Read Online Tales of Neveryon by Samuel R. Delany - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Samuel R. Delany
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woven sash of scarlet and gold, wrapped three times around the waist with the tassels hanging to the floor; but absently he had wrapped round it the old leather strap he’d used to girdle his loin rag in the mines), he left his room on the evening of the fifth day and again began to wander the castle. This time, perhaps because of the lightheadedness, he entered a hallway he had never entered before – and immediately found himself in a circular stone stairwell. On a whim, he went up instead of down. After two circuits the stairwell opened on another hallway – no, it was a roofed colonnade: through the arches, the further crenellations and parapets of the castle interrupted a night misted by moonlight while the moon itself was somewhere out of sight.
At the colonnade’s end, another stairwell took him back down among cool rocks. About to leave the stair at one exit because there was a faint glimmer of lamps somewhereof in the distance, he realized that what he’d taken for a buzzing in his own ears was really – blurred by echoing stones – conversation and music from below. Wondering if perhaps some catered gathering large enough to absorb him were going on, with one hand on the wall, he descended the spiral of stone.
In the vestibule at the bottom hung a bronze lamp. But the vestibule’s hangings were so drear the tiny chamber still looked black. The attention of the guard in the archway was all on the sumptuous bright crowds within. When, after half a dozen heartbeats’ hesitation, Gorgik walked out into the hall, he was not detained.
Were there a hundred people in this brilliant room? Passing among them, he saw the Baron Curly; and the Countess Esulla; and over there the elderly Princess Grutn was talking with a dour, older gentleman (the Earl Jue-Grutn); and that was Lord Vanar! On the great table running the whole side of the room sat tall decanters of wine, wide bowls of fruit, platters of jellied welkin, circular loaves of hard bread and rounds of soft cheese. Gorgik knew that if he gorged he would be ill; and that, even if he ate prudently, within an hour of his first bite, his bowels would void themselves of five days’ bile – in short, he knew what a man who had lived near hunger for five years needed to know of hunger to survive. Nevertheless, he made slow circuit after slow circuit of the hall. Each time he passed the table, he took a fruit or a piece of bread. On the seventh round, because the food whipped up an astonishing thirst, he poured himself a goblet of wine: three sips and it went to his head like a torrent reversing itself to crash back up the rocks. He wondered if he would be sick. The music was reeds and drums. The musicians, in great headdresses of gilded feathers and little else, wandered through the crowd, somehow managingto keep their insistent rhythms and reedy whines together. It was on the ninth round, with the goblet still in his hand and his belly like a small, swollen bag swinging back and forth uneasily inside him, that a thin girl with a brown, wide face and a sleeveless white shift, high on her neck and down to the floor, said: ‘Sir, you are not dressed for this party!’ Which was true.
Her rough hair was braided around her head, so tight you could see her scalp betweeen the spiralling tiers.
Gorgik smiled and dropped his head just a little, because that was usually the way to talk to aristocrats. ‘I’m not really a guest. I am a most presumptuous interloper here – a hungry man.’ While he kept his smile, his stomach suddenly cramped, then, very slowly, unknotted.
The girl’s sleeves, high of her bare, brown shoulders, were circled with tiny diamonds. Around her forehead ran the thinnest of silver wires, set every inch with small, bright stones. ‘You an from the mines, aren’t you – the Vizerine’s favorite and the pet of Lord Aldamir’s circle.’
‘I have never met Lord Aldamir,’ Gorgik said. ‘Though everyone I have known here at Court speaks of
At the colonnade’s end, another stairwell took him back down among cool rocks. About to leave the stair at one exit because there was a faint glimmer of lamps somewhereof in the distance, he realized that what he’d taken for a buzzing in his own ears was really – blurred by echoing stones – conversation and music from below. Wondering if perhaps some catered gathering large enough to absorb him were going on, with one hand on the wall, he descended the spiral of stone.
In the vestibule at the bottom hung a bronze lamp. But the vestibule’s hangings were so drear the tiny chamber still looked black. The attention of the guard in the archway was all on the sumptuous bright crowds within. When, after half a dozen heartbeats’ hesitation, Gorgik walked out into the hall, he was not detained.
Were there a hundred people in this brilliant room? Passing among them, he saw the Baron Curly; and the Countess Esulla; and over there the elderly Princess Grutn was talking with a dour, older gentleman (the Earl Jue-Grutn); and that was Lord Vanar! On the great table running the whole side of the room sat tall decanters of wine, wide bowls of fruit, platters of jellied welkin, circular loaves of hard bread and rounds of soft cheese. Gorgik knew that if he gorged he would be ill; and that, even if he ate prudently, within an hour of his first bite, his bowels would void themselves of five days’ bile – in short, he knew what a man who had lived near hunger for five years needed to know of hunger to survive. Nevertheless, he made slow circuit after slow circuit of the hall. Each time he passed the table, he took a fruit or a piece of bread. On the seventh round, because the food whipped up an astonishing thirst, he poured himself a goblet of wine: three sips and it went to his head like a torrent reversing itself to crash back up the rocks. He wondered if he would be sick. The music was reeds and drums. The musicians, in great headdresses of gilded feathers and little else, wandered through the crowd, somehow managingto keep their insistent rhythms and reedy whines together. It was on the ninth round, with the goblet still in his hand and his belly like a small, swollen bag swinging back and forth uneasily inside him, that a thin girl with a brown, wide face and a sleeveless white shift, high on her neck and down to the floor, said: ‘Sir, you are not dressed for this party!’ Which was true.
Her rough hair was braided around her head, so tight you could see her scalp betweeen the spiralling tiers.
Gorgik smiled and dropped his head just a little, because that was usually the way to talk to aristocrats. ‘I’m not really a guest. I am a most presumptuous interloper here – a hungry man.’ While he kept his smile, his stomach suddenly cramped, then, very slowly, unknotted.
The girl’s sleeves, high of her bare, brown shoulders, were circled with tiny diamonds. Around her forehead ran the thinnest of silver wires, set every inch with small, bright stones. ‘You an from the mines, aren’t you – the Vizerine’s favorite and the pet of Lord Aldamir’s circle.’
‘I have never met Lord Aldamir,’ Gorgik said. ‘Though everyone I have known here at Court speaks of
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