"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

especially with some of the assumptions the elven lords made about guests.
Once she had even been offered the services of a concubine, and had escaped
the situation only because she had not planned to spend the night.
She would not even know how to go about mating as a male dragon, much
less one of them!

There was another advantage, one which made the current jest possible.
Being in female form--most lissome and, as elves reckoned, desirable
female form--she could create a situation built on pressures and assumptions
that not even the cleverest of elves could anticipate.

She knew from her study of him that Rathekrel was very susceptible to
certain pressures. Although he was nothing short of a trading genius, there
his expertise ended. He was hot-tempered, inclined to indulge that temper,
and had a long history of making disastrous mistakes where the females of
his kind were concerned.

Alara had decided to help him make another.

She turned away from the silver-framed mirror, and back towards the
important decision of choosing a gown.

She considered, then discarded as too girlish, a high-necked autumn-rose
brocade. A sable satin piece, displaying as much bosom as the previous
gown concealed, was too obvious. Finally she settled on a flowing robe of
shimmer-silk in emerald green, with sleeves that swept the floor, a bodice
that clung to her like a second skin before flaring out into a full skirt and
train that could have concealed an army of midgets. Although the neckline
was high and demure, the cut and tight fit of the garment above the waistline
left nothing to the imagination.

She summoned the maids and waited passively while they gowned, coifed,
and bejeweled her at her direction. The human slaves had gentle, deft hands,
and they worked in complete silence; it was easy to imagine that she was
surrounded by invisible sprites of the air instead of a bevy of young girls in
the uniform household tunic of white banded with silver.

Rathekrel's manor was not the largest she had ever visited, but it was by no
means the smallest. Containing twenty-five guest suites alone, it was staffed
by hundreds of human slaves, and supported a good hundred subordinate
elves. The chamber in which she sat was plushly appointed, and one of three
that made up the suite of rooms--lavish dressing room, sitting room, and
bedroom, all decorated chastely in the house-trademark white-and-silver,
with a private bath sculpted to simulate a hot spring sunk in snowbanks, an
illusion broken only by the silver spigots in the form of fish, and mounds of
plush, frost-white towels beside it.

In fact, most of the house was done in white-and-silver. The decor made
Alara cold and uncomfortable. And she recognized it as a subtle means for
Rathekrel to overwhelm his guests, no matter what reason had brought them