***
Francesca undressed wearily, merely draping her dress over the back of a chair instead of hanging it up. She was about to slip into bed when Ran-Del spoke.
“Don’t forget the pebble for tonight.”
“Oh, you’re right.” She moved to her dressing table to find the small leather bag Ji-Ran Jahanpur had given her.
“How many are left?” Ran-Del asked.
Francesca glanced at the priceless antique Terran bowl on the dresser and saw eight pebbles. “Twenty-two—twenty-one in just a second.”
Ran-Del looked solemn as he sat up in bed watching her. “You’ll have to make up your mind soon.”
She had already made up her mind, but she didn’t tell him that. Besides, it would be a little easier to pin up her hair if she waited. She shook a pebble into her hand, held it over the bowl for a second, then let it drop. It clanged as it hit the other pebbles.
Francesca jiggled the bag gently. Twenty-one pebbles for twenty-one days. She intended to enjoy every pebble.
The Sixth Discipline Page 54
