She had the gem on her brow, set in a band of... | rebeccafpd's Blog

She had the gem on her brow, set in a band of white gold that held back her hairSprawled on his couch of pillows, the head of the saishan played with the billowing folds of his elephantine white robeThe sun shining through the arch of a window behind him glinted distractingly from his bald head
"I do not recall that stone among our treasures," he murmured in his high, disconcerting voiceIt was a voice so utterly inconsequential that it might lead one to underestimate the speakerWhich, as a good many people had discovered over the years, was a serious, sometimes a mortal mistake
"It isn't," Dianora replied cheerfully"Though after we return this afternoon may I ask you to guard it in my name among the other treasures?"
Scelto's suggestion, thatVencel could be corrupt and venal about a great many things, but not when it came to the formal aspects of his officeHe was too clever for omega replica watches thatAgain, a truth some had paid the ultimate price to discover
He nodded benignly now"It seems a very fine stone from this distance Obediently, Dianora stepped nearer and inclined her head graciously to let him see it more clearlyThe scent of tainflowers that he always wore after winter's end enveloped herIt was too sweet, but not unpleasant
She had feared Vencel once, a fear mixed of physical revulsion at his grossness and rumors of the things he liked to do with the younger castrates and some of the women who were in the saishan for purely political reasons, with no hope of ever seeing the outside world or the west wing of the palace and Brandin's chambersLong ago though she and the saishan head had reached their understandingSolores had the same unspoken pact with Vencel, and out of the delicate balance achieved thereby the three of them controlled, as best they could, their black chanel quilted enclosed, over-intense, incense-laden world of idle, frustrated women, and half-men
With a surprisingly delicate finger Vencel touched the gem on her brow"A good stone," he said again, this time in judgmentHis breath was fragrant"I must talk to Scelto about itI know about such things, you seeVairstones come from the north, you seeThey are mined in KhardhunFor years and years I used to play with them as trinkets, a monarch's toysIn the days when I was more than I am nowFor as you know, I have been a King in Khardhun
Dianora nodded gravelyFor this too was a part of the unspoken terms of her relationship with VencelThat however many times he might speak this wild fabrication of a lie, and he said it many times a day, in one variant or another, she was to nod knowingly, reflectively, as if pondering the message hidden in the grandeur of his fall
Only in her rooms alone with Scelto could she omega constellation price give way to fits of girlish giggling at the very thought of the vasty saishan head being more than he was now, or at the subversive, deadly imitation Scelto could give of Vence?s speech and gestures
"You do that wonderfully," she might say innocently, as Scelto dressed her hair, or polished her curved slippers till they shone
"It is a thing I know about, you see," he would reply if certain they were alone, his voice pitched high above its normal rangeHe would gesticulate slowly, expansively"For as you are aware, I have been a King in Khardhun
She would laugh like a little girl who knew just how naughty she was being, the more out of control because of that very fact
She had asked Brandin about it onceHis Khardhun campaign had been only a marginal success, she learnedHe was frank with her about such things by thenThere was real magic in Khardhun, in that hot northern land across chloe bags paddington the sea, beyond the coastal villages and the desert wastesA magic far greater than anything in the Peninsula of the Palm and equal to the sorcery of Ygrath
Brandin had taken one city and established a tenuous control over some lands that lay on the fringes of the great desert stretching northThere had been losses though, serious losses she gatheredThe Khardhu had long been celebrated for their skill in battle, nor was this unknown in the Palm: many of them had served as well-paid mercenaries in the warring provinces before the Tyrants had come and made all such feuding irrelevant
Vencel had been a herald captured late in the campaign, Brandin told herHe'd already been unmanned: a thing they did to messengers in the north, for no reason Brandin had understoodIt had been manifestly evident where the castrate belonged when brought back to YgrathHe had already, Brandin confirmed, been relojes omega enor