Dolon’s spy to keep to his own affairs tonight. Tell him – tell him maybe.’ She
dimmed the lights, unwarded the door, a howl of wind and rain. Mor-am’s face
contorted in fright. He ran out to do as he was told, limping still, but not so
much as before. She took back the spell: he would be limping in truth when he
reached the watcher, would be the old Mor-am, in pain, to convince the Stepsons.
And that also amused her.
She shut the door, walked through the small strange house, which at one time
seemed to have one room and disclosed others behind clutter – oddments, books,
hangings, cloaks, discarded garments, bits of silk or brocade which had taken
her fancy and lost it again, for she never wore ornament, only kept it for the
pleasure of having it; and the cloaks, the men’s cloaks – that was another sort
of amusement. Her bare feet trod costly silk strewn on time-smoothed boards, and
thick carpet of minuscule silk threads, hand knotted, dyed in rarest opalescent
dyes – collected for a fee, provenance forgotten. Had someone plundered the
hoard, she might not have cared or missed the theft – or might have cared
greatly, depending on her mood. Material comfort meant little to her. Only
satiation – when the need was on her. And lately – lately that need had
quickened in a different way. One had affronted her. She had, in the beginning,
dismissed the matter, clinging to her indolence, but it gnawed at her. She had
thought upon this thing, as one will think on an affront long after the moment,
turning it from one side to the other to discover the motive of it, and she had