"Will you dance with me?" she asked. Her voice was like liquid gossamer.
Herndon lowered himself in a courtly bow. "I would consider it the greatest of honors, good Lady."
They danced. She was easy to hold; he sensed her warmness near him, and he saw something in her eyes—a distant pinched look of pain, perhaps—that told him all was not well between Lord and Lady.
She said, "I don't recognize you. What's your name?"
"Barr Herndon, milady. Of Zonnigog."
"Zonnigog, indeed! And why have you crossed ten thousand miles of ocean to our city?"
Herndon smiled and gracefully dipped her through a whirling series of pirouettes. "To seek fame and fortune, milady. Zonnigog is well and good to live in, but the place to become known is the City of Borlaam. For this reason I petitioned the Heitman Oversk to have me added to the retinue of the Lord Moaris."
"You know Oversk, then? Well?"
"Not at all well. I served him a while; then I asked to move on."
"And so you go, climbing up and over your former masters, until you scramble up the shoulders of the Lord Moaris to the feet of the Seigneur. Is that the plan?"