Glimpses Read Free

man.
    Idrilain smiled. “I’m sure his master can
spare him for a little while.”
    Seregil bowed again and joined the them at a
small tea table by the fountain.
    “Well, you are a long way from home, my boy,”
said Nysander. “How are you enjoying Rhíminee so far?”
    “I haven’t seen much beyond the palace, my
lord. But it’s very pleasant here.”
    Nysander could tell he didn’t mean a word of
it. Though he still smiled politely, it was clear that Seregil
wasn’t here by his own choice. As much as Nysander wanted to ask
him more about himself, he sensed that it wouldn’t be welcome and
to brush his thoughts would be rude.
    The way Seregil spoke—when he did speak—and
the genteel manner in which he handled his delicate porcelain tea
bowl all reinforced Nysander’s initial impression that he was from
a cultured, perhaps sheltered background. What in the world was he
doing here?
    Just then they heard raised voices and
Idrilain’s two older children burst in. At eighteen, Princess
Phoria and her twin, Prince Korathan, were fair and tall like their
mother. Phoria was slender, while Korathan had a lean athlete’s
build.
    “Mother, Phoria won’t let me ride Bright
Star!” Korathan exclaimed.
    “Because he’ll break her neck if he tries,”
Phoria retorted. “Oh, hello, Nysander! And Seregil! It’s good to
see you.”
    “Cousin,” Korathan said, acknowledging
Seregil, as well.
    “Your Highnesses.” A genuine smile
transformed Seregil before Nysander’s eyes. He was more than
pretty; he was quite beautiful, perhaps more than was good for him
here at court. At least he’d made friends with the queen’s
children. No doubt he’d rather have been with them than sitting
here in his stiff collared robe.
     
    ***
     
    Seregil did his best to concentrate on the
document in front of him, a manifest from a grain shipment. The
scriptorium was silent except for the light scratch of quills on
parchment and the occasional distant honking of the Vs of wild
geese flying over the city. Outside in the garden, new fallen snow
sparkled in the sun under a clear blue sky. Despite the cold draft
from the window casement beside him, he longed to be out there, not
in this dreary chamber with its bare walls and cold stone floor.
His desk was at the back of the room, furthest from the great
hearth. He and the other junior scribes worked with their cloaks
on.
    He’d been at this kind of work for almost
three months now and he was heartily sick of it. The manifest he
was copying out was the sort of task Emidas thought him worthy of,
or perhaps it was spite. Seregil knew he’d been foisted on the head
scribe after he’d failed as a page. Well, he hadn’t failed so much
as not cared. The whole artifice of the Skalan royal court, all
that bowing and scraping and memorizing of titles grated on his
nerves. And it was boring. And these clothes!
    He hadn’t known what boredom was, though,
until they stuck him here with a score of men and women who never
lifted their noses from their task. Lord Emidas carried a short
walking stick with a knob on the end and wasn’t above rapping the
head or shoulder of any slackers. Seregil had found that out the
first day and nearly punched the man. No one had ever laid hands on
him like that. No one touched the Khirnari’s son—
    Except that I’m not, anymore.
    “Seregil, come here, please,” Emidas called
from his high desk at the front of the room, where he’d been
checking through the day’s work. Seregil felt a little spark of
hope.
    He felt the eyes of the others on him as he
passed them on his way to the front of the room.
    “What is this?” Emidas asked, holding up the
manifest for a shipment of armor Seregil had completed yesterday.
He’d done it in the form of an illuminated manuscript, with
dragons, sea serpents and griffons intertwined with the fancy
capital letters at the beginning of each paragraph. He done it
partly out of boredom, and partly in the hope that Emidas