Winter Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

Anatha, if you would be so kind as to find whatever fancywork and supplies any and all of my father’s wives might have left behind and bring them to my solar, I would be most appreciative.” She turned her head slightly so as to meet the maid’s eyes. “As you know, I brought nothing of the sort with me. Such fine-work as we did was done for the Countess and her household. I wish my lord father to be aware that I am not idle, and I am well schooled.”
    â€œVery well, my lady.” Anatha nodded. “If I may suggest the blue wool for dinner, my lady.”
    So, she’s not entirely unfamiliar with what a lady’s maid is supposed to do. Good. “The blue wool it is,” she replied.
    Anatha was entirely at a loss when it came toselecting jewelry and accessories, however. It was Moira who selected the silver circlet for her hair, the silver-and-chalcedony torque and rings, and the silver-plaque belt. But her cosmetic box was hidden away, and she was not going to get it out. Until she knew what her father was up to, she had no intention of doing anything to enhance her looks.
    The jewelry, however, she felt she needed to wear. Similar sets had come, regular as the turning of the year, every birthday and every Christmastide. Although she had seldom worn any of it at Viridian Manor, the chest that it was all contained in made for a substantial weight, for these were not insignificant pieces, and she had the feeling that her father assumed she was wearing it all as a kind of display and reminder of his wealth and importance.
    The fact that it had probably all come to him as gleanings from wrecks was something she had preferred not to think too much about. Clasping the necklets, torques, and necklaces around her throat sometimes made her shiver, as at the touch of dead men’s fingers there.
    But Lord Ferson would expect her to wear it now, and might be considerably angered if she failed to do so. This was not the time to anger him.
    Twilight was already falling and the torches and lanterns had been lit by the time she went up to the Great Hall. There was no signal to announce dinner, as there was at Viridian Manor, but she took her cue from Anatha’s behavior as to when to leave. The moment the maid began to look a bit restless, and justa touch apprehensive, she had asked for a lantern to light the way—not all the halls were well lit, and even when they were, when storms blew up, torches and lamps blew out. The lamps in the sea-keeps burned a highly flammable and smokeless fish oil, from the little ones of the sort Anatha carried, to the huge beacons above the rocks. It didn’t matter how the beacons smelled, but at least the lamp oil was scented with ambergris and had a pleasant perfume. Shell plates, thinner than paper and nearly as transparent as glass, sheltered the flame from drafts. Anatha followed her, holding the lantern high, and Moira’s shadow stretched out in front of both of them.
    Moira took a light mantle, remembering how cold some of the hallways and the hall itself got, and as she made her way upward, the now-silent maid a few paces behind, she was glad that she had. The wind had picked up, and many of the staircases, as she well recalled, acted like chimneys, with a whistling wind streaming up them.
    The Great Hall was half-full; a fire roared in the fireplace, and an entire deer roasted on a spit above it. That alone told her that, however little her father seemed to regard her, this evening was significant. Meat for the entire company was a rarity; the usual fare at dinner here was shellfish chowder and fish baked in salt for the common folk. They tasted meat three or four times a year at most.
    Moira was used to the order and discipline that held in the Great Hall at Highclere, and the same was true of Viridian Manor; it had come as something ofa surprise to her to hear of brawling and quarreling at the lower tables of other great houses. That discipline