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

here.

She was willing to bet that Rathekrel's chambers didn't look as if he were
holding court in a glacier.

Even the furniture was just slightly uncomfortable.

The style was slim, unadorned, austere. The padding on the seat-cushions
was a shade too thin. The lack of ornamentation made the white-lacquer
furnishings seem to fade into the white-satin walls. The bed was just a trifle
too hard.

Her gown, a vivid green, shouted defiance at the rest of the room, as she sat
quietly, with her hands folded, on the little white-lacquer stool in front of the
mirrored white-lacquer vanity table, surrounded by her white-clad attendants.

She was glad she hadn't chosen either the red or the black, she thought,
taking care to keep her huge, emerald-green eyes glazed with dreamy
lassitude that she in nowise felt. The red would have looked like blood on
snow; the black as if she were declaring open war on his Clan. And she was
supposed to be from an ally.

The last of the humans patted a final hair into place, and stood away. Alara
contemplated the results, analyzing everything Rathekrel would shortly be
seeing across the dinner table from him.

Her pale gold hair was now an artfully sculpted tumble of curls, woven with
a chain of gold and tiny emeralds, two larger gems winking from her
earlobes. At her direction, the slaves had left her face bare of most cosmetics.
After all, she was trying to enhance the impression of being an untried
maiden. She had only allowed them to darken her lashes, dust her lids with a
whisper of malachite, and her cheeks with powdered pearl, making her pale
face paler still.

Around her neck she wore a small fortune in emeralds, and they were not
gifts from her host. That alone would make a statement; a direct challenge to
Rathekrel's wealth.

The dress draped sensuously, exactly as she hoped it would, cupping her
small, high breasts, flowing over her hips.

The hint of sex, not the promise. A suggestion of innocence.

Ostensibly, she was only a messenger from one of Rathekrel's allies. She had
given Rathekrel every reason to believe, however, that she was, in her own
person, a more direct offer of alliance-by-marriage. Why else send a female
messenger?

Or so Rathekrel would think.