Read Online Storm over Vallia by Alan Burt Akers - Free Book Online Page B

yellow apron. She was not, therefore, a slave. In her meek obedience Silda sensed much of a slave’s mentality.
    “I am parched. I would like to start with a glass of parclear. The fizzy sherbet will clear my throat.”
    “Two,” said Lon, importantly. “And, after?”
    The Fristle fifi said: “There is quidgling pie, roast chicken, any kind of fish you require, ordel pudding—”
    “Ordel pudding for me,” said Silda unthinkingly.
    “Two,” said Lon again.
    “Wine?” Silda twiddled her fingers on the table. “As I said, keep it simple.”
    Lon said, “What would you like?”
    Decisively, Silda said, “Kensha, with herbs.”
    “Two,” said Lon.
    Was that a slight nervous gesture to the wallet-pouch strapped to his belt? Silda fancied she’d have to be highly tactful if it came to push of pike, as Nath na Kochwold would say.
    Kensha wine, a delicate rosé, was best drunk with a sprinkling of herbs into the glass. They gave the wine a lift, a fragrance, and turned it from merely a good cheap wine into what was truly a fine vintage.
    So the evening progressed, eating, drinking and talking. The usual subjects of conversation were dealt with gravely by Lon. He was seething and bubbling inside with delirious pleasure. He’d live on this night’s dinner for the rest of his life in memory, drawing spiritual nourishment when he drank up his cabbage soup and gnawed a heel of cheese or a crust of bread. This girl was superb!
    He told her that Nath the Goader had vanished. He, himself, had been exonerated. All the same, he’d sweated blood for just a little too long...
    When he apologized for his coarseness of expression, Silda laughed out loud, hugely amused. She was enjoying this evening as she’d never imagined she would. The day had been fraught enough, Opaz knew.
    The Silver Lotus was doing moderate business, people entering and leaving, and folk nipping in for a quick one before the illuminations. A brilliant laugh from the opposite corner of the alcove drew Silda’s attention. A woman was in the act of throwing her head back, laughing with open enjoyment at some sally of her partner’s. Her black skin sheened with health, her raven’s-wing hair shone like an ebony waterfall, and her eyes gleamed with a challenging brilliance. Her ankle length gown of eye-catching emerald green suited her superbly, and the silver adornments were in perfect taste.
    On her left shoulder a little furry likl-likl crouched contentedly munching on the scraps of food she passed up, the little pet no doubt proud of his silver-studded green collar. The silver chain attaching him to the woman’s left wrist glinted as she moved.
    Her companion’s teeth shone in his black face as he laughed with her, gallant in decent Vallian buff, with bright bands of color to indicate his loyalties. They made a dazzling couple. Silda warmed to them. She did not know their names, nor was she ever likely to; yet she sensed this unknown woman was relaxing and letting the evening take over, rejoicing in her good fortune, letting life be lived and flow by.
    A noisy party entered, all chaffing the old jokes between themselves, and sat down around a table across from the couple who had so aroused Silda’s admiration. The water dropped in the clepsydra, and a serving girl turned the glass over, and Silda began to think that she must now see about the possibly unpleasant business of ending this enjoyable evening.
    She had ascertained that Lon the Knees really did know nothing about whose hand had loosed the bars of the wild animals’ cages. He genuinely had no idea who might have done that hideous deed. He had not shared whatever macabre fate was reserved for Nath the Goader only because it was proved by subsequent inspection that his bars had not been loosed, that the very size and ferocity of the churmod had splintered them through.
    Lon swallowed and lifted the last of the herb-fragrant Kensha in his glass.
    “Shall I — that is, Lyss — do you wish