“The castle will be dark,” Constance declares, not as a request; rather, as if she was relating something that had happened to her on a Yuletide long past, when she was a child. “There will be few welcoming lights. Her footfall will be heavy in echoing halls, without tapestry, without rushes under her boot. There will be the sound of running water from the fountains, the ice-cold water, trickling through the courtyard. And there she will find me, among the dying dark-paned lanterns. There she will take the fruit from my hand, or else cast it aside. When we have done our part, when we have said our words, then let you serve the boar, and make merry with her; and send a plate to my room, if you would. I may not eat it, but I would rather have it there to hand should I wish it.”