(eng) Kage Baker - The Anvil of The World 03 by The Bird of the River

Author:The Bird of the River [River, The Bird of the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"YOU CAN HAVE THE DRAWERS on that side," Pentra told her, rearranging folded clothing. Eliss stared around at the cabin. It was tiny, but as neatly fitted together as the inside of a sewing box, with a bunk against either wall and a dresser built into the wall opposite the door.

"I don't think I'll need all of them," said Eliss, feeling awkward. "More like only one. I don't have much of anything."

"Ah, but you will have," said Pentra. "When we get back to the coast and everyone gets paid, you'll want to buy yourself a good wardrobe, won't you?"

"I guess I will." Slowly Eliss went through her bag and placed its contents, one by one, on the bed. Her spare tunic, her spare pair of long stockings, the pretty shawl Wolkin had given her, the tangled mass of Falena's clothing that she hadn't been able to bring herself to think about. An old metal comb. A little box containing the oddments she'd saved from childhood: a broken string of beads, a little figure of a man Uncle Ironbolt had carved for her, a seashell, a piece of glass colored an impossible deep blue.

Eliss put the clothes in a drawer and set the comb and the little box on her side of the dresser top, since Pentra had thoughtfully swept her belongings to one side. Eliss looked at them self-consciously. How glamorous Pentra's things were, compared to her own: a pair of cut-crystal perfume vials, a comb and brush set inlaid with silver, a matching jar holding several long hair pins of silver, of jade, of mother-of-pearl. A jewel case upholstered in brocade.

And Pentra was like her things, elegant and poised as she rearranged her side of the cabin. She spoke with just a trace of the accent of the western islands, well-bred and educated. Her clothing was sober and practical, but Eliss had glimpsed some beautiful silks and brocades as Pentra had emptied the other side of the dresser for her.

"This is very kind of you," said Eliss.

"Not at all," Pentra replied, briskly gathering up rolls up paper. "I've felt a bit guilty having the whole place to myself, to tell you the truth." She opened a locker under the bunk and slid them in. "And if I have too much room my belongings tend to rather sprawl outward into every available corner. This is the best solution to both our difficulties."

"I'm glad." Eliss tried the locker under her own bunk. It opened smoothly. She put in Krelan's bag. "Er ... you should know that I'm keeping Krelan's things for him, because he doesn't have any place for them in the galley. So he might come knocking sometimes."

"Krelan." Pentra sounded amused. "The little spitboy. He seems like a nice enough young man."

"He is." Eliss remembered him offering to go after Alder. She wanted to ask Pentra about her Yendri lover, how they'd met and whether she'd had the same troubles Falena had had. Instead, she asked: "How did you become a cartographer?"

"I like certainty.

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