The Legend of El Shashi Read Online Free PDF Page B

enjoying a picnic lunch beneath the pungent wattle trees whilst I attended their pet.
    “Honoria Telmak,” said I, paying homage the traditional way. This involved holding a fluid and deep bow, with the left hand clasping the parakeet behind my back and the right burshingling just above her turquoise, sequined slippers, which were back-stitched in the Zeasi style, fifteen ukals a pair or I was no trader. “I’m indescribably honoured by your–”
    “Huh!” she sniffed. “Empty