paralyzed with fear and her wits with doubt.
“Our hostess,” Tasfalen said, and swept in to seize her hand. She drew a great
breath, strangled by the lacings of the gown, and the air felt thin and strained
and charged, her head swirling with sleeplessness and the smell of wine she had
not even drunk. She took a hesitant step with Tasfalen clasping her hand.
“Please,” she said. Her voice came out a hoarse breath. “Please sit down. Shiey
” No, no, one did not shout for Cook in a formal party. She struggled to free
her hand. “Please.”
Tempus moved. A mountain might have moved at her wish and amazed her no less.
She saw to her dizzy relief all the men moving toward their seats, all of them
moving in on the double tables which did, miraculously, have room enough and to
spare….
Tempus took a seat. Tasfalen led her inexorably forward, past the rows of
chairs, toward the head of the table. Straton- Her Straton-walked on the other
side of the tables, got as far as Critias and Tempus, slung his cloak onto a
pile of others in the comer, and quietly stood behind a chair he chose. Not
looking at them. Or at her. She might have been walking the edge of a chasm.
Tasfalen delivered her to the place centermost of the head table. She shook her
head furiously, desperately, with Tempus standing next to that chair, the
Mistress’s chair; she belonged at the door, she had forgotten to take their
cloaks, they had draped them off in the comer in a pile on an unused bench or
hung them over the backs of their chairs; Cook delayed with the food, she had to