"Andre Norton - Elvenblade 02 - Elvenblood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Elvenblood
Book Two of The Halfblood Chronicles
by Andre Norton & Mercedes Lackey




Chapter 1
SHEYRENA HAD GROWN very weary of coos of admiration over the last hour or so. Human
voices, harsh and heavy by elven standards, did not normally grate on her ears, but they did today.
"Oh, my lady, there has never been a gown so lovely, I swear!" The nameless blond slave out of her
mother's household shook her head over the shimmering folds of Sheyrena's gown. She probably spoke
the truth, by her own standards; it was heavy damascene silk, of peacock-blue shot through with threads
of pearly iridescence. The color was far more vivid than anything ever seen in nature.
And a more wretched color for me could not be imagined. It would, of course, completely
overwhelm her. She would be a ghost in the stolen costume of the living.
'Truly!" gushed another. "You will ravish the mind of every lord who sees you!"
Only if they have taste for a maiden who resembles a corpse bedecked for her funeral. No
amount of careful makeup would ever give her the coloring to match that gown.
It was suitable for the vivid beauty of a human concubine, not an elven maid, and particularly not one
who was pale even by the standards of her own race. It was typical of her father to have chosen
something that would display, not her, but the power, his power, that made it possible.
Sheyrena an Treves closed her ears to the chattering of her human slaves and wished she could be
anywhere but where she was. The windowless, pale blue marble walls of her dressing room were far too
confining at the best of times; now, as it was crowded with the bodies of not only her own half-dozen
slaves, but an additional four from her mother's retinue, she was not entirely certain there was enough air
to go around. There was too much perfume and heat in here; she wished vaguely for an escape from all
of it.
If only she could be outside! Sitting watching the butterflies in that meadow Lorryn discovered
—or riding along the wall around the estate—she thought wistfully. For a long moment she was lost
in her dreams of escape, her mind far from this room and all it contained, as she imagined herself riding
Lorryn's spirited gelding in a headlong chase along the sandstone wall, the wind in her face, and Lorryn
only a pace or two ahead of her—
Lorryn, if only you could come and rescue me from this. 1 Oh, that is a foolish thought, you
cannot even rescue yourself from the bindings of custom.
Two of her own chief attendants—castoffs from her father's harem, twin redheads whose names she
could never keep straight—said something to her directly and waited for a response, shaking her out of
her dreams. She shook her head slightly and emerged from her thoughts.
"Please, my lady, it is time for the undergown," the right-hand girl repeated quietly, with no
expression whatsoever. Sheyrena stood up and allowed them to bring the undergown to her. The slaves
were all used to the way she sank into half-trances by now, and if they felt any impatience with her, they
were too well trained to show it. No slave in the household of V'layn Tylar Lord Treves would ever dare
to display anything so insubordinate, as impatience with one of his elven masters. Sheyrena's handmaids
always wore the identical expressions of insipid and vacuous pleasantry that one would find on the face
of a formal portrait. That was the way her father wanted it, but it always unnerved Sheyrena; she could
never tell what they were thinking.
If I knew what they were thinking, I would at least have some idea of how to think of them.
Then again, I doubt that their thoughts would be very flattering. There is not much in me, I fear,
to inspire a good opinion.
Obedient to their directions, she turned toward the four who bore the gown as carefully as a holy