City of Diamond, стр. 7

His boy, his protege, his pride, turned and slashed a look toward Fischer that made him reevaluate his tone. It was a look that suggested the Diamond Chief Adviser had taken leave of his senses. “Brandon,” said Adrian slowly, “I am officially betrothed. They will be reporting back on what I look like to the lady in question. ”

Ah. Fischer controlled the smile that rose to his lips. Of course that aspect of things would be on Adrian’s mind. “Believe me, they’ll say only good things,” he assured him. “They’d say only good things if you were a hunchback with one leg; they want the marriage to go through.” Adrian sighed, a meaningful sound that suggested it had been a long time since Fischer was twenty-three. He said, “Already one of the hangers-on in the Opal delegation told one of the Diamond hangers-on that Iolanthe’s well-known for being a shrew that nobody on Opal would go near, regardless of the wedding portion.” He shrugged. “It might be true. Or he could have made it up on the spot. It’s remarkable how many things people come out with just to have something to say.”

Fischer looked faintly shocked. “They’re not supposed to be speaking to anybody before the reception! And what hangers-on?”

“Oh, some clothes-peg who came along to make the Opal delegation look a little grander. He mentioned it in passing to one of the folk we have assigned to look after them.”

“How did you hear about it?”

Adrian inspected himself in his full-length mirror, a dissatisfied expression on his face. “That’s not the point. The point is, what are they saying about me? The girl’s only seventeen, Brandon. We don’t want to scare her.” He glared at the image in the mirror as though that would somehow alter it for the better. “I cannot wear this suit in public. Lucius! Don’t we have another shirt somewhere?”

Lucius Stringfellow was now an eighteen-year-old who moved with the careful dignity a mountain peak might possess if it suddenly became mobile. He met Adrian’s gaze in the mirror. “Sir, you threw your blue silk cape and shirt at me last night and told me to put it with die pile I sent for cleaning. And they were very in need of it, too. Your white shirt of Tuesday has still not been located, but assuming it was lost here, and not … elsewhere …” Adrian seemed oblivious to this reference, but Fischer’s complexion, naturally ruddy, took on a slightly pinker cast. “… it will no doubt appear when one of the maids does the room this afternoon.”

“Damn! I wish Tal were here. He always has ideas.”

“He’s in the outer rooms, sir,” said Lucius, before Fischer could speak. “Shall I fetch him?”

“We don’t need him for this, do we?” Fischer inquired.

“Call him in,” said Adrian, and Lucius went away.

Fischer seated himself on the edge of a table. He did so awkwardly, with the movements of a man whose bones were aching, though he’d seemed healthy enough a moment ago. “Adrian,” he began.

“Oh, that earnest tone.” Adrian smiled with genuine affection. “How well I know it. Can’t you leave Tal be for a while? You’ve been peering at him for two years, and he’s done nothing to justify this constant suspicion.”

“He is what he is.”

“On the Diamond he is what I make him, and I’ve given him sixteenth rank.”

Fischer shook his head. How could the boy be so blind? You’d think after that business with Gil Veritie during the rebellion, he’d be more careful with his companions. But Adrian had never mentioned Gil’s betrayal again, never seemed to give it a second thought. “Tal,” Fischer said, rolling it around in his throat, “Tal! He doesn’t even have a last name. He’s an Outsider. He’s an acknowledged demon. And you spend far too much time in his company, Adrian.”

The Protector smiled, his eyes distant. “Really, how can you be so conventional, Brandon? When I think of all the years you warned me against court friendships, you should be glad I’ve found an intimate with no pretensions to power.”

Fischer followed his glance to the rather eccentric objet d’art that sat on Adrian’s dressertop: a tall block of clear crystalline material with a shard of glass embedded in it. “Power comes in different forms,” he snapped irritably. “Look, what is that thing anyway? It’s the only abstract piece you own. When you tossed out Saul’s old pictures, I thought you said you didn’t want ‘art’ following you into your bedchamber at night.”

“Just a memento of the rebellion.” Adrian’s gaze cleared. “Tal! Come in, I need your advice.”

A figure in pearl-gray detached itself from where it lounged against the door, and came in. A visual recording would have shown the new entrant as the youngest person in the room, younger even than Lucius Stringfellow, who accompanied him; perhaps seventeen years old, on the slender side, with dark hair and gray eyes. But the other three people in the room did not see him that way. Nobody who came to know Tal for more than half an hour ever thought of him as seventeen, ever again. As for his chronological age, for all they knew, he might have been the oldest there; that information, along with his surname and place of origin, was kept to himself. It was simple prudence, in a demon.

Without a word, Adrian picked up the chocolate-colored shirt that Lucius had rescued from the floor and held it against himself.

Tal said, “You look like something tossed out of a recycler.”

Brandon Fischer threw up his hands and turned away. “But what to do about it?” asked Adrian. “If we were closer in size, I could change shirts with you, but—” Tal’s glance was ranging the room. He stopped. “What’s this?” He walked to Adrian’s bed and tugged on a scrap of white that hung from the snowy bedclothes. It turned into a sleeve. He tossed the shirt to Adrian and said, “It’s fortunate you’re unacquainted with