrug and followed Rodrigo until he had left the room, suspecting that what Leonardo was about to say would likely be safer hidden behind a shut door.
He wanted to say something, praise Leonardo for the attempt, scold him for his naivety, but no words came out of his mouth.
“Well, that was a disaster,” the prince grunted, his form slumped over the table, forehead resting on his arms.
“They need time,” Favian responded, taking a few steps closer. “They don’t trust anything that happens here.”
Leonardo turned his head to the side so he could look at Favian. “Do you? Do you trust me?”
Favian bit his cheek, swallowing the intuitive first reply that came to him. Not at all , he wanted to say. And, With my life . Instead, he said, “I trust that your intentions are good.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds.
They both knew that he was avoiding the question, that despite the attraction he felt for the prince and the level of ease they had established with each other in the nights at the tavern, his trust in Leonardo as Prince of Livenza could still be nothing but apprehensive.
“I thought about your words last night,” Leonardo divulged.
“Actually, I thought about them all night. I barely slept. You were right, you know? I chose to ignore a lot of the realities of your life in the palace because I just wanted to go out and enjoy my time with you instead of confronting them. But I won’t anymore.
I want to be better for you. I’ll keep trying. ”
Favian believed him. Gods, he did. He just hoped that Leonardo’s willingness to change did not hinge solely on his feelings for Favian.
Favian was the first to return to the stables and was already in the middle of grooming Alto’s brown fur when Rodrigo appeared in the gateway, his arms crossed. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
Favian had expected this, but he still felt tense. “Then do it.”
“What on earth is going on?”
Favian sighed. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”
“Something happened to Nia, but she won’t tell me what.
I feel like she’s suffering, but I don’t know why.
Something changed between you and her, but she says she can’t tell me what it is.
And now His Highness is inviting us to eat with him, and I know you have something to do with it, but she won’t budge. ”
He understood Rodrigo’s frustration, wished he could relieve him of it.
If it were him in the same position, Nia refusing to talk to him, he would be equally concerned.
“It isn’t up to me to share Nia’s experience with you.
You’re right, we talked about something that made us understand each other better. That’s all I can say.”
“And this business with the prince?” Rodrigo’s voice was tense, but Favian got the impression that it was less anger and more insecurity that was exposing itself in the boy’s tone.