As soon as John mentioned the king, Crow deflated slightly. He had been hoping to start courting Penelope and tell his father about it later, so Albin wouldn’t have the chance to stop them, but it sounded like her father wasn’t even going to humor that option. He drummed his fingers against his leg beneath the table, wondering if there was a way he could approach the subject delicately enough to at least convince the king to hear him out when he brought it up. Perhaps if he promised to continue investing most of his energy into his studies, Albin would be placated enough to let him prepare for marriage on the side.

He was drawn from his musings as John brought up the dowry. The mention of it made him blink confusedly. Even though he knew it was customary for a noble father to offer collateral to the man who took his daughter’s hand, he hadn’t thought the knight would offer payment to him. For one thing, he had been a peasant until less than a month ago. For another, he’d always found the tradition to be crass. It felt strange that a noble would be compelled to pay someone to marry his daughter, as if he wouldn’t want to take her otherwise. He knew John didn’t think he was interested in Penelope because of the monetary compensation, but he would have married her even if he didn’t see a single copper coin in return.

However, he was living in the world of the aristocrats now, so there was no point in voicing his dissent. If John wanted to uphold tradition, the viceroy wasn’t going to try to stop him. “I have no idea what I would do with all that gold,” he smiled sheepishly. “But if you insist, you can size the dowry however you’d like. I don’t have an opinion on the subject.”

As he finished speaking, his gaze drifted past the knight’s shoulder, where he saw Preston and two other servants approaching their table with plates of food. It seemed his earlier guess had been right, and Penelope would be able to personally ask the attendant to deliver her message to Hunter. He subtly nudged her side with his arm and nodded in the boy’s direction to make sure she had noticed him walking over.