Dragonfly Read Online Free PDF Page B

presents--wine, silk, parchment, and salt. She took the topmost sheaf of paper and quickly folded it into the dragonfly, her personal symbol, and handed it to the Prime Minister. "A gift for Prince Ramil ac Burinholt." A person from the Blue Crescent would understand this as a sign of great favor and trust, equivalent to saying that you place your life in their hands, but the Prime Minister had obviously not been briefed correctly on this aspect of her culture for he fingered it nervously. The Crescent sailors stirred, wondering if he meant to show disrespect.
    "Er . . . thank you, Your Highness," the Prime Minister said, passing it to his son. "We will make sure
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    he receives it." He did not like to add that the Prince should have been here in person to greet her, but had gotten so drunk the night before on hearing that the fleet had been sighted, that he was incapable of standing. "If you would care to alight from your vessel, I have a carriage waiting for you."
    Tashi drew in a breath. A carriage? No doubt pulled by one of the famous Gerfalian horses she had read about. She couldn't wait to see it.
    "Thank you, Prime Minister." Her excitement entirely hidden from her hosts, she nodded and her attendants hurried forward to pick up her chair.
    According to the Etiquette Mistress, a crown princess's feet were not to touch Gerfalian soil until she had had a chance to say the prayers suitable for arriving in a foreign country. Four burly attendants carried her down the gangplank and stopped in front of the carriage. Tashi saw with a shiver of delight that not one but six white horses were waiting to pull it. She then realized there was a hitch: her throne would not fit in the cushioned interior of the carriage; she would have to descend.
    But what about the prayers? she wondered. I'll have to do them now.
    Nodding to her chief priest, she waited for him to strike the bell so she could begin the long prayer of thanks in her native language, uncomfortably aware that she was keeping Lord Taris standing on the dock-side with no
    explanation.
    "As the Goddess wills," she intoned at last.
    Rising, she accepted Lord Taris's hand to step up into
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    the carriage. To her surprise he got in beside her, with Lord Usk sitting opposite, so close that their knees were almost touching. The breach in royal protocol was staggering. She wondered if they knew that the Crown
    Princesses only ever travelled in their own compartments. Apparently not, for the Prime Minister kept up a constant commentary as they rode through the streets of Falburg, pointing out places of importance, remarking on the commerce and customs of the city. Tashi pressed her lips together. No one spoke to a crown princess unless invited to do so. She could feel her cheeks blushing under her white paint, and she concluded that either the Gerfalians were more barbarous than she had heard or he was deliberately mocking her age and inexperience. Her silence only seemed to make him more talkative. He even tried to include his son in the conversation, claiming the young man was a great friend of her husband-to-be.
    Hardly a recommendation for my favor, thought Tashi to herself. He is probably as uncouth as his prince.
    Lord Taris pointed out the feasting hall up on the promontory overlooking the city. Its walls shone white in the sunlight; orange and green flags fluttered from the roof. Tashi allowed it to be an impressive sight, but alien to one used to the waterways and curved roofs of the Islands. These battlements and stone pinnacles looked very forbidding, conjuring up images of the claws and teeth of wild beasts crouching for the kill. She had been told that the people of the continent were warlike but she had not expected their buildings to be so too.
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    "We have arranged a welcome banquet, Your Highness, for this evening,"
    the Prime Minister continued, trying to ignore the cold silence in the carriage.
    "Is that to your liking?"
    Tashi nodded. "As the Goddess