The time had not been enough to have the lavish garderobe made a Count beholden only to the Queen required, but he did have two different coats of the quality required to appear in these surroundings. This one was a gold-trimmed white with red reverses, and as he entered the grand ballroom, the tall Count Charles made an imposing figure. The one entering with him was a stout, elderly man in the uniform of the Gentlemen of the Guard – in fact, their Colonel. The Grandmaster’s officer at the door announced: “His Excellency, Lord Eternal of the Royal Council, Count Charles of Adellan, formerly a Captain in the Gentlemen of the Guard!”<br/><br/>Charles always wondered how the Grandmaster’s staff could remember all the names and titles. But he supposed the Lords Eternal weren’t too hard – there were only fifteen of them after all. He still had a hard time believing it. Adellan, being so old a house, ranked sixth among the fifteen, just after the Ducal houses and the now-vacant Crown Prince’s seat. There was a long-winded formal welcome by the Grandmaster himself and then the Queen, with his ancestry recounted and the legitimacy of his claim laid bare before the court. It was an antiquated ritual in a time of sealed charters and carefully recorded noble pedigrees, Charles thought, but it<i>was </i>uplifting somehow…<br/><br/>He could not quite tell the mood in the room, because he knew too few of the courtiers, but he did catch glances. He could see friends putting their heads together, and he thought that a few of them would garner some credit tonight by telling what they knew of him – especially the fact that he was without a wife. As he took a crystal glass of wine from a footman and surveyed the room, his face was cold; if today’s short encounter with<i>that woman </i>was any indication, his position at court would not become a comfortable one. So many assumptions…