Wizard and a Warlord by Christopher Stasheff

Author:Christopher Stasheff [Stasheff, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0312866496
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2000-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

"Oh." The woman frowned, turning thoughtful. "I hadn't thought of that but now that you mention it, I suppose there's some truth in it."

Alea sighed with relief, ready to plough ahead. "Well, telling stories is her work in the world," another woman pointed out. "But it's so obvious a mistake, dearie! Didn't the rest of the villagers warn them and try to talk them out of it?"

"Well ... um ... they thought it was none of their business," Alea answered.

"There's some sense in that," a man allowed with an uneasy glance at another man. "Didn't the priestesses tell the father it was wrong?"

"Aye, and the other priests, too!" said an old man. It struck Gar as an odd but auspicious beginning-and an excellent distraction. As Alea talked, he shifted his weight, taking a step backward-then another and another, until he was at the back of the crowd. There he strolled away with the mildly bored look of one who has heard the tale too oftenstrolled to the collection box, managed to pick the lock and fish out the white scrap.

It was birch bark with a name scrawled on it in the rough, clumsy letters of someone just learning to read, or who had never troubled to practice writing much. Gar was interested to discover that these peasants could at least read and write one another's names. Beneath the name was the word "bully." Gar wondered if it was a title or an accusation. He slipped the bark back into the box, fastened the crude lock, then went back to listen to the end of Alea's story.

He was just in time to hear her say, "So the priest's son and Cinderella fell in love and bonded." The adults frowned at one another, obviously feeling something was wrong, but the children burst into a dozen questions.

"Where did they live, though?"

"Did they have children?"

"How long did they stay bonded?"

"They didn't live in the temple, did they?" Several grim adult faces were nodding, agreeing with the children. Alea guessed at which comment they were nodding and hoped she was right. "Of course the prince called his friends together to build Cinderella her own house," she said.

The grim adult faces cleared as the children cheered.

Alea decided to quit while she was ahead. "So they went into their new house hand in hand-and what they did after that was nobody's business but their own."

The grown-ups laughed and applauded, but the children looked resentful, as though they'd had a sweet taken away.

Gar had to admit that Alea had done a masterful job of adaptation to a local culture.

On the way out of town the next morning, Gar stiffened and muttered, "Watch that man!"

Alea glanced out of the corner of her eye so she wouldn't seem to be staring. She saw a man in his doorway bending to pick up a scrap of something white that lay on his threshold. Straightening, he studied the scrap, then tore it up angrily and strode off toward the fields, his face flaming.

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