The Towers of the Sunset Read Online Free PDF Page B

answer, for the blond woman has left.
    The redhead looks at the decorative but solid iron chair molding that encircles her quarters. Then her eyes flicker to the iron-bound door.
    Should she call for Dreric? That, at least, is within her purview. At the thought, her blood seems to storm, and she shakes her head. Two tears fall like rain from the storm within.
     
     
    IX
     
    IN THE SPACE before the largest window, Creslin strums the small guitar, cradling the crafted rosewood and spruce firmly in fingers that feel too square for a master musician, though he knows that the shape of his fingers has little enough to do with skill.
    The room contains a narrow desk with two drawers, a wardrobe that stretches nearly four cubits high-a good three cubits short of the heavy, timbered ceiling-two wooden chairs with arms, a full-length mirror on a stand, and a double-width bed, without canopy or hangings, covered with a quilt of green, on which appears silver notes. The heavy door is barred on the inside. The door and the furniture are of red oak, smooth with craftsmanship and age but without a single carving or adornment. The only reminders of softness are two worn green cushions upon the chairs. Thrum.
    A single note, wavering silver to his inner sight, vibrates in the chill air of the room, then crumples against the granite of the outer wall.
    Never can he touch the strings so that the music appears golden, the way the silver-haired guitarist did, the one whom he is forbidden to mention. Even the autumn before the fabled Sligan guitarists had not played solid gold, but only touched upon it.
    For the time, he places the instrument on the flat top of the desk and walks to the frosted window, touching his finger to the glass until the rime clears, melting away as though spring had touched the frozen surface of a lowland lake.
    Outside, the snow dashes against the gray walls of Westwind and strikes at the window, the window that is opened seldom, even if more often than most windows within Westwind. As the glass refrosts, he picks up the guitar.
    Thrap!
    With a sigh, he places the instrument in its case and slides it under the bed. While his mother and Llyse must certainly know about the guitar, neither of them ever mentions it. Nor does either mention music, for that topic is forbidden at Westwind, for all that it is a talent best cultivated by men.
    "By men!" he snorts softly. "Coming." His response is soft, like the green leathers that he wears within the castle, but it carries.
    Thrap!
    He frowns at his sister's impatience, lifts the bar, and opens the door. Llyse stands there.
    "Are you ready for dinner?" Her hair, silver like his, dazzles, though it barely reaches the back of her neck, a brief torrent of light flashing even in the dimness of the granite-walled corridor. Only by comparison to his short-cropped head does her hair seem long and flowing.
    "No." His smile is brief, lasting only the moment before his guts warn him of the dangers of even flippant untruths.
    "You never are. How you can stand to be alone so much?"
    He closes the heavy door as he steps out onto the bare stone floor.
    "Mother was not pleased-"
    "What is it this time?" Creslin does not mean to bark at his sister, and he softens his voice. "About the time alone, or-"
    "No. If you want to be alone, that doesn't bother her. She makes allowances for men being moody."
    "Then it must be the riding."
    Llyse shakes her head, grinning.
    "All right. What is it?"
    "She doesn't think your hair is becoming when you cut it that short."
    Creslin groans. "She doesn't like what I wear, what I do, and now ..."
    They pause at the top of the sweeping circular staircase, comprised of solid granite blocks that would carry the weight of all of the Marshall's shock troops. Then they begin the descent to the great hall.
    "Really," begins Llyse, and her voice hardens into an imitation of the Marshall's voice, "you must learn the proper manners of a consort, Creslin. You may simper over