Dragons of the Valley - Donita K. Paul [104]
The artist sat next to his wife. A male servant brought in a perch for Sir Beccaroon.
“We’ll have our dessert first,” said Lady Peg. “I would like anything hot with fruit in it and whipped cream.”
The innkeeper suggested hot parnot layered between thin sheets of parted dough and cooked with seasonings from the east coast.
“Nothing,” said Groddenmitersay.
The others ordered cake.
“Do you always eat dessert first?” asked Groddenmitersay.
“No,” said Lady Peg. “But today is a day filled with good things, so it is only natural to begin with a sweet.”
Groddenmitersay bit back his impatience. He would not let her taunt him into saying something he’d regret. This game would see him the winner. “And what is it about today that is so special?”
“We are celebrating Backward Day.”
“I don’t believe we celebrate Backward Day in Baardack.”
“Well.” Lady Peg pressed her hands together. “Some things are best done backward. For instance, when a woman washes her hair, you would expect her to wash it, comb it out, and put it on top in a do.” She shook her finger at him and wagged her head back and forth.
His jaw ached from clenching his teeth. His cheeks ached from the false smile.
“But,” said Lady Peg, “she must start at the other end of the process. She takes down her hair, combs out the tangles, and then washes it.”
Groddenmitersay stared at her for a moment. She’d lost him. She looked so pleased with herself that the urge to strangle her rose violently in him. He wrapped his fingers around one of the inn’s rough cloth napkins.
He glanced at the parrot and her husband. Neither showed any sign of being disturbed by the conversation. The parrot looked studious. Groddenmitersay decided the bird had two expressions, studious and interested. Studious for when he avoided being engaged in the conversation. Interested for when courtesy demanded he attend to the speaker.
The husband maintained a rather enigmatic but pleasant manner about him. He either entertained agreeable daydreams constantly or lacked brains to puzzle over a problem.
Groddenmitersay loosened his hold on the crumpled napkin. He deliberately relaxed his jaw and arranged his face in what he knew passed as the impression of polite questioning.
“I’m afraid I don’t see the point, Lady Peg.”
“Oh, you are so clever, Master Groddenmitersay. Of course you’ve pinpointed the bottom line in a backward day. The point is unfathomable. That means it is inexplicable. Inexplicable is a good word to say because of the way it sounds, but it is difficult to spell. My husband can spell it, but he does so many things well.”
She patted him on the arm.
He smiled. “Thank you, my dear, but don’t lose the point of your discussion on my account.”
“The point?”
“Precisely.”
She didn’t speak.
Verrin Schope’s voice did not indicate that her abstraction frustrated him. He merely reminded her of the topic under discussion. “The point of Backward Day.”
“Oh yes, the point is unreliable.” She turned her attention to the tumanhofer.
He thought her eyes might bore into his mind, seeing his confusion. She was getting away from him. He must concentrate, for there would be a clue. Something deep. Something profound.
She smiled. “It could be pointed this way or that but never as you would expect it. I love Backward Day because you can start at the core, rub through the nitty-gritty, travel past the heart, unless you are headed downward, and then you would pass the root. But in any case, after all your trouble, you finally get to the point, and it isn’t where it should be, or it is still moving, or there are multiple points and no one bothered to tell you.”
She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “I’m never in favor of downward days. I did mention a downward path, but that is only in passing and one passes downward in order to turn upward, so downward is never really the purpose of the journey.”
Groddenmitersay expelled a long breath, then pulled it back in. “What is the purpose of the journey, Lady Peg?”
She smiled graciously as the innkeeper delivered