Spear of Heaven by Judith Tarr

Author:Judith Tarr [Tarr, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Judith Tarr, fantasy, Avaryan, Epic Fantasy
ISBN: 9781611382846
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2013-08-27T07:00:00+00:00

18

It had not been a pleasant morning. Festival wine was stronger than it looked, and hit harder; and Vanyi, having fallen into bed just as dawn paled the eastward sky, was roused much too soon after sunup to greet a guest.

Esakai of Ushala temple, fresh and bright-eyed as if he had slept the night through, wanted to wish her a bright morning and was disposed to linger. He was curious as always, questioning yet again the preposterous belief the mages shared with Asanion, that there was no war in heaven between the light and dark, between good and evil; that the worlds hung in a balance, and that both light and dark were faces of the same power.

She was never completely averse to debating theology, but in the morning after a night of revelry it was more difficult than usual. She trapped herself, one way and another, into inviting her guest to breakfast. He might have stayed till noon if Daruya had not come to her rescue.

Daruya, trained in a harder school than Vanyi had been, got rid of the man in the most amiable way possible, but with admirable dispatch. He seemed hardly aware of the speed of his dismissal; he was still smiling when Daruya thrust him out the door, and still trying to persuade Vanyi that perhaps balance was not the way of the worlds.

Once he was gone, Vanyi found herself wishing for a less taxing escape. Daruya shut the door and barred it with an air of ominous purpose, dropped into the chair that Esakai had vacated and filled an empty bowl, tasting as she went, with a young thing’s ravenous hunger.

She had come to bed later than Vanyi, if in fact she had slept at all. Her hair was out of its many plaits, new-washed and curling more exuberantly than ever; she was back to the plain trousers and the worn coat that she wore among the seneldi, her only ornament the torque of Avaryan’s priesthood. She looked stunningly beautiful, and completely unaware of it.

She filled a cup with tea, grimaced but drank it. “This has to be the most vile excuse for a tipple that man ever thought of,” she said. “I even find myself missing Nine Cities ale.”

“You aren’t, either,” Vanyi said. “That stuff is undrinkable by human creature. This is rather pleasant once you get used to it. It’s subtle.”

“I’m not.” Daruya spread a round of bread with herbed cheese, folded it over, devoured it in three bites. “You were wrong after all.”

“What?” Vanyi asked. “About tea?”

Daruya’s glance was disgusted. “Of course not. About that man.”

Vanyi opened her mouth to play the idiot again, and to ask if the child meant Esakai; but that would press her temper too far. “What did he do, try to bed you?”

“No!” Daruya snatched up a fruit, hacked it open, scooped a handful of blood-red seeds. She ate them one by one, frowning. “No, he didn’t. We danced, that was all. And I had to carry him home and help his servants put him to bed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.