The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
But he had not, because at the sight of him he stood perfectly rigid, his dark eyes dilated, and remained staring, without speech, while Lymond in turn walked up and stopped. ‘Venceslas?’
The boy took his hands away from his throat. ‘My lord.’
Below the fine, curling hair, his face was as stiff as a sledge of shot hares: his eyes, on Lymond’s face, were quite blank and darkly sleepless. He ran his hands up and down the cloak edge. Lymond said, ‘What are you doing? It must be four hours to dawn.’
The fingers ran up and down, up and down. The cloak slipped and he caught it, his soft fingers trembling. ‘My lady called me.’
Beneath the cloak, plain to see, had been the sheen of bare flesh. There was a pause of hardly perceptible length. Then the Voevoda’s veiled eyes smiled. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘I think perhaps one of the Mistress’s charming young sempstresses is waiting somewhere … or one of Leila’s helpers? Am I right?’
The beautiful, clear face was grey-white as water-filled glass. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And you wonder if you are to be whipped, or if I will bear with the frailty and unadvisedness of your youth. The answer is that I will not bear with it, but I shall not whip you either; nor shall your mistress. Go back to your room, and make no more assignations until you are a man. There will be time enough then. Too much time.’
The eyes were pools of darkness: the fingers ran up and down. ‘Go!’ said Lymond sharply; and the boy jumped, and clutched his cloak, and turning, ran down the gallery.
Lymond watched him go. Long after Venceslas had vanished he stood there unmoving, looking at nothing. Unlike those of the boy, his hands were quite still, their knuckles discoloured with bruising. His body was drying within the wet fur of the robe: his hair had sprung wet from its combing and his face, almost unmarked, was set in an expression of familiar indifference under which was something frighteningly different: the face of a man who once looked upon the dead body of an archer he did not love, called Robin Stewart. Then he turned to the door beside him, which was that of Güzel, and knocked.
The walls were thick, and she had heard nothing. When she called ‘Enter’ and he opened the door gently, she sat up in her lamplit drift of lace pillows, her black hair ribboned loose from her shoulders, her arched, henna-laced feet crossed like a nun’s below the fine white Egypt robe, banded with coloured silk braiding. There was kohl on her eyes, and every fold of her body was scented, but she wore no jewels save a thread of gold which spanned her neck as if drawn by a quill, and ran between her breasts under the cuff of her robe. Held between cream and honey, the muted colour was exact from the undyed raw silk of the hangings to the sarsanet cover on which she was lying, woven in buff silk with spears and flowers and trees and Saracen horsemen. In all that lamplit mosaic within the dark warmth of the room, the only delicate accents were the darkness of her smoky black hair; and the stain on her lips.
Her cheeks had no flush of colour. The smooth olive of her skin did not change, nor did she move after her first sudden rising, except to lay her hands softly before her in her lap. Then she said, ‘You have something to say to me? If you lock the door, we shall not be interrupted.’
He did as she asked, and when he looked up she was smiling. She said, ‘Your hands.… Whose bones have thoughtlessly blemished them?’
Lymond spread his palms, smiling a little as he glanced down at the ruined caftan. ‘Dmitri Vishnevetsky’s. I have been removing the dross which bars his spiritual progress. I fear you must avoid the winter garden for the next few days.’
Straight-backed and wholly