Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 29

The Velvet Reconnaissance

The room they'd been given was a velvet hush; walls paneled in dark oak, a chandelier like a frozen opera above, and a window that framed the castle's inner courtyard like a stage set for a play that had long since closed. Finn lay on the fainting couch, one arm draped over his eyes, while Susie sat cross legged on the bed, thumbing through a guidebook she didn't intend to read. The silence between them was not fatigue but calibration; a moment to let the journey settle into their limbs before they re-entered the spectacle.

After an hour, maybe two, they rose without speaking and slipped into the corridor like minor characters who'd decided to rewrite their roles. The hallway was lined with portraits; faces that had once mattered, now reduced to pigment and posture. Susie paused before a stern looking woman in lace and antlers. "She looks like she invented etiquette just to break it," she murmured. Finn nodded, already halfway down the hall, drawn by the scent of something roasted and faintly medieval.

They descended a spiral staircase that seemed designed to confuse the modern gait. Each step was slightly uneven, as if the architect had wanted visitors to feel the weight of history in their knees. At the bottom, they emerged into a gallery of