Chapter six
The Black and Whites make a promiseThe separate wing of the imperial palace in Vondium given over to the private apartments of the Prince and Princess, Majister and Majestrix, have been decorated with Delia’s faultless taste, and yet, as she would exclaim, flinging up her hands in mock despair, you could never get any life into the place. Still, this austere, frowning pile with all its fantastic traceries of balconies and colonnades, of spire and tower, of concealed grottoes and secret gardens, was where, for the moment, we were living. The villas belonging to the various estates in Vallia kept up in Vondium — those of Delphond and the Blue Mountains, and of Valka, Zamra and Veliadrin — were preferred by us. So I took a bath — a quick, scalding hot bath and not the Baths of th
