House of Shadows(62)

“Take them,” Summer Pearl said to her, in a kind tone. “You won them fairly.”

“But—”

“You did,” Rue said, smiling, and patted Moonflower’s hand, which the girl had put out cautiously to touch the sapphire earring. “No one will tell a story to rout that one. Never tell me if it was not true. I will like to think of you on the deck of that ship, with the dragon rearing up out of the sea as high as Kerre Maraddras.”

“But it was true,” the girl said, blinking. “I thought all the stories were supposed to be true?”

“A well-told tale has a truth of its own,” commented the prince. “But of course yours would be unexaggerated.” He was smiling. He seemed both pleased and a little proud, as though he took the young keiso’s shining performance as a credit to himself.

Moonflower looked up at him and dropped her gaze again at once, blushing in delightful confusion.

The prince laughed a little. He plucked a single hair from his head and threaded it around a simple ring of gold wire before presenting the ring to the young keiso. The pause this time was rather fraught. Koriadde and Jerinte exchanged a swift glance, appearing both pleased and uneasy. The prince’s bodyguard merely looked resigned.

Summer Pearl had the indulgent look of an older person watching young love blossom. Meadowbell and Featherreed looked amused and a touch envious. Rue had a slightly calculating expression in her dark eyes.

Servants brought in sticky nut candies and bowls of rose-scented water so they could wash the stickiness off their fingers, and Bluefountain began to play again, a warm, light melody that broke the mood and made everyone smile. Rue rose to her feet and went out into the center of the room. She moved with a new kind of grace, and there was a general settling around the table as the company prepared to watch her dance.

The music lifted suddenly and Summer Pearl and Meadowbell both joined Bluefountain. Summer Pearl’s knee harp drew a light, ethereal descant about the deeper, burring sound of the kinsana, while Meadowbell’s pipes tossed glittering notes out at seeming random and yet fit perfectly into the piece. It was a variant of a Miskiannes dancing song, Taudde realized, doubtless chosen in his own honor. Rue was preparing to dance, and Taudde was suddenly ashamed that he’d assumed the subtle calculation he’d seen in her face had been due to Moonflower’s success.

The dance Rue performed did not use the set of strict forms Taudde would have expected from a Lonne-trained dancer. Instead, Rue seemed to float through the dance, always on the verge of drifting into a form and yet never quite letting her steps resolve into the expected pattern. This lack of resolution created a tension that was wound tighter with every form Rue did not quite carry through, and in only a few moments no one in the room was looking anywhere but at the dancer.

Rue drew the dance to an end that did not conclude and yet somehow was still satisfying. At that moment, while she made her bows, every man in her audience would have sworn that Rue was the most beautiful woman in Lonne, little Moonflower notwithstanding. And this, Taudde thought, with no deliberate effort on her part to beguile. She had only given herself to the dance.

The prince began the applause, a soft tapping of fingertips against the polished surface of the table, and the rest of the gathering joined him.

“Beautiful. Very lovely and unusual,” Taudde said to Rue. He added sincerely, “Indeed, I do not recall anything I have ever seen to rival it,” and went on, “Truly it is said that one must come to Lonne in order to live! I hope you will accept a small token of my regard, forgiving any imperfections of taste a foreigner might have shown in its selection.”

Bringing out the packet he had set aside on the sideboard, biting back a sharp reluctance to do so, Taudde unwove the cord that bound it. He set out on the table the items he had brought, each wrapped in its own fine suede cloth and bound with a little cord.

Not being personally acquainted with any of the keiso, nor even being certain how many keiso would be present, Taudde had simply bought a selection of small gifts for them. Understanding that ostentatious generosity was expected—indeed, a keiso House, almost as much as high-class but ordinary prostitutes of other cities, must surely depend on the generosity of its patrons—he had made certain the gifts were expensive, for all their small size. He chose for Rue a bracelet of copper and amber, judging that it would set off her coloring well. She accepted this gift as her due, with a slight inclination of her head.

To Summer Pearl, he gave a ring of silver and Enescene jade, and to Meadowbell and Featherreed combs of mountain cedar inlaid with abalone shell. To Bluefountain, with a bow to acknowledge her skill, he gave a deceptively simple little flute of black wood that he had found at the Paliante and loved immediately: He had expected at least one of the keiso to be a true instrumentalist. All the keiso accepted their gifts with graceful exclamations of happiness, and Bluefountain blew a soft trill on the flute and closed her eyes in pleasure at the clean, pure sound.