My friendly guise of the morning notwithstanding, I had no wish to blunder into the memoir room if Shevraeth was working there. I vowed…
The thought vanished when I happened to glance out one of the many arched windows lining the long hallway and saw two figures in one of the private courtyards.
The glass was old and wavery, but something about the tall figure made me stumble to a halt and reach to unlatch the window. As I did, my mind went back to another time when I stood inside a building with distorted glass and stared out at the Marquis of Shevraeth. And somehow he had sensed I was there.
I opened the window just a crack, telling myself that they could see me if they chanced to look up, so it wasn't really spying. He was walking side by side with Lady Elenet, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him. His manner was completely absorbed. I could not hear his voice, but I could see urgency in her long hands as she gestured, and intensity in the angle of her head. Then she glanced up at him and smiled, just briefly, but the expression in her face made me back away without closing the window. I had seen that look before, in the way Nee and Bran smiled at one another, and in the faces of Lady Renna and her new husband. It was love.
Almost overwhelming was the sense that I had breached their privacy, and instinctively I started back to my room until I realized I was in retreat. Why? No one had seen me. And now I knew I would not accidentally encounter Shevraeth in the alcove where he kept the royal memoirs. Still, it was with shaking hands and pattering heartbeat that I raced back to the archive room and searched through the appropriate years looking for mentions of the Merindars.
The thought vanished when I happened to glance out one of the many arched windows lining the long hallway and saw two figures in one of the private courtyards.
The glass was old and wavery, but something about the tall figure made me stumble to a halt and reach to unlatch the window. As I did, my mind went back to another time when I stood inside a building with distorted glass and stared out at the Marquis of Shevraeth. And somehow he had sensed I was there.
I opened the window just a crack, telling myself that they could see me if they chanced to look up, so it wasn't really spying. He was walking side by side with Lady Elenet, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him. His manner was completely absorbed. I could not hear his voice, but I could see urgency in her long hands as she gestured, and intensity in the angle of her head. Then she glanced up at him and smiled, just briefly, but the expression in her face made me back away without closing the window. I had seen that look before, in the way Nee and Bran smiled at one another, and in the faces of Lady Renna and her new husband. It was love.
Almost overwhelming was the sense that I had breached their privacy, and instinctively I started back to my room until I realized I was in retreat. Why? No one had seen me. And now I knew I would not accidentally encounter Shevraeth in the alcove where he kept the royal memoirs. Still, it was with shaking hands and pattering heartbeat that I raced back to the archive room and searched through the appropriate years looking for mentions of the Merindars.
( Sherwood Smith )
[ Court Duel ]
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