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

"My lady Rohain, you are a most singular noblewoman. You come here, unannounced; nobody has ever heard of you. You come masked and maidless, bearing a most extraordinary tale. You speak with disarming plainness, unlike a courtier or any member of the peerage. Are you in fact a spy?" On the last word, he spun on his heel and glared at her accusingly.
Outraged, Rohain jumped up. Her overblown skirts knocked the table. A goblet fell to the carpet, scattering its contents like spilled blood. Angry words sprang to her lips in the heat of the moment.
"Now you accuse me of treason! Indeed, sir, it seems you have been in the King-Emperor's service for too longЧyou have become suspicious of all strangers who set foot in the palace. I have come here in good faith, to carry out my duty, only to be called an infiltrator. My mask disturbs you? Well then!" She tore off the domino and threw it on the fire. Was it a sigh of the wind she heard, or the sudden intake of her host's breath? The hounds lifted their heads, snarling.
"If I speak too plainly for your Court manners," she cried, "teach me otherwise! And as for your treasure, I will prove that it exists. What more would you have me do?"
Her knees trembled. Abruptly, she sat down. The blood drained from her face. How had she possessed the temerity to dare such an outburst? What would happen nowЧwould she be hanged for insolence? She fixed her eyes on the fire. The fragile mask had already been consumed. She was exposed, vulnerable.
Out across the city, a bell tolled. Unquiet fingers of air slid under the door and plucked at the curtains.
"Your pardon, lady," said Roxburgh at length. "I stand chastised." He bowed. His visage softened. "Pray do not think me unkind. It is my way, to test others at first meeting. Surely I have this night learned not to taunt the ladies of the Sorrows, should I ever meet another! Prithee, rest by the fire awhile." He paused for another moment, as though savoring some anomaly or bizarreness, then summoned his pages. "Lads! See to Her Ladyship's belongings and pay off the driver. Have lodgings made ready. Find a lady's maid."
Two or three young boys hastened to do his bidding. This Dainnan lord speaks forthrightly to say the least, thought Rohain-Imrhien. He is a man to place faith in.
"You are His Majesty's guest now," Roxburgh informed her. And prisoner? What if my ruse were to be discovered?
"Gramercie. I am weary."
"WilfredЧplay."
The multi-skilled squire took up a lyre, checked the tuning, and began expertly to coax a melody from the strings.
The wine, the warmth, and the music were sweet. Rohain may have dozed; it seemed no time had passed before a knock was heard at the door. There entered a damsel of her own age, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years, her hair corn-yellow, half-encased in a crespine of gold wire. She curtsied, peeping at Rohain out of the corners of her eyes, blinking.
"Mistress Viviana Wellesley of Wytham at your service, Your Grace."
"You are to be servant to the Lady Rohain Tarrenys," said Roxburgh.
"Even so, Your Grace."
"Lady Rohain," he said, "I beg you to dine in the Royal Dining Hall tonight."
"Sir, I am honored."
Roxburgh again addressed the lady's maid. "Miss, is the suite of chambers ready?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Then pray conduct Her Ladyship to them with due consideration!"
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Accompanied by a footman four paces behind to the right and the new personal maid four paces behind to the left, Rohain-Imrhien was verbally guided through a gridwork of resplendent corridors to her lodgings. The footman waited outside the door, holding it open for them to enter. She caught him staring at her and he blushed to the roots of his powdered wig.
A small, neat woman awaited them in the rooms, a bunch of jangling keys attached to her belt. She curtsied. Her mouth hung open, until she snapped it shut like a frog catching flies. After an awkward pause, Rohain concluded that servants were not permitted to speak first.
"Speak," she offered, lamely.
The Chatelaine of the King's Household introduced herself and indicated an anteroom where a bath awaited. Rohain dismissed her without thanks. The little woman bustled out with a rattle and a clash of stock, ward, and barrel. The footman closed the door and the sound of his steps echoed away.
