On Saturdays, you can check out a snippet from my latest writing efforts. All snippets are copyrighted. These excerpts from my writing are first draft, unedited words, and may not appear in the final work.
This is the first snippet where I mention King Tolemius, to whom Del is betrothed. Here’s a peek at what he finds in her room when he’s looking for her:
Tolemius glanced around the chamber, feeling an unwelcome chill before realizing the reasons for it. He had visited noblewomen’s chambers before (and not just his mother’s), and each chamber bore the stamp of its occupant, whether filled with perfumes and lace draperies or yellowing scrolls and exotic silk wall hangings. His mother always had a large embroidery frame holding her latest work beside the window, and Tolemius’s last paramour had a large looking glass over the table where she kept all her beauty spikenards. The memory of the cloying scent that had always permeated her chamber reminded him that he was well-quitted of that particular mistress. Whatever Tolemius had expected to find in a noblewoman’s chambers, however, he did not see it here. Like the rest of the palace, the white marble floors and walls gleamed in the soft light filtering through the mullioned windows. The resemblance of this chamber to the rest of the palace ended there.
I couldn’t resist using “spikenards” for his old mistress’s scented cosmetics. It’s just a cool-sounding word, and I couldn’t find one I liked better for the beauty creams and ointments on her vanity table. What one item in your room gives others the biggest clues about your personality?