"03 - The Northern Girl [v4.0]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

She went into the house. It took a moment for her eyes to grow used to the darkness. The long, cool hall smelled of lilies. A lacquered vase of them stood on a little table beneath the statue of the Guardian. This statue was new; it had been made by the sculptor Ramath, the same sculptor who had directed the making of the big image in the Tanjo. Sorren bowed toward the image. Stone lips smiled at her. Stone eyes gleamed.
She wondered what had happened to the old statue. Surely, she thought, you could not break it, as you might break an old unwanted pot. That would be disrespectful to the _chea_. She listened for the sound of Arre's voice from the workroom. This morning Arre had planned to meet with her surveyors, to discuss their blueprints for enlarging some streets. But she heard nothing. She peered into the large parlor. Elith was there, dusting, mumbling to herself as she passed the cloth over the wall screens.
Elith was old, fat as a feather mattress, and deaf, but she had been Arre Med's mother's personal maid, and Arre kept her on. Sorren raised her voice. "Elith! Do you know where _she_ is?"
The old woman turned slowly. "Kitchen."
Sorren went to the kitchen. All the windows and doors were open, with nets across them to keep out flies, but the big room was hot, hotter than the market. Arre was there, talking to the cook. She turned as Sorren entered. "Well? What did the fishmonger say?"
Sweat jumped on Sorren's upper lip; she rubbed it. "The fishmonger said that he could not get you perch, but he could get flounder."
"Flounder will do."
"That's what I told him."
"How do you want it fixed?" said the cook.
"I don't care. Not too spicy, that's all. Marti can't eat spiced meat."
Marti Hok was one of the Councillors. The flounder was for the Council meeting. The cook nodded and started calling to the apprentices. Sorren recalled her own time in the kitchen. She had hated it. Once she fainted, to everyone's disgust. The other scullions teased her for weeks for being afraid of blood, but it had not been the blood that had made her faint, but the heat. It was worse than the heat in the grapefields. Maybe it had been the heat and the smells combined. She was sensitive to smells, and there were always too many of them in the kitchen.... No wonder cooks threw things.
Arre was wearing white. It made her skin look darker than it was. The heat furled her hair into small curls. Her hair was almost as short as Paxe's, but the texture was different, and her curls were striped with gray. She jerked her head at Sorren. "Come," she said, and marched out of the tiled kitchen. In the cooler corridor they both leaned on the wall.
Arre said, "I think it gets hotter every summer." She squared her shoulders. Her eyes glinted upward. "I'm glad it's you doing the shopping, and not me."
Sorren grinned at the thought of Arre Med, Councillor of Kendra-on-the-Delta, head of the Med family, buying flounder on the docks.
"What are you smiling at?" said Arre irritably.
"I was thinking how surprised the fishmonger would be."
"Wipe your face," said Arre. She started down the hall. "And don't laugh at me."
She _was_ cranky. Sorren wiped her sleeve across her lip. Arre went into the small parlor. It was her workroom and sitting room. It faced south; by day its walls were bright, sundrenched. Its inner walls, like those of the large parlor, were made of screens. The outside wooden wall was hung with a woolen tapestry, all reds and blues. The dyes for the wool came from the Asech country; no other dyes made such brilliant and durable colors. The floor was wooden and unmatted. Sunlight fell in bright streaks across it. The lines of the grain gleamed. Arre sat in her cushioned chair. Sorren stood by the door. The older woman glanced at her. "Sit down," she said, pointing to the footstool. "I need to talk." Obediently Sorren sat. A lacquer table stood at the right side of the chair, its red and black surface shining in the sun. Against the wall, a glass-faced case held a rack of scrolls: the Med accounts. Once a month, a scribe came from the Black Clan -- not a Scholar, they did not do such mundane work -- and went over them for error, under Arre's watchful eyes. Arre had no steward; it seemed unnecessary in a household which consisted of herself and her servants. She did the bookkeeping.
"Did you see Isak?" she asked.