Sixty candles lit the scene, rising from their brackets like tall yellow flag-lilies. Rohain stood staring. The opulence of the palace suite forced Isse Tower's decor into insignificance. These rooms burgeoned with decor in shades of emerald and gold, from the patterned carpet like a soft expanse of lawn studded with buttercups, to the gilded walls covered with plaster frescoes and the velvet hangings in apple green and lemon, their lush tassels dangling in bunches like ripening fruits. The bed's four posts were carved in the likeness of flowering wattle-trees whose boughs soared to a canopy of green brocade fringed with round gold beads above a matching coverlet and cushions. The windows were draped, swagged, and pelmetted in green and gold; daffodil tiles framed a niche wherein a fire blazed bravely, gleaming on a burnished grate and fire-irons. Rohain's fur-lined cloak, which had been urbanely subtracted by a butler as soon as its wearer had entered the palace, had been placed on a gilt chair next to her few pathetic belongingsЧthe boxes from the carriage and, absurdly, the foot-warmer. A soft clearing of the throat from the new personal maid drew Rohain's attention.
"AhЧwhat was your name again?"
"Viviana, m'lady. Vivianessa, in sooth, but I am called Viviana."
"Well, Viviana, would youЧahЧput away my traveling cloak?" This was all that came to mind, on the spur of the moment. What in Aia was she to do with this girl? Were the Court ladies expected to be incapable of dressing and undressing themselves? What a nuisance, to have someone constantly bothering and fussing around!
The young servant folded the cloak carefully into a camphor-wood chest carved with woodland scenes. Rohain went into the small room indicated by the Chatelaine. Therein stood a copper tub on lion's feet, lined with white cambric that draped over the sides like falls of snow. The tub was filled with steaming water tinct with sweet oils and strewn with unseasonable primrose petals like flakes of the sun.
A marble washstand held a matching toiletry set. There was a pair of highly decorated enameled porcelain globes on high foot-rims, pierced all over to allow moisture to drain and evaporate. One contained scented soaps, the other a sponge. These were accompanied by somewhat superfluous porcelain soap stands, soap dishes and soap trays, ewers, jars, pots, candle-branches, and a vase overflowing with hothouse-forced snowdrop blossoms. Incongruously, a shoehorn lay on the floor. Made of pewter, it was mounted in ivory with carved and inlaid handles in the shape of herons.
The lady's maid spoke. "Wishest donna mine that sas pettibob shouldst lollo betrial?"
"I beg your pardon?"
The girl repeated her strange sentence, twisting a fold of her skirt in her fingers, gazing hopefully at her new mistress.
"I don't know what you are talking about. Please speak the common tongue."
The girl's face fell. "Forgive me, m'lady. Methought Your Ladyship might like to practice slingua for this night. I asked only whether Your Ladyship would like me to test the bathwater."
"Slingua?"
"Yes, m'ladyЧcourtingle, some name it, or courtspeak. Lower ranks call it jingle-jangle. Does Your Ladyship not have it?"
"No, I do not have such palaver."
It had sounded like childish babble, yet the girl seemed to hold great store by it. Could that curious string of quasi-words be part of the social fabric of Court?
"I will bathe now."
By this phrase, Rohain had meant to indicate that this Viviana should leave her alone. Instead, the girl stepped forward.
"Let me unfasten Your Ladyship's girdleЧ"
"No! I can do it myself. Leave me!"
With a look of despair, the lady's maid rushed from the room. Rohain's conscience was stricken. The girl had only been trying to do her duty as she saw itЧbut how annoying and confusing it all was! Rohain almost wished herself back in the woods with Sianadh and the wights. Existence had seemed simpler then: It was life or deathЧnone of these perplexing customs and slangish vernacular.
A sound of stifled sobs emanated from the outer room.
What a featherbrain of a girl! Fancy having nothing better to cry about than a sharp word from her mistress! To one who had faced the Direath and the Beithir, it all seemed so superficial.
Rohain removed her girdle of leather and filigree, and struggled with the gown's difficult fastenings. Presently she peered around the door.
"Viviana, will you help me unlace?"