"Dart-Thornton,.Cecilia.-.Bitterbynde.02.-.Lady.Of.The.Sorrows.V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

"Ah, the 1081 vintage Eridorre," said Droop-Eyes, admiring the wine. "A good year. And at last, the Tasters cease. One might expire of thirst."
Yet another brazen fanfare clove the air.
The elderly marquess at the head of the table levered himself to his feet with difficulty, being stout and dreadfully gouty. Three long thin cords hung ornamentally from the yoke of his gown. Weighted with beads, they became entangled at the back, causing his page utmost concern. Heedlessly, the plum-cheeked aristocrat raised his goblet.
"Let the cups be charged for the Royal Toast!" he bellowed. The courtiers rose and looked around, holding high their goblets and drinking horns.
"To the health of the King-EmperorЧmay His Majesty live forever!"
With one voice, the company loudly echoed the marquess's sentiment. Crystal rang against crystal. At a nudge from Viviana, Rohain noted that all the other ladies were holding their goblets by the stems rather than by the bowls. Quickly she changed her grip, but not before someone snickered daintily. All then lifted their drinking vessels, tasted, looked around once more, and sat down.
"Let Dinner be served!" boomed the Master of the Dining Hall. "The Soup! Green turtle, lobster bisque, and cream of watercress!"
The elderly marquess at the head of the tables leaned back slightly. His squire draped a large and luxurious napkin over his left shoulder, it being a breach of etiquette to demolish the starched linen ships. At this signal, the other bodyservants followed suit. Silver domes were whipped off tureens of steaming liquids. The first course commenced.
"Much good do it you," the courtiers wished each other as they fell to, imbibing without a single slurp, with the exception of those at the head of the table where rank obviated the need for manners. By scrupulously imitating the other diners, Rohain won through the soup course. When the soup bowls had been removed, the top layer of the sanap was taken away, revealing a clean, unspotted layer beneath.
The seafood course was duly announced and launched with applause. It comprised a magnificent sturgeon that was carried around to be viewed before serving, to the accompaniment of a flute and violins played by musicians dressed as chefs. Two kitchen-hands wearing knives carried the horizontal nine-foot ladder upon which the whole baked sturgeon was laid out on leaves and flowers; beside them walked four footmen bearing flaming torches. The procession was led by the Head Porter, marching with ax in hand. After being paraded once around the table, the dish was borne out of the Hall for carving. During the entremet, the diners were entertained by acrobats and a couple of overdressed mortal dwarves riding wolfhounds.
At the actual serving of the marine fare, the diners picked up their silver fish forks in their right hands. With the edge of the implement, they cut off a small piece, then impaled it with the tines, raised the morsel to their mouths, and delicately closed their lips around it. The fork was put down while each piece was chewed, and taken up again to prepare the next bite.
Rohain had been accustomed to eating only with hands and knife. She had glimpsed forks once, in the Dining Hall of the TowerЧmore common had been the sight of the larger versions used to pitch hay up to stacks. Now she picked up the fork and held it as others did, with her index finger pointing toward the root of the tines. So intent was she on managing this with grace that she did not notice, until alerted by tittering, and an agonized whisper from Viviana, that all others held their forks with the curved tines pointing downward. The newcomer had been in fact partly spearing and partly scooping, using the fork like a spoon. It would seem wantonly perverse to deny the fork its useful ladle-like qualities, yet that was exactly what was expected. Hastening to turn it over, she dropped the offending instrument. It clattered boorishly against her plate. Another gaffe. She found it impossible to eat flesh anyway, and only picked at the garnishes.
Across the table from Rohain and a little to the right sat a strikingly handsome lady, surrounded by many admirers. The ornate roll on her head, eighteen inches high and a yard in circumference, was bent around into a heart shape, the front worn low on the forehead, the sides raised to reveal gold-fretted nets covering her ears. Her fur-edged, cutaway surcoat revealed a contrasting, skintight kirtle. Huge quantities of fur had been lavished in the wide cuffs of sleeves that reached to the floor. Having ignored the newcomer up to the middle of the seafood course, she now tossed a flashing smile in her direction, saying, "Dear Heart, how well you look, considering the travails of your long journey. Don't you think she looks well, Lady Calprisia? Isn't she just the prettiest thing? Lord Percival Richmond thinks so, don't you, Percival, you've scarcely taken your eyes from her all evening! Don't be alarmed, Dear Heart, Percival shall not bite, at least I don't think he shall!" She followed this with a chiming laugh. Others joined in.
"That is Lady Dianella," whispered Viviana. "Beware."
"Speak up nowЧdon't be shy," continued the Lady Dianella. "How do you like our maritime theme for this evening?" The lady's smile was as brilliant as the jewels flashing at her throat, waist, and fingers.
"IЧah, it is wonderful," offered Rohain weakly, bedazzled.
The laugh carilloned.
"Wonderful, is it? Wonderful, she says, did you hear it? Marry, but she does have a word to say for herself after all. Such charming witЧcan you believe it, Lord Jasper? I suppose you know far more about Seaships than we poor land-lovers, you coming from the Sorrow Isles. I am given to understand that those unfortunate lands are so named due to the number of shipwrecks which have occurred on their rocky shores, am I not correct? Is it true that the shipwrecked mariners are welcomed into the arms of the ladies of the Sorrows?"
