They were all
Dry-towners and had an obscure family likeness, and they all wore rich
garments of fur dyed in many colors. One of the men, old and stooped and
withered, was doing something to the brazier. A slim boy of fourteen was
sitting cross-legged on a pile of cushions in the corner. There was
something wrong with his legs.
A girl of ten in a too-short smock that showed long spider-thin legs
above her low leather boots was playing with some sort of shimmery
crystals, spilling them out into patterns and scooping them up again
from the uneven stones of the floor. One of the women was a fat, creased
slattern, whose jewels and dyed furs did not disguise her greasy
slovenliness.
Her hands were unchained, and she was biting into a fruit which dripped
red juice down the rich blue fur of her robe. The old man gave her a
look like murder as I came in, and she straightened slightly but did not
discard the fruit. The whole room had a curious look of austere,
dignified poverty, to which the fat woman was the only discordant note.
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