CHAPTER 14I was lying in a clean bed in a sunny room, propped up on pillows. It was a little like another room I had awakened in not so long before, but there was one important difference. Barbro sat beside my bed, knitting a ski stocking from red wool. Her hair was piled high on her head, and the sun shone through it, coppery red. Her eyes were hazel, and her features were perfect, and I liked lying there looking at her. She had come every day since my return to the Imperium, and read to me, talked to me, fed me soup and fluffed my pillows. I was enjoying my convalescence.
“If you are good, Brion,” Barbro said, “and eat all of your soup today, perhaps by tomorrow evening you will be strong enough to accept the king’s invitation.”
“OK,” I said. “It’s a deal.”
“The Emperor Ball,” Barbro
