y clutch that are hovering about here."
"The taxing office?" he asked, very softly.
She nodded. His eyes widened slightly but, schooled to discretion, he gave no other sign of interest or surprise.
What he did do, an instant later, was glance quickly beyond her shoulder towards the throne. Dianora was already turning by then, an inexplicable sense, almost an antenna, having alerted her.
So she was facing the Island Throne and the doorway behind it by the time the herald's staff rapped the floor twice, not loudly, and Brandin came into the room. He was followed by the two priests, and the priestess of Adaon. Rhun shambled quickly over to stand near by, dressed identically to the King except for his cap.
The truer measure of power, Brandin had once said to her, wouldn't be found in having twenty heralds deafen a room by proclaiming one's arrival. Any fool in funds for a day could rivet attention that way. The more testing course, the truer measure, was to enter unobtrusively and observe what happened.
What happened was what always happened. The Audience Chamber had been collectively poised as if on the edge of a cliff for the past ten minutes, waiting. Now, just as collectively, the court plummeted into obeisance. Not one person in the whole crowded room was still speaking by the time the herald's muted staff of office proclaimed the King. In the silence the two discreet raps on the marbled floor sounded like echoing thunder.
Brandin was in high good humor. Dianora could have told that from halfway across the room, even if she hadn't had a hint from Rhun already. Her heart was beating very fast. It always did whenever Brandin entered a room where she was. Even after twelve years. Even still, and despite everything. So many lines of her life led to or from this man or came together, hopelessly intertwined, in him.
He looked to d'Eymon first, as always, and received the other's expressionless bow, sketched low in the Ygrathen fashion. Then, as always, he turned and smiled at Solores.
Then at Dianora. Braced as she was, as she always tried to be, she still could not quite master what happened to her when the grey eyes found and held her own. His glance was like a touch, a gliding presence, fiery and glacial both, as Brandin was.
And all this from a look across a very crowded room.
Once, in bed, years before, she had dared to ask him a question that had long troubled her.
"Is there sorcery involved when you love me here, or when we first meet in a public place?"＠＠文＠檔＠共＠享＠與＠在＠線＠閱＠讀＠
She hadn't known what answer she wanted, or what to expect by way of reaction. She'd thought he might be flattered by the implication, or at least amused. You could never be sure with Brandin though, his mind ran through too many different channels and with too much subtlety. Which is why questions, especially revealing ones, were dangerous. This had been important to her though: if he said yes she was going to try to use that to kindle her killing anger again. The anger she seemed to have lost here in the strange world that was the Island.
Her expression must have been very grave; he turned on his pillow, head propped on one hand to regard her from beneath level brows. He shook his head.
"Not in any way you are thinking. Nothing that I control or shape with my magic, other than the matter of children. I will not have any more heirs, you know that." She did know that; all his women did. He said, after a pause, carefully, "Why do you ask? What happens to you?"
For a second she thought she'd heard uncertainty in his voice, but one could never be sure of such things with Brandin. "Too much," she'd answered. "Too much happens." And she'd been speaking, for that one time, the unshielded truth of a no longer innocent heart. There was an acute understanding in his clear eyes. Which frightened her. She moved herself, moved by all the layers of her need, to slide over against his body again and then above and upon it that it might begin once more, the whole process. A