They were attempting to look nonchalant but he sensed that they were more interested in him and his brother than they would have cared to admit. He smiled easily and waved at them. They did not wave back. He laughed, honestly not caring, and noticed that Lady Malene was watching him from the corner of her eye. A young elf girl in the tunic of a retainer approached. The girl looked at Tyrion as if seeing a god.
‘Yes, indeed,’ Malene said. ‘You will get on very well here.’
The girl whispered something to her. She looked suddenly a lot more serious. ‘Your grandfather will see you now,’ she said. ‘You would do well to watch your manners around him. He is not as tolerant as I am.’
‘Welcome to my home,’ said Lord Emeraldsea. He did not look very welcoming, Tyrion thought. He looked as if he were inspecting a couple of very dubious cargoes he was considering investing in.
‘Thank you for having us here,’ said Tyrion, with all the politeness he could manage. Teclis murmured something inaudible.
Lord Emeraldsea sat at a huge desk piled high with documents awaiting his inspection and signature. His study was on the topmost floor of the house. Out of his window, he had a fine view of the harbour below. His balcony held a bronze telescope on a metal tripod. Tyrion guessed he took a proprietorial interest in the ships arriving in the harbour.
Lord Emeraldsea was tall and thin and quite the oldest elf that Tyrion could ever remember seeing. Blue veins were visible in the ancient hands that toyed with a small set of scales. His hair was the colour of spun silver, his eyes cold and grey as the northern sea before a storm.
It took Tyrion a moment to accept the fact that this was his grandfather. In the elf’s manner there was no real suggestion of any familial relationship. There was distance, the implication of hostility, perhaps a suggestion of contempt or dislike.
Lord Emeraldsea rose from his hard wooden chair, walked round the desk and stood before them. He walked with a very straight back and the same air of command Tyrion had noticed in Captain Joyelle. There was something in Lord Emeraldsea’s manner suggestive of the sea. He was very tall, taller even than Tyrion. For the first time in a very long time, Tyrion experienced the sensation of being looked down upon. Cold eyes measured him, calculated his worth and placed it on the scales at the back of his grandfather’s mind.
‘You do look like him,’ he said, and Tyrion had no doubt as to who he was. ‘You look a little like my poor daughter too. I am pleased to see that you have grown up into such a fine figure of an elf.’
He strode over to Teclis and loomed over him. ‘I wish I could say the same for you.’
‘Why don’t you try, out of politeness,’ said Teclis with poisonous sweetness.
Lord Emeraldsea looked taken aback. Tyrion could tell he was not used to being mocked. His smile was wintery and not without humour. Like many people before him he was being forced to reassess his opinion of the sickly young elf standing before him. The two of them locked gazes and the air fairly crackled between them. Here were two elves of very different ages and enormously strong wills.
‘You look like my daughter,’ Lord Emeraldsea said. ‘And like your father. But you seem somewhat... firmer of character.’
Tyrion wondered what his grandfather meant by that. In any case, Lord Emeraldsea did not seem displeased to discover that Teclis was not some sort of feeble half-wit. ‘I like that, lad, but don’t push my goodwill too far.’
‘I am a prince,’ said Teclis.
Lord Emeraldsea’s stare was cold, a captain looking at a disrespectful cabin boy. ‘That remains to be determined. We will know soon enough if you are blessed or cursed by the Blood of Aenarion.’
There was a strong emotion in his voice when he said that that Tyrion did not recognise at all. He followed the old elf’s gaze to the wall behind him and saw that he was looking at a portrait of their mother. He looked back at Lord Emeraldsea’s lined face and he knew then the emotion was grief. Lord Emeraldsea caught Tyrion’s glance and for a moment there was flicker of genuine emotion between them.
‘It’s an ill thing for a parent to outlive a child,’ Lord Emeraldsea said. Tyrion could see that took Teclis