Sorren nodded. "We met at the gate." Arre's face was taut, as it always was when she talked about her brother. Silver bracelets, two on each arm, clinked as she folded her hands in her lap. The largest bracelet had a blue jewel in it. "What did he want?"
Arre grimaced. "Whatever he can get."
"But it's harvest. He should be at the fields."
"Nonsense. Myra manages the vineyards better than he ever could, or cares to." Myra was Isak's wife. "He asked to dance for the Councillors."
"Did you say yes?"
Arre's hands flew apart. They were big on her small frame, ungraceful, not pretty hands. Isak had pretty hands. "He's the finest dancer in the city -- how could I refuse?"
Even Arre admitted that Isak could dance. It was his gift, his art, as administration was hers, and perhaps his passion, or one of them. He had been trained to it by Meredith of Shanan, who had been trained by Berenth of Shanan, who learned it from his mother Jenezia of Shanan, and she, every city child knew, had danced with Kel of Elath. It was his right to wear the _shariza_, the red scarf of the _cheari_, but, with greater delicacy than he usually showed, he chose not to. Sorren had asked him about it once. "The old chearis were trained in arms and in the warrior arts," he said. "I am not."
"Why not?" she asked.
"War is uncivilized; you know that," he had answered. "It's a crudity better left to soldiers. Besides, the wearing of blades is forbidden in Kendra-on-the-Delta."
But he danced the role of the warrior well enough. Sorren pattered her hands on her knees. "Does he want me to play for him?"
"Yes."
"We haven't had time to practice."
"It won't matter. Do something you both know. Anything."
Sorren had drummed for Isak for four years, the first year only at small parties, but the next year at the Festivals: Harvest Feast, Spring Feast, the Feast of the Founding of the City. "I guess...."
"It won't matter. He won't care what he does, as long as he can get near the meeting."
Isak's political ambitions and Arre's contempt for them were no secret in her household. But, Sorren thought, that isn't fair. Isak does care about his dancing. She had watched him practice for hours, while sweat poured from him and his lungs heaved for breath, till anyone with less discipline would have stopped, rested, poured water on his head, something. His muscles were like Paxe's, smooth and stretched, and he moved with the same kind of economy, but with more grace.
"What are you thinking about?" Arre demanded.
Sorren blushed. She did not want to say, of Paxe; it seemed crass. "Being graceful," she said.
Arre Med laughed. "Never mind it," she said. She was a small woman, built like Isak. Though the stool Sorren sat on was lower than Arre's chair, when Sorren straightened their eyes met on the level. "You don't need to be graceful. People notice you anyway."
Sorren said, "That's because I'm tall, and pale." She frowned at her light skin. In the hottest sun, it refused to brown; instead, it turned an ugly and uncomfortable red. She touched her hair, which was long, and the color of wheat. "I would rather be dark, like Paxe."
"Dark is the fashion now," said Arre. "But never regret your height. We small folk find other ways to make people notice us. Like Isak."
People always noticed Isak. If they didn't, he made them. He could turn heads in a crowd faster than anyone. But people noticed Arre, too.
"Will you need something new to wear?" Arre said.
"What?"
"When you play for Isak, at the Council meeting." Arre tapped the chair arm. "Pay attention, child."
"I'm sorry," Sorren said. Reminded, she slipped the money bracelet from her arm and held it out. Arre took it, her fingers automatically counting the remaining shell pieces. "No, I have enough clothes."
"If you want something, just ask." Arre grinned like an urchin in a street fight. "Isak will pay for it."
A light tapping on the screen made her look around. Lalith stood in the doorway. She was thirteen, lithe and little and brown-skinned. Arre had picked her from the vineyards in the same way she had picked Sorren, and brought her to live and work in the house. "The cook sent me to bring you this," she said. She held out a bowl.
"Well," Arre said, "bring it here! What is it?" Lalith gave it to her. It was a dish of berries with sweet cream poured over them. Arre had a notorious sweet tooth. "Thank you, child."
"And this came." Lalith extended a letter. The wax seal had a crest on it.
Arre ripped it open. She scanned the writing and her dark eyes frowned. "When did this come?" she said.