The Rainbow Abyss (Sun-Cross Book 1) by Hambly Barbara

Author:Hambly, Barbara [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453216712
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2011-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

AS A RESULT OF THE fête of the summerfire, the Duke of Mere extended a formal offer to Jaldis the Blind of an apartment in the palace, along with his pupil and servant, Rhion, called the Brown.

And Jaldis, just as formally, thanked him and refused.

“But why?” Tally blurted, intercepting them in the great pillared hall of the palace as they emerged after the audience. “I know you said you were an old man, and unused to courts... But you can’t be that unused to them if you knew about the silver-dust trick you used for the fête!”

And Jaldis smiled, pausing in his limping stride down the flight of shallow steps to the main floor of the long marble room, regarding her as he would have looked upon his own daughter while the next set of petitioners, like enormous butterflies in court dress of green and white, ascended past them to the bronze doors. “True, my child.” His monstrous opal spectacles flashed in the diffuse light that came down through the traceried windows of marble and glass. “But I could not well have said that I declined because I knew courts too well to want to become a part of one again, not even his.”

The girl, realizing she had blundered, flushed pink, a color which suited her, Rhion thought. Against the elaborate doublets and gowns of the courtiers, alive with feather work, ribbons, and beads, the plain brown robes of the two wizards stood out like hens in a coopful of ornamental pheasants; Tally’s butter-yellow gown with its embroidery of carnelian and jet must have cost the price of a good horse. She stammered, “I only thought it would be more comfortable for you here. And safer.”

“And so it would be.” The old man propped his crutch beneath his arm and reached out to take her hand. Looking down the length of that high-ceilinged marble room, Rhion caught a glimpse of Esrex and Damson in the shadows of the pillared space beneath the musicians’ gallery and felt the young man’s pale impersonal gaze like the prick of a knife in his side.

“Your father is a true friend to me and a generous one,” Jaldis went on, his sweet artificial voice blending into the underwhisper of viols and flutes from the gallery. “But did I live at court, I would be under an obligation to him—how could I not be, were he my host and protector? What I gave to him last week was a gift freely and joyfully given. Though I would never feel such gifts to be a duty, still I would hesitate to put myself in a position where either of us would ever feel that it was less than spontaneous. And you know that in the celebrations for the birth of your sister’s son, or when your brother enters his first warrior lists as a man, or on the occasion of your lady mother’s birthday, there will be those who will expect something equal... or greater.”

Not to mention

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