Hearts in Cups Read Online Free Page B

Great Houses,
tracing its ancestry back to the twilight years, before the half-legendary King
Gryffyd had sailed with his four children up the river Silvarluin and
established the Pentarchy. He had ruled as High King from the central, Royal
Duchy of Sandovar, while each of his children established their own Great
Houses in adjacent dukedoms. Gryffyd had married, for the second time, and the
children of that marriage had become the power-wielders of House Sandovar. Each
of the power-wielders of the Great Houses and the subsequently established
Minor Houses were trained as arcane adepts but the direct heirs of the five
Great Houses were also wielders of the elemental powers ascribed to their
Houses. When Gryffyd had drawn up the Pentacle Charter he had charged the Great
Houses not to intermarry, both to prevent strife and to ensure that their
intrinsic powers would not be lost or reduced. In time, the people of Gryffyd
had intermingled and merged with the indigenous population until few remembered
that there was anything before the establishment of the Pentarchy. Langstraad
was the only duchy that still recalled its antecedents and retained vestiges of
its own past. Matrilineal descent was part of that past.
    There was a brief rap
on the door and Celia, one of her ladies-in-waiting, came in. "Your
cousin, Lord Ian, has arrived and is in your sitting room, your grace. Shall I
fix your hair for you or call Inara to do it?'
    "Just braid it
please; this is not a public occasion." Hollin and Celia exchanged smiles.
Hollin disliked being fussed over, especially when it came to her appearance,
and while she submitted gracefully to Lady Inara's meticulous attentions for
formal events, she preferred Lady Celia's ministrations for informal
situations. Celia deftly caught up her mistress' hair and entwined it into a
single braid. Hollin rose and smoothed the creases from her gown. As she did so
she realized that she still had the ring clutched in her hand.
    "Please go and see
to our dinner, Celia, and pour Lord Ian some wine on your way out. I'll be with
him shortly." After the girl had left, Hollin again held the ring aloft
and then slipped it onto her finger. There was a momentary sensation of warmth
followed by a tingling in her arm which subsided gradually. With a start Hollin
understood that this ring was more than mere stone and metal. The thought was
not alarming but it was unexpected. Then, with a slight shake of her head, she
went to meet her cousin.
     
    Ian's slight, elegantly
dressed figure automatically turned towards her when Hollin came into the room.
Bowing, he lifted her outstretched hands to his lips and then, with a comical
twist to his mouth, he drew the hand with the ruby ring closer and observed it
with undisguised interest. Celia made a soft sound in her throat as she came
forward to give her mistress a glass of wine, and Ian casually let go her hand.
    The meal was served
with quiet efficiency in the duchess' private dining room, overseen by Lady
Celia. During the meal the cousins discussed Ian's recent travels and the general
state of affairs in their mutual grandfather's barony. It was an old game to
them, making amusing but inconsequential chatter while others were present.
When young they had even tried to devise a code so that they might have private
conversation at formal events, but had given it up when Hollin's mother had
remarked that what they said made less than no sense to anyone overhearing
them, and was thus in itself a cause for suspicion.
    The meal ended and
Hollin dismissed the servants. Celia stayed long enough to draw the curtains
and bring a light shawl for Hollin's shoulders, but at last she left, and they
were finally alone. They returned arm-in-arm to her private sitting room, where
the heat from the fire had intensified the fragrance of a bowl of golden
freesias. They stood in companionable silence watching the logs burning slowly
in the fireplace. Hollin moved to recline on her low couch and