the King definitely said two-hundred. What day is this?”
“One-nine-four.”
“There isn’t much time,” Glo said sadly. “I promised the King I’d have a significant … hmm … contribution.”
“You will.”
“That’s not what I…” Glo stood up, swaying a little, and faced Lain with an odd tremulous smile. “Did you really mean what you said?”
Lain blinked at him, unable to place the question in context properly. “My lord?”
“About my … about my flying higher … seeing farther?”
“Of course,” Lain said, beginning to feel embarrassed. “I couldn’t have been more sincere.”
“That’s good. It means so…” Glo straightened up and expanded his plump chest, suddenly recovering his normal joviality. “We’ll show them. We’ll show all of them. “He went to the door, then paused with his hand on the porcelain knob. “Let me have a summary as soon as … hmm … possible. Oh, by the way, I have instructed Sisstt to bring your brother home with him.”
“That’s very kind of you, my lord,” Lain said, his pleasure at the prospect of seeing Toller again modified by thoughts of Gesalla’s likely reaction to the news.
“Not at all. I think we were all a trifle hard on him. I mean, a year in a miserable place like Haffanger just for giving Ongmat a tap on the chin.”
“As a result of that tap Ongmat’s jaw was broken in two places.”
“Well, it was a firm tap.” Glo gave a wheezing laugh. “And we all felt the benefit of Ongmat being silenced for a while.” Still chuckling, he moved out of sight along the corridor, his sandals slapping on the mosaic floor.
Lain carried his hardly-touched glass of wine to his desk and sat down, swirling the black liquid to create light patterns on its surface. Glo’s humorous endorsement of Toller’s violence was quite typical of him, one of the little ways in which he reminded members of the philosophy order that he was of royal lineage and therefore had the blood of conquerors in his veins. It showed he was feeling better and had recovered his self-esteem, but it did nothing to ease Lain’s worries about the older man’s physical and mental fitness.
In the space of only a few years Glo had turned into a bumbling and absent-minded incompetent. His unsuitability for his post was tolerated by most department heads, some of whom appreciated the extra personal freedom they derived from it, but there was a general sense of demoralisation over the order’s continuing loss of status. The aging King Prad still retained an indulgent fondness for Glo—and, so the whispers went, if philosophy had come to be regarded as a joke it was appropriate that it should be represented by a court jester.
But there was nothing funny about a meeting of the high council, Lain told himself. The person who presented the case for rigorous brakka conservation would need to do it with eloquence and force, marshalling complex arguments and backing them up with an unassailable command of the statistics involved. His stance would be generally unpopular, and would attract special hostility from the ambitious Prince Chakkell and the savage Leddravohr.
If Glo proved unable to master the brief in time for the meeting it was possible he would call on a deputy to speak on his behalf, and the thought of having to challenge Chakkell or Leddravohr—even verbally—produced in Lain a cold panic which threatened to affect his bladder. The wine in his glass was now reflecting a pattern of trembling concentric circles.
Lain set the glass down and began breathing deeply and steadily, waiting for the shaking of his hands to cease.
CHAPTER 4
Toller Maraquine awoke with the knowledge, which was both disturbing and comforting, that he was not alone in bed.
He could feel the body heat of the woman who was lying at his left side, one of her arms resting on his stomach, one of her legs drawn up across his thighs. The sensations were all the more pleasant for being unfamiliar.
“One-nine-four.”
“There isn’t much time,” Glo said sadly. “I promised the King I’d have a significant … hmm … contribution.”
“You will.”
“That’s not what I…” Glo stood up, swaying a little, and faced Lain with an odd tremulous smile. “Did you really mean what you said?”
Lain blinked at him, unable to place the question in context properly. “My lord?”
“About my … about my flying higher … seeing farther?”
“Of course,” Lain said, beginning to feel embarrassed. “I couldn’t have been more sincere.”
“That’s good. It means so…” Glo straightened up and expanded his plump chest, suddenly recovering his normal joviality. “We’ll show them. We’ll show all of them. “He went to the door, then paused with his hand on the porcelain knob. “Let me have a summary as soon as … hmm … possible. Oh, by the way, I have instructed Sisstt to bring your brother home with him.”
“That’s very kind of you, my lord,” Lain said, his pleasure at the prospect of seeing Toller again modified by thoughts of Gesalla’s likely reaction to the news.
“Not at all. I think we were all a trifle hard on him. I mean, a year in a miserable place like Haffanger just for giving Ongmat a tap on the chin.”
“As a result of that tap Ongmat’s jaw was broken in two places.”
“Well, it was a firm tap.” Glo gave a wheezing laugh. “And we all felt the benefit of Ongmat being silenced for a while.” Still chuckling, he moved out of sight along the corridor, his sandals slapping on the mosaic floor.
Lain carried his hardly-touched glass of wine to his desk and sat down, swirling the black liquid to create light patterns on its surface. Glo’s humorous endorsement of Toller’s violence was quite typical of him, one of the little ways in which he reminded members of the philosophy order that he was of royal lineage and therefore had the blood of conquerors in his veins. It showed he was feeling better and had recovered his self-esteem, but it did nothing to ease Lain’s worries about the older man’s physical and mental fitness.
In the space of only a few years Glo had turned into a bumbling and absent-minded incompetent. His unsuitability for his post was tolerated by most department heads, some of whom appreciated the extra personal freedom they derived from it, but there was a general sense of demoralisation over the order’s continuing loss of status. The aging King Prad still retained an indulgent fondness for Glo—and, so the whispers went, if philosophy had come to be regarded as a joke it was appropriate that it should be represented by a court jester.
But there was nothing funny about a meeting of the high council, Lain told himself. The person who presented the case for rigorous brakka conservation would need to do it with eloquence and force, marshalling complex arguments and backing them up with an unassailable command of the statistics involved. His stance would be generally unpopular, and would attract special hostility from the ambitious Prince Chakkell and the savage Leddravohr.
If Glo proved unable to master the brief in time for the meeting it was possible he would call on a deputy to speak on his behalf, and the thought of having to challenge Chakkell or Leddravohr—even verbally—produced in Lain a cold panic which threatened to affect his bladder. The wine in his glass was now reflecting a pattern of trembling concentric circles.
Lain set the glass down and began breathing deeply and steadily, waiting for the shaking of his hands to cease.
CHAPTER 4
Toller Maraquine awoke with the knowledge, which was both disturbing and comforting, that he was not alone in bed.
He could feel the body heat of the woman who was lying at his left side, one of her arms resting on his stomach, one of her legs drawn up across his thighs. The sensations were all the more pleasant for being unfamiliar.
Similar Books
