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Entrances and endings, a candle starting a...
10:50 PM, Thursday, May 6, 2010
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Entrances and endings, a candle starting a blaze
By the time they were done with her the fourth guard was back with two BarbadiansThey were smiling tooBut they treated her with some courtesy as they led her through the open gates and across the central courtyardLight spilled erratically downward from interior windows aboveBefore they passed inside she looked up at the starsEvery one of them with a name
They went into the castle through a pair of massive doors guarded by four more men, then up two long flights of marble stairs and along a bright corridor on the highest levelAt the end of this last hallway a door was partly openBeyond it, as they approached, Catriana caught a glimpse of a room elaborately furnished in dark, rich colors
In the doorway itself stood Anghiar of Barbadior, in a blue robe to match his eyes, holding a glass of green wine and devouring her with his gaze for the second time that day
She smiled, and let him take her red-gloved fingers in his own manicured handHe led her into the roomHe closed and locked the doorThere were candles burning everywhere
"Red vixen," he said, "how do you like to play?"
Devin had been edgy all week, uneasy in his own skin; he knew they all felt the same wayThe combination of building louis vuitton gold handbag tension and enforced idleness, coupled with the awareness, one had only to look at Alessan's face sometimes, of how close they were to a culmination, created a pervasive, dangerous irritability among them all
In the face of such a mood Alais had been extraordinary, a blessing of grace these past few daysRovigo's daughter had seemed to grow wiser and gentler and yet more at ease among them with each passing day, as if sensing a need, a reason for her to be here, and so moving to fill that needObservant, unceasingly cheerful, effortlessly conversational, with questions and bright responses and a declared passion for long anecdotes from all of them, she had, almost single-handedly, prevented three or four mealtimes from degenerating into sullen grimness or fractious rancorBlind Rinaldo the Healer seemed almost in love with her, so much did he seem to flourish when she was by his sideHe wasn't the only one of them, either, Devin thought, almost grateful that the tensions of the time were preventing him from addressing his own inward feelings
In the hothouse atmosphere of Senzio Alais's delicate, pale beauty and diffident grace singled her out like some flower transplanted here from a garden in a cooler, milder worldWhich was, of course, balenciaga fashion bag exactly trueAn observer himself, Devin would catch Rovigo gazing at his daughter as she drew one or another of their new companions into conversation, and the look in the man's eyes spoke volumes
Now, at the end of dinner, having spent the last half-hour turning their market expedition of the morning and afternoon into a veritable sea-voyage of discovery, Alais excused herself briefly and went back upstairsHer departure was followed by an abrupt return of grimness to the table, an inexorable reversion to the single dominating preoccupation of their livesEven Rovigo was not immune: he leaned towards Alessan and asked a sharp, low-voiced question about the latest foray outside the city walls
Alessan and Baerd, with Ducas and Arkin and Naddo, had been scouting the distrada, searching out likely battlefields, and so the best place for them to position themselves when the time came for their own last roll of diceDevin didn't much like thinking about thatIt had to do with magic, and magic always bothered himBesides which, there had to be a battle for anything to happen, and Alberico of Barbadior was hunkered down in his meadow on the border and showing no signs of moving at allIt was enough to drive men mad
They had begun spending more time chanel purse spray apart from each other in the days and evenings, partly for reasons of caution, but undeniably because too much proximity in this mood was good for none of themBaerd and Ducas were in one of the harbor taverns tonight, braving the blandishments of the flesh-merchants to keep in touch with the Tregean's men and Rovigo's sailors, and a number of the others who had made their way north in response to a long-awaited summons
They also had a rumor to spread: about Rinaldo di Senzio, the Governor's exiled uncle, said to be somewhere in the city stirring up revolution against Casalia and the TyrantsDevin had briefly wondered about the wisdom of that, but Alessan had explained, even before Devin could ask: Rinaldo was greatly changed in eighteen years; few people even knew he had been blindedHe had been a much-loved man: for Casalia to have released such a word would have been dangerous back thenThey had gouged Rinaldo's eyes to neutralize him, and then kept it very quiet
The old man, huddled quietly now in a corner of Solinghi's, was unlikely in the extreme to be recognized, and the only thing they could really do these days was contribute as much as they could to raising tensions in the cityIf the Governor could be made more anxious, the chanel bag gold chain emissaries a little more uneasy
Rinaldo himself said little, though it was he himself who had first suggested starting the rumorHe seemed to be coiling or gathering himself; with a war to come the demands on a Healer would be severe, and Rinaldo was not young anymoreWhen he did speak it was mostly with SandreThe two old men, enemies from rival provinces in the time before the Tyrants, now eased and distracted each other with whispered recollections from bygone years, stories of men and women who had almost all crossed to Morian long ago
Erlein di Senzio was seldom with them the past few daysHe played his music with Devin and Alessan but tended to eat and drink alone, sometimes in Solinghi's, more often elsewhereA few of his fellow Senzians had recognized the troubadour over the course of their time here, though Erlein seemed no more effusive with them than he was with any of their own partyDevin had seen him walking one morning with a woman who looked so much like him he was sure she was his sisterHe had thought of walking over to be introduced, but hadn't felt up to enduring Erlein's abrasivenessOne might have naively thought that as events hung fire here, poised on the edge of a climax, the wizard would lay down his own grudges omega replica watch finally
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