Read Online The Embers of Heaven by Alma Alexander - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alma Alexander
Tags: Historical, Fantasy
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how do I know we can trust him?” Vien said, thankfully in the same language. Amais had not been at all sure that she would take the hint. “I mean, he could be anybody, taking us anywhere… I don’t know this city…”
“We have to stay somewhere,” Amais repeated.
“Do you think we should take the chance?”
Aylun whimpered again, a little more loudly. Vien bent her head over her toddler to hush her, and Amais bit her lip.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said.
She did not tell her mother, not ever, that she had heard the man give instructions to the lead pedicab that would convey them all to the inn at which they were to stay—and then, a few minutes into the ride, having watched the three lost returning souls staring around them with round eyes and open mouths since he had loaded them and their luggage into the pedicabs, change his instructions. At the very least she had thought she understood, “No. Not the other place. Go to…” and what followed was incomprehensible, perhaps an address. Either way, it would have been imperceptible if she hadn’t been paying attention. But the pedicabs suddenly turned away from the warren of steadily narrowing dirt streets into which they had been heading and emerged onto a busier thoroughfare, a still narrow but cobbled road in decent repair, choked with pedestrians, pedicabs, bicycles, horses, donkey-pulled carts, the occasional antiquated rickety-looking sedan chair that looked more affectation than a comfortable or even convenient form of transportation, sherbet and sweetmeat vendors and children who appeared to be selling or giving out printed sheets of paper and who were darting in and out of the traffic in a manner that made Amais clutch the edges of her seat in fear for their lives. A couple of times she thought she saw a woman dressed in the silks she had originally envisaged, but the women in question were not out in the street, exactly, but hovered in certain doorways, or were in the process of sashaying up narrow stairs that led into mysterious shadows of upstairs parlors.
A sharp bark by the leading pedicab operator brought them all to a halt outside a shabby hostelry. Vien paid the pedicabs, and then offered a handful of what she had been given in change to the man who had brought them here, and again it was only Amais who really paid attention to the reaction that the money produced—his face washed with ephemeral expressions of surprise, delight, and perhaps a faint tinge of regret. She knew that her mother had offered too much, that the man might have wondered how much more she had on her, if it wouldn’t have been more lucrative to have delivered them to the first place he had had in mind, after all—and not to the one where they now found themselves, shabby and threadbare and with the turquoise paint peeling off the pillars outside the front door but looking quite respectable for all that.
The proprietress, a hatchet-faced woman with a mouth that appeared to have forgotten how to smile if it had ever known it, showed them to a single small room on the third floor of this establishment—but after the cramped cabins on the ships the place looked like a palace to Amais. They would each have a pallet of their own, without the need to climb swaying ladders when ready for bed, with actual room to move between them. The windows were shuttered; the landlady crossed to them and flung the shutters open, letting it light, air, and all the smells of the city.
“There is a tea house around the corner,” she said to Vien, “if you want dinner. Rent is a week in advance.”
Vien dutifully counted out the rent money in gold—the only currency she actually had on her—and the landlady left with a raised eyebrow but without another word. Amais had the uncomfortable feeling that once again her mother had doled out too much. It was hard, with gold—she made a mental note to find out if any of it could be
“We have to stay somewhere,” Amais repeated.
“Do you think we should take the chance?”
Aylun whimpered again, a little more loudly. Vien bent her head over her toddler to hush her, and Amais bit her lip.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said.
She did not tell her mother, not ever, that she had heard the man give instructions to the lead pedicab that would convey them all to the inn at which they were to stay—and then, a few minutes into the ride, having watched the three lost returning souls staring around them with round eyes and open mouths since he had loaded them and their luggage into the pedicabs, change his instructions. At the very least she had thought she understood, “No. Not the other place. Go to…” and what followed was incomprehensible, perhaps an address. Either way, it would have been imperceptible if she hadn’t been paying attention. But the pedicabs suddenly turned away from the warren of steadily narrowing dirt streets into which they had been heading and emerged onto a busier thoroughfare, a still narrow but cobbled road in decent repair, choked with pedestrians, pedicabs, bicycles, horses, donkey-pulled carts, the occasional antiquated rickety-looking sedan chair that looked more affectation than a comfortable or even convenient form of transportation, sherbet and sweetmeat vendors and children who appeared to be selling or giving out printed sheets of paper and who were darting in and out of the traffic in a manner that made Amais clutch the edges of her seat in fear for their lives. A couple of times she thought she saw a woman dressed in the silks she had originally envisaged, but the women in question were not out in the street, exactly, but hovered in certain doorways, or were in the process of sashaying up narrow stairs that led into mysterious shadows of upstairs parlors.
A sharp bark by the leading pedicab operator brought them all to a halt outside a shabby hostelry. Vien paid the pedicabs, and then offered a handful of what she had been given in change to the man who had brought them here, and again it was only Amais who really paid attention to the reaction that the money produced—his face washed with ephemeral expressions of surprise, delight, and perhaps a faint tinge of regret. She knew that her mother had offered too much, that the man might have wondered how much more she had on her, if it wouldn’t have been more lucrative to have delivered them to the first place he had had in mind, after all—and not to the one where they now found themselves, shabby and threadbare and with the turquoise paint peeling off the pillars outside the front door but looking quite respectable for all that.
The proprietress, a hatchet-faced woman with a mouth that appeared to have forgotten how to smile if it had ever known it, showed them to a single small room on the third floor of this establishment—but after the cramped cabins on the ships the place looked like a palace to Amais. They would each have a pallet of their own, without the need to climb swaying ladders when ready for bed, with actual room to move between them. The windows were shuttered; the landlady crossed to them and flung the shutters open, letting it light, air, and all the smells of the city.
“There is a tea house around the corner,” she said to Vien, “if you want dinner. Rent is a week in advance.”
Vien dutifully counted out the rent money in gold—the only currency she actually had on her—and the landlady left with a raised eyebrow but without another word. Amais had the uncomfortable feeling that once again her mother had doled out too much. It was hard, with gold—she made a mental note to find out if any of it could be
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