Swordpoint by Ellen Kushner

Author:Ellen Kushner [Kushner, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Amazon: B000PUSEQW
Publisher: ST MARTINS PRESS *
Published: 1987-03-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV

During the long carriage ride Lord Horn had the leisure to examine his feelings minutely. They were, on the whole, pleasant feelings. Throughout the play he had barely paid heed to the stage, so pleased was he with the events unfolding from his own private gallery. He felt like a playwright, only he had not had to go to the trouble of inventing his characters: Lord Michael Godwin, blissfully young and arrogant, all the more lovely because his days under the sun were now numbered... Horn had thought of sending him a trenchant note; but a distinguished silence had seemed the most dignified ... the swordsman St Vier, that fashionable paragon... in the sunlight, in the great public space, he too had looked young, his detachment a mere defence. Horn had enjoyed looking at the dangerous man and thinking how helpless he was about to feel.

The coach pulled up at last at the door of the empty hunting lodge. There were still some people left who owed him favours. St Vier's young man should have arrived here over an hour ago. Horn had stayed for the end of the play. He should find the boy chained in the empty buttery. Ferris's woman had said he couldn't fight, but these Riversiders knew all kinds of tricks, and how could you be sure that St Vier hadn't passed some on to him?

Up here in the hills, the spring was still chilly. Horn kept his cloak on and went straight to the buttery. A small sliding panel in the door, some watchman's convenience, had been left open. He could look through it without being seen, and he did.

The young man was lounging upright in his chains, making them look faintly ridiculous as he leaned against the wall. His hands were lax, long and useless-looking. They were covered with rings, and there was gold at his throat. His dress was strangely at odds: the jewels, good boots and shirt, under a jacket with narrow shoulders and too-short sleeves whose cut was a good five seasons old. His breeches, which no longer matched his jacket, had a piece of braid coming off them. And then there was his cascade of hair. In the candlelight he had been left with, it glowed chestnut and sable, heavy and thick as poured cream.

Some black cloth was folded behind his head to keep it from the wall. He was looking abstractedly across at the candle, head slightly tilted, his eyes veiled.

Lord Horn examined the face of St Vier's lover. His nose was long, flat-planed like a ritual painting's. High cheekbones, wide-set so that the eyes above them looked slanted from this angle. The hair pulled back from his high forehead made his face look even longer. Horn's eyes rested on the mouth, almost too wide for the narrow face. Even in repose, the flat lips looked mocking and sensual.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside. At the sound the young man raised his head like a deer scenting the wind.

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