He sat alone beneath the boughs of a willow,which old age seemed to be greatly hinted from the girth of the trunk. He was an unmistakable mirror of both his father and his mother. Waves of thick black hair fell across his brow in Alpheo's unmistakable manner, his slight frame curled inward as he sat cross-legged upon the winter lawn.
Merelao paused at the edge of the grove, watching the boy's back.
The northern sky was a flat, pale slate, and the emerald grass lay danceless in the dead air. A profound, unnatural tranquility hung over the private sanctuary, untouched by the clamor of the lower citadel.
So the monkey nests where his sire said he would,he thought.
