Twenty-Seven
Feb. 19th, 2013 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theonecalledwander“He directed you to the back door, didn’t he?” Bel asks as we wend our way to the Elector’s house in the early afternoon.
“He told me not to use the front one,” I say. “He was not actually specific as to how I should enter. I was thinking a window?”
I want a chance to examine the boxes in privacy if I can… and it wouldn’t hurt anything to send Tyrol a message, that I’m not one of his servants.
Well, it could hurt several things, including my standing in Peram and my chances of success. But it would hurt my pride not to, and I think you will probably forgive me for indulging in an impulse towards vanity every now and again.
“Your funeral, sunshine,” Bel says.
“I don’t suppose you’d want to come and watch my back?”
“I’ll watch the back of you walking in through Tyrol’s back door escorted by his servants, if you like,” she says. “I have a position to think of… if this all falls flat on you, you can just wander down the road again but I’ll be stuck here, dealing with the consequences.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “That’s his house, isn’t it? We should part ways here.”
“Yeah, that’s his… bit obvious, isn’t it?”
That’s something of an understatement. Tyrol’s house boasts a yard, a rare luxury in a walled city whose boundaries are doubtlessly fixed by statute and would be expensive to expand even if they weren’t.
Like the city he rules, Tryol’s estate is walled… surrounded by a fence of stone capped with wrought iron. The back gate has a lock, but it hangs open during the day. Through it I can see a statue garden and the edge of what looks like a reflecting pond. Even that’s enough to put a prickle of unease at the back of my mind.
What is it about the water here that’s so unsettling?
“He told me not to use the front one,” I say. “He was not actually specific as to how I should enter. I was thinking a window?”
I want a chance to examine the boxes in privacy if I can… and it wouldn’t hurt anything to send Tyrol a message, that I’m not one of his servants.
Well, it could hurt several things, including my standing in Peram and my chances of success. But it would hurt my pride not to, and I think you will probably forgive me for indulging in an impulse towards vanity every now and again.
“Your funeral, sunshine,” Bel says.
“I don’t suppose you’d want to come and watch my back?”
“I’ll watch the back of you walking in through Tyrol’s back door escorted by his servants, if you like,” she says. “I have a position to think of… if this all falls flat on you, you can just wander down the road again but I’ll be stuck here, dealing with the consequences.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “That’s his house, isn’t it? We should part ways here.”
“Yeah, that’s his… bit obvious, isn’t it?”
That’s something of an understatement. Tyrol’s house boasts a yard, a rare luxury in a walled city whose boundaries are doubtlessly fixed by statute and would be expensive to expand even if they weren’t.
Like the city he rules, Tryol’s estate is walled… surrounded by a fence of stone capped with wrought iron. The back gate has a lock, but it hangs open during the day. Through it I can see a statue garden and the edge of what looks like a reflecting pond. Even that’s enough to put a prickle of unease at the back of my mind.
What is it about the water here that’s so unsettling?