The Book of Kings by Cynthia Voigt

Author:Cynthia Voigt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

Balcor

Slowly, slowly, the next two days passed. The first morning, it rained, a cleansing spring rain, but that night, as Max stood in the kitchen doorway, the moon shone bright onto the dark tower. The second afternoon, a sun-warmed breeze blew through the valley, smelling of moist earth and new grass. There was no word of Balcor. There was no word from the King.

Grammie marketed and cooked and supervised Devera and Suela in the work of keeping the house clean and the clothes laundered, the wood chopped and stacked beside stove and fireplaces. And she fretted.

Joachim wandered the hills to sketch plants and flowers, the terraced slopes, the herds of alpaca, the steep, enclosing mountains. He saw not a living soul, except for that first woman and her small family when he made a return visit to the little homestead. He was pleased to leave the guesthouse in the morning, to spend a day sketching whatever caught his eye, and to return in the evening to a good meal and good company.

Tomi and Colly, when they weren’t needed for one chore (peeling potatoes, stirring corn pudding) or another (taking notes as Mr. Bendiff paced his room, back and forth, having ideas), liked to disappear into the city streets. The book-Spanish they had studied did enable them to understand much of what people said, and since it was assumed that they, not only strangers but also young, would not understand, people spoke freely in front of them. Often people spoke of things the visitors were not supposed to hear about.

Ari and Mr. Bendiff were kept busy meeting one Carrera y Carrera or another, talks that decided nothing and revealed nothing but took hour after tedious hour. Max sat beside Ari, listening and taking notes. And fretting.

Every midday, rain or shine, they were required to be at the parade ground to watch the soldiers drill. Joachim, off in the hills with his sketch pad, avoided the duty, but Juan Carlos had made it clear that the rest of them had no choice. Everyone in Apapa was expected to attend, the only exceptions being those few soldiers left to guard the palace, those protecting the mercado, and the one detail charged with rounding up anybody in the streets and in the houses who tried to stay away. During the midday hour, the city emptied onto the parade ground, from the youngest and least important child up to and including the three Carrera y Carrera families and their array of serving women.

When the bells rang out from the palace tower to announce the noon hour, the visitors left the guesthouse, in two groups. Grammie and the boys went first; Max, Ari, and Mr. Bendiff a little later, as befitted their higher status. A raised platform had been erected on one side of the parade ground, with benches on it to seat the Carrera y Carreras and the three important visitors, but everybody else stood, spread out along the perimeter, to admire and applaud, to be the audience.

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.