The front of the house extended a good fifty cubits from side to side, and deeper than that, Cerryl suspected as Leyladin led him up the granite walk, a walk flanked just by winter-browned grass.
“The gardens are in the back,” Leyladin answered his unspoken question. “Father said they were for us, not to display to passersby.” The blond mage opened the front door. “Soaris! Father! We’re here.”
She stepped into a bare foyer barely four cubits wide and twice that in length, with smooth stone walls on either side. Cerryl followed and closed the door. On the left wall was mounted a polished wooden beam, with pegs for jackets and cloaks. Against the right wall was a backless golden oak bench. Beside it was a boot scraper. A boot brush leaned against the wall stones.
Cerryl offered the brush to Leyladin, then took it after she finished and brushed his own boots. Then he took off his white jacket and hung it on one of the pegs.
A huge, heavy man wearing a blue overtunic appeared at the back of the narrow foyer. “Lady Leyladin, your father awaits you and your companion in the study.”
“We will be right there, Soaris.”
“Very good, lady.” Soaris bowed again and departed.
Cerryl turned to her. “Lady Leyladin?”
The blonde mage blushed. “Some hold Father…in high regard. Since Mother died when I was young and my sisters are gone, I help Father by acting as lady of the household, since he has no consort.”
Cerryl shook his head slowly. “I knew that you were well off…”
“Oh?” Leyladin arched her eyebrows. “From your peeking through the glass? I’ll wager you didn’t tell Sterol about that.”
“I did,” Cerryl confessed. “Except I didn’t tell him who I looked at. You felt me. You told me that, remember? You were so strong that I stopped looking. I never dared try again.”
“You were saying…” she said gently.
“Oh…” He shrugged. “I saw the silks and hangings. I thought you were the daughter of a wealthy merchant-but not so high as a lady.” He grinned. “A lady and a mage and a healer. Far above this lowly junior mage.”
“Stop it.” The healer grimaced. “You’re already more powerful than I am or will ever be. Let’s see Father.”
Cerryl followed her through the foyer arch into the main entry hall. The floors were blue-green marble squares, polished so smooth that the four bronze wall lamps and their sconces shed light from both the wall and the floor. The air smelled of trilia and roses-together with another scent, a lighter one. The walls, even the inside walls, were smoothed granite block to waist-level and white plaster above.
Green silks hung from the archway through which Leyladin led Cerryl into a long sitting room, one with two settees upholstered in green velvet and two matching and upholstered wooden armchairs. All were arranged around a long and low table of polished and inlaid woods. The table inlays had been designed to portray the image of a ship under full sail.
Cerryl paused as he studied the table and then the pair of matched cabinets against the wall, cabinets that almost framed the single picture in a silvered frame on the middle of the inside wall. The image was that of a smiling, narrow-faced woman with generous lips and long wavy blonde tresses. She wore a green vest embroidered in gold thread over a loose white silk shirt. The blue eyes seemed to follow Cerryl. He looked at Leyladin. “Your mother?”
She nodded. “That was her favorite outfit, and it’s how I remember her.”
The end of the sitting room held a hearth, with a brass screen before it. In the wall to the left of the hearth was an archway. Leyladin led Cerryl through the arch and then through a door to the right, ignoring the archway on the left. The study was but ten cubits on a side, perhaps five long paces, and three of the walls were paneled in dark-stained red oak. The fourth and inside wall contained only shelves, though, but a third held scattered displays of books, the remainder holding decorative items-malachite vases, a curved silver pitcher, a narrow and ancient blade.
A heavy man rose from the desk in the corner, angled so that the heat from coals in the hearth bathed him where he had been sitting. The top of his head was bald and shining, and on each side of his head blonde hair half-covered his ears. A wide smile burst from his clean-shaven face, and green eyes, lighter than those of his daughter, smiled with his mouth.
“Father, this is Cerryl. Cerryl, this is my father, Layel.”
“So…you’re one of the young mages?” Layel stepped around the polished dark wood of the desk and offered a polite head bow.
“A very junior mage among many.” Cerryl bowed in return.
“He’s got a sense of place, Daughter! Maybe too modest for the Halls, from all I’ve seen.”
“He is modest.”
“We should be eating. Meridis will be letting me know for days that I let the food suffer.” Layel gestured and then let Leyladin lead the way out of the study and through the archway she and Cerryl had not taken on the way to the study.
“What are we having?” asked the blonde as they entered a small dining hall.
The dining hall was small only comparatively, thought Cerryl. While three places were set at one end, the long white golden table could have easily seated twenty. Each chair around the table was of the white golden oak, and each was upholstered in the dark green velvet. The pale white china sat upon place mats of light green linen, and matching linen napkins were set in holders beside the silver utensils flanking the china. Fluted crystal goblets were set by each plate.
“Your favorite,” answered Layel, “the orange beef with the pearapple noodles.”
Orange beef? Pearapple noodles? Pearapples had been scarce enough in Cerryl’s childhood, and to be savored on those few occasions when Uncle Syodor or Aunt Nall had produced one. Now Cerryl was about to have noodles made from them-as if they were as common as flour!
“I broke out some of the white wine from Linspros.” Layel glanced at his daughter. “I needed some excuse for something that good. Couldn’t very well drink it by myself.”
The trader sat at the head, with Cerryl and Leyladin at each side, facing each other across the end of the table. No sooner had the three seated themselves than a gray-haired woman in the same type of blue overtunic that Soaris was wearing appeared with two large platters of the same fine white china, then scurried out and returned with two more.
Cerryl glanced across the offerings-thin cuts of beef interspersed with thinly sliced oranges and green leaves and covered with an orange glaze; fine white noodles; long green beans with nuts and butter; and dark bread.
Layel served himself the beef and noodles. After he had finished, Leyladin nodded at Cerryl. “Please.”
“Can’t say that, outside of the white, I’d be taking you for a mage.” Layel took the big glass bottle and poured the clear wine into the three crystal goblets one after another.
Wine from glass bottles-another luxury Cerryl had heard about but never seen. “I know. I look more like a scrivener. I was once, an apprentice scrivener.”
“Now that’s something I don’t know much about.” Layel laughed. “Books, you can’t buy ’em cheap. So I don’t. Means I don’t sell them, either. Don’t have time to read them.” He lifted his goblet. “To friends, daughters, and companions.”
Cerryl followed their example but took only the smallest sip of the wine. Even with that sip, with the hint of bubbliness and the lemon-nut freshness, he could feel that it was far stronger than anything he’d ever tasted and far, far better.
“Ah…better than I remembered,” said Layel.
“It is good.” Leyladin lifted the porcelain platter that held the still-steaming dark bread and offered it to her father. Layel broke off a chunk, and the blonde offered the platter to Cerryl.