Read Online Delia of Vallia by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online Page A

plague spot at once. This was the only way she could be commanded to leave Mellinsmot.
    But, all the same, she still would bet that Dayra was the cause...
    Many of the women splashing about and gossiping and taking the steam were known to her. Many more were not. You could not expect to know every single girl personally who went through Lancival. And, of course, a goodly number of highly respected sisters of the SoR never went through Lancival at all.
    She exchanged a few words with women if they talked first, giving not the Lahal form of greeting of the outside world, but the SheonFaril — the Sheonli in its usual abbreviated form. Two women near her under the hot air funnels which teased the hair into a glowing sweetness were wrapped up in each other’s news.
    “Taken her off, my dear, without consent.”
    “Did you have to castrate him?”
    “No. I’d have liked to, but it was thought not necessary. The poor girl — well, she was only a Sister of Samphron, but they’re not too bad.”
    “And her parents?”
    “Everyone suffers after the Time of Troubles, although the new emperor has worked wonders. Oh, yes, they were only too happy to make a gift to the SoR. I think the mistress has dedicated that sum to some new curtains for the refectory.”
    “We need some of the targets to be restuffed. The girls seem to knock them to pieces wonderfully quickly these days.”
    “I know! It is these new bows. They are so much more powerful and accurate than our old ones.”
    Delia smiled and let the warm air flow over her head, turning her shoulders to feel the grateful heat spreading down. Soon she was dry and her hair, carefully prepared by one of the superior novices, gleamed with its auburn tints through the Vallian brown. Naturally, she wore no jewels.
    Walking back to Velda’s room she saw Yzobel waiting inside. Yzobel wore a rose-colored gown with a silver belt and dagger. She looked splendid.
    “The mistress is waiting?”
    “Yes, Delia. She says that she thinks you have had enough time to cleanse a regiment of Jikai Vuvushis.”
    “If ever you become the mistress, Yzobel — and you might, you might — I trust you will be as intolerant. It tones up the muscles.”
    Yzobel laughed.
    Delia put on her underthings which were not of sensil, not even of silk, but of a plain smooth cotton. They happened to be scarlet. Had she been intending to wear her pale lemon-colored dress — in the color called laypom of which she was fond — she would have worn appropriately colored undergarments. As it was, when she put on the rose-colored gown, fastening it with bone buttons, what she was wearing underneath would remain a mystery.
    Her sandals were flat of sole and heel, fastened by a mere three latchings of simple leather. Her belt, like Yzobel’s, was fashioned from silver links. Her dagger was the long thin dagger of Vallia. She took no other weapons of steel.
    From a drawer in the chest she took out her two brooches.
    One was the regular circlet of roses of the SoR.
    The other was small and neat, a jeweled representation of a hubless nine-spoked wheel. Delia owned more than one of these brooches. She pinned it to the rose dress firmly.
    She saw Yzobel’s little frown, a dint of her lip as her teeth caught.
    “I know, Yzobel. But the mistress cannot deny my womanhood.”
    “She would be the last to do that!”
    Delia nodded her head, agreeing. “Do you really need new curtains in the refectory? I heard Keshni and Lovosa talking.”
    “So you heard of Lovosa’s latest? She was most wroth they did not let her unman him. He deserved it.”
    “Probably. I was not there.”
    Again Yzobel’s lip dented under her teeth. “Yes, and we do need new curtains. A thousand orphans were discovered wandering in the Lower Mai Hills—”
    “Wandering?”
    “Yes. They fondly imagined they were a war-band ready to fight the invaders. Some of them were barely seven years old.”
    “So they proved expensive.”
    “That is one