As if this beauty had said something infinitely scintillating, her section of the table burst into loud guffaws, the antithesis of the restraint practiced in the Tower. Tear-eyed with mirth, Dianella added, "Do you like sailing, Lady Rohain?" which provoked a further outburst of merriment.
Rohain burned. "I know nothing of sailing," she said.
"La! Of course not, Dear Heart, your time would be devoted to much feater accomplishments, naturally! Do you sing?"
"No."
"Perhaps the Lady Rohain plays a musical instrument," put in a lady with fake seashells and ropes of pearls bedizening her horned headdress, her hair having been drawn through the hollow horns and falling in waves from the extreme ends.
"No, I do not play."
"Do you then dance? One would suppose that you dance blissingly! We should like to see it," said the one referred to as Calprisia, taking her cue. Her dainty face was framed by a steeple headdress delicately painted with black lacework, from which trailed a starry veil.
"I am sorry to disappoint youЧ"
"Oh come! Do not be so modest! Hide not your talentsЧwe only wish to encourage, in good sooth," said False Scallops.
"I can only applaud the talents of others."
"La! What must they do with their spare time in the Isles!" Dianella exclaimed. "One can scarcely begin to imagine!"
"And do they all wear their hair like yours?" asked Calprisia. "'Tis a most intriguing style, so simple yet so . . . ahЧ"
"Simple!" said Dianella innocently, and to the amusement of her friends.
Rohain sensed credibility slipping like sand from her grasp.
How should she respondЧshould she meet affront with austere civility? Exhibit disdain or try to match them at their game?
"Of course you likely find us complete scoundrels, here at Court," added Dianella. "No doubt you think us utter reprobates! What brings a polished lady like Rohain Tarrenys to our midst?"
"My business is with the Duke of Roxburgh."
That set her tormentress back, but the respite was only temporary.
Turning to the lord beside her, Dianella said, "Athal selevader chooseth sarva taraiz blurose."
"Fie! Aura donna believeth sa miduncouthants es," he replied, laughing.
"You must know I do not understand your slingua," said Rohain, flustered. "Why then do you speak it in front of me?"
She knew at once that she had erred again. Dianella's smile dropped from her face like a mask. She arched her eyebrows in a look of exaggerated surprise.
"Marry, because we are not speaking to you, that is why! La! Is the lady endeavoring to eavesdrop on our conversations? How churlish! Selevader taketh baelificence, Lord Percival."
"Dianella, really . . ." The droop-eyed lord protested halfheartedly.
"Pash com grape-melt esЧsildrillion et gloriana. May aftermath sault-thou, et storfen-thou!" responded the other tartly. The rest went off into hoots of laughter. Lord Percival sulked throughout the remainder of the meal. Rohain sat drowning in misery.
"The Roast Beef!" roared the Master of the Dining Hall. The third course arrived. The Carver, a comely man with his knives in hand, walked into the Hall followed by the Taster, the Assayers, the Cup-Bearer, the Head Butler, and the Head Panter, all flanked by torchbearers. For the diversion of the company, he carved the meat in front of them, performing with the dexterity and flair of a juggler. He divided the beast into sections and speared entire joints on the carving fork, before lifting them into the air and shaving pieces off with a keen knife. Thin slices of meat fell to the trenchers in organized patterns, slightly overlapping. Swiftly, he used the knifepoint to place final touches to the arrangement. Salt was sprinkled over the dish before it was presented to the potential consumers. The courtiers served themselves from chased oval chafing dishes of vegetables, side dishes, and pтtщs up and down the tables, and boats of thick sauces and gravies. Some allowed themselves a sprinkle from the personal nutmeg graters they carried at their belts: small silver boxes with a steel rasping-surface and a hinged lid at the top and bottom.
Through the croon and purr of shallow conversation pricked by the tinkle of crystal and artificial laughter, a far-off, eldritch howling sent sudden shivers through the assembly. Then a deeper note rumbled, so deep that it was felt, not heard. The bass vibration rumbled up through their feet and set the wine to rippling in the goblets. The small table-dogs about the floor began to yap. The pet cats bristled. As exclamations of astonishment flew like angry wasps around the tables, the tall windows snapped alight with a white blaze. Cries of alarm pierced the air, followed by laughter.
"'Tis only the beginnings of a natural storm," the courtiers reassured one another. "I heard the cry of the Howlaa."
But what a storm.
It was as though some great pent-up anger had been unleashed, which threatened to pound the city to rubble and shake the palace to its very roots. The wind sang in a multitude of voices, like the keening of women lamenting lost lovers and the deep groaning of old men in pain, like the yowling of wolves baying at the moon and shrill pipes whistling in the chimneys, or the boom of some monstrous creature of the deep oceans. The banners and standards atop the palace had to be hastily lowered, for fear that they would be ripped to tatters. Slates tumbled from the roofs, smashing in the courtyards below. The trees in the gardens bent low, moaning. Their boughs whipped and cracked. Sudden whirls of leaves gusted by.
In the Royal Dining Hall, servants covered the light-stabbed windowpanes with heavy draperies, but no fabric seemed thick enough to banish those incandescent flashes. Bolts came hurtling out of the sky, one after another. The trio of musicians increased its volume, trying to be heard over the rain, the wind, and the thunder.
A fire-eater and a stilt-walker endeavored to attract attention. A juggler performed amazing feats with plates and balls and sticks and flaming brands to while away the next entremet. He was largely ignored, except when he dropped something on his foot and hopped about clutching it, squawking. The Court thought it the best part of the act and applauded.