The sword and the flame (dk-3) by Stephen R Lawhead

Author:Stephen R Lawhead [Lawhead, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy

THIRTY

THE MEAL had been simple, wholesome fare: brown bread and white cheese, braised meat, early vegetables and fruit. Esme, enraptured with Dekra, thought each dish a delicacy, and savored every bite.

She spoke little during the meal, but listened to all that was said around her. There was a quality to the voices she heard-a song which rang in the air, faintly but noticeably; it was music to charm her soul. Upon reaching their rooms in the visitor’s quarters of the Governor’s Palace, they had bathed in fresh, sun-warmed water and changed clothes, accepting clean new gowns of white with light summer mantles of blue, tied at the waist with long blue sashes. They had rested then on clean featherbeds, awaking refreshed when their young guides came for them.

When they reached Elder Jollen’s dwelling, the stars were beginning to light the twilight sky, and the sound of laughter and music drifted out of the courtyard adjoining his home. Many of Dekra’s people had been invited to make welcome the important visitors. There were candle lanterns all around-lining the tops of the walls and hanging from the trees. A long table had been brought outside where they could sit; others made themselves comfortable on cushions or benches along the wall. After they had eaten, songs were sung and the Elders told stories to the amusement of all.

The evening passed like a dream, a dream of happiness and light, of fullness and peace. Flowing peace, thought Esme, like a river. Not merely the absence of care, but a deeper all-absorbing trust in the ultimate rightness of things. Like a river that runs along its course, be it rocky or smooth, accepting both with equal ease, never allowing the rocks to stanch the flow, filling the deeps and shallow places alike, covering all and flowing on.

All this Esme received from looking and listening: looking at those around her and listening to her heart.

When at last they were alone with the Elders-the little Princesses were carried back to their beds sound asleep-Bria began to tell them why they had come. Esme waited to see how the Elders would receive this news, and what they would do about it.

They were unusual men, these elders, she thought as she watched them nodding their heads gravely; their very presence invoked an aura of wisdom and trust. Only moments before they had been telling funny stories and laughing the loudest of any. They sat or moved among their people without regard for their exalted position-indeed, more like servants than leaders. But now they sat in solemn council, entering into the troubled events that Bria described with empathy and compassion. Not as judges, but as sympathetic friends, they listened with all attention, sometimes nodding, sometimes shaking their heads sadly, but listening until the Queen was finished.

“… And that is why we have come to you,” Bria was saying. “We did not know what else to do.”

Elder Orfrey, the man chosen to replace Yeseph, spoke gently in answer. “You have done well to come here.

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