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dismay. The outfit might be suited to court, but certainly not the open road. He could imagine the state they'd be in after a tenday.
    He suspected the steward of having a grim joke at his expense. “ S'ii ,” he started, turning to the eunuch to protest, but the man had slipped from the room already. There was nothing for it but to put the clothes on. Once dressed, Idisio stood very still, wide-eyed at how smooth the silk felt against scrubbed-raw skin. It felt like walking in a continual bath of cool water, and the way the fabric flowed over his body was heady and arousing. He swallowed hard and finally managed to subdue the reaction; it took him a bit longer to walk across the room and back without it recurring.

A long mirror leaned against one wall; he went to it hesitantly. He'd had a chance to look in burnished-metal mirrors, and once a real Sessin glass hand-mirror, but never his whole body at once.

Idisio knew he didn't qualify as handsome. He'd been laughed at and taunted by too many girls for that to be a hope. What stared back at him from the glass, however, wasn't as ugly as he'd expected.

He almost had the wide face of a born southerner, but free of dirt it showed a much lighter color than Lord Scratha's. His nose was far too snubbed to be true southerner, and his eyes, a clear bright grey, were unusually wide and round. His hair, washed, brushed, and tied back, turned out to be a fine shade of deep brown and as silky as the clothes he wore. His eyes shifted between grey-blue and grey-green as he studied himself, tilting his head this way and that. Standing straight in the fine new clothes, he could have passed for some noble's bastard down from the north.

Idisio hovered between shock and revelation: nobility weren't born looking one way and street-scum born another. They were all the same. Put a noble's son in rags and run him through the sand and dust of the back streets for a day, and he'd look like Idisio had that morning. Noble blood attracted girls. The way he looked now, maybe they wouldn't laugh at him any more.

It took him a while more to calm himself after that thought.

Finally, fairly sure he wouldn't embarrass himself, he took a guess at the door he thought opened to the hall and looked out. The eunuch sat on a wide stool just outside, and a guard stood to the other side of the door. They both glanced at him as he stepped out.

“Much better,” the eunuch said, favoring Idisio with a faint smile.

The guard grunted, returned his attention to front, and said nothing.

“Sorry I took so long, s'ii ,” Idisio said.

The eunuch's smile widened just a bit. “I understand,” he said, standing. “Back in the room, boy. I've been asked to teach you some manners so you don't disgrace your lord at dinner tonight.”

“At. . . .” Idisio stared, suddenly horror-struck at the implication. Needing manners, not disgracing his lord, meant he'd be at a formal dinner, a noble's dinner, more than likely with the king attending. The notion scared him silly. “At dinner? ”

The guard made another small noise, his mouth twitching slightly in what might have been amusement or scorn.

“It would be rude beyond measure, as your lord is staying at the palace, not to join the king at table,” the eunuch said calmly. “You have a bit over two hours left before the call. I expect I'll only need one.”
     
     
    “Nobody knows you as a street-rat,” had been the eunuch's first piece of advice. “Don't act like one; nobody will peg you as one. Stand straight—that's it, like that—and say as little as you can. Better for people to think you slow or mute than to hear that gutter accent of yours.”
    Idisio stood silent at his lord's side for what seemed like hours in the before-dinner gathering, watching the nobility and their servants flow by like an unruly river. Scratha stayed still, not quite in a corner but with his back inches from a wall, and watched the proceedings with an expressionless face. He