Book:    Court Duel
Viewed: 4 - Published at: 4 years ago

I had no conscious plan in mind, but it turned out I did not need one; when I reached the other side of the house, I glimpsed through a wall of vines a splendid terrace, and seated at a table on it was Lord Flauvic. Exquisitely dressed in pale shades of peach and gray, he was all alone, absorbed in reading and writing.
I stooped, picked up some small gravel, and tossed it in his direction.
He went very still. Just for a moment. Then his head turned deliberately. When he saw me he smiled slightly. Moving with swift grace, he swung to his feet and crossed the terrace. "Serenades," he said, "are customarily performed under moonslight, or have fashions here changed?"
"I don't know," I said. "No one's serenaded me, and as for my serenading anyone else, even if I wanted to, which I don't, my singing voice sounds like a sick crow."
"Then to what do I owe the honor of this delightful--but admittedly unorthodox--visit?"
"That." I demonstrated his gesture with my hands. "You did that when your mother took me away last night. I want to know what you meant by it."
His fine brows lifted just slightly, and with leisurely grace he stepped over the low terrace wall and joined me among the ferns. "You do favor the blunt, don't you?"
It was phrased as a question, but his lack of surprise hinted fairly broadly that he'd heard gossip to this effect. My chin came up; I said, "I favor truth over style."
He retorted in the mildest voice, "Having endured the blunt style favored by my late Uncle Galdran, which had little to do with truth as anyone else saw it, I beg you to forgive me when I admit that I am more dismayed than impressed."
"All right," I said. "So there can be truth with style, as well as the opposite. It's just that I haven't been raised to think that I'd find much truth in Court, though there's plenty of style to spare there."
"Will I seem unnecessarily contentious if I admit that my own life experience has engendered in me a preference for style, which at least has the virtue of being diverting?" It seemed impossible that Flauvic was exactly my age. "Not so diverting is the regrettable conviction that truth doesn't exist." His golden eyes were wide and curiously blank.
"Doesn't exist? Of course it does," I exclaimed.
"Is your truth the same as mine? I wonder." He was smiling just slightly, and his gaze was still as limpid as the stream rilling at our feet, but I sensed a challenge.
I said gloomily, "All right, then, you've neatly sidestepped my question--if you even intended to answer it."
He laughed, so softly I just barely heard it, and bowed, his hands moving in a quick airy gesture. I gasped when I saw the bouquet of flowers in his hands. As I reached, they poofed into glowing cinders of every color, which then swirled around and reformed into butterflies. Then he clapped his hands, and they vanished. "Magic!" I exclaimed. "You know magic?"
"This is merely illusion," he said. "It's a kind of fad in Erev-li-Erval. Or was. No one is permitted to study true magic unless invited by the Council of Mages, which is overseen by the Empress."
"I'd love to learn it," I exclaimed. "Real magic or not."
We were walking, randomly I thought; in the distance I heard the sweet chiming bells announcing second-gold.
Flauvic shrugged slightly. "I could show you a few tricks, but I've forgotten most of them. You'd have to ask a play magician to show you--that's how we learned."
"Play magician?" I repeated.
"Ah," he said. "Plays here in Remalna are still performed on a bare stage, without illusion to dress it."
"Well, some players now have painted screens and costumes, as in two plays here during recent days. I take it you haven't seen them?"
"I rarely leave the house," he said apologetically. We reached a path just as the beat of horse hooves sounded from not far ahead. I stepped back; Flauvic looked up as two riders trotted into view.
My first reaction was blank dismay when I saw Savona and Shevraeth riding side by side.

( Sherwood Smith )
[ Court Duel ]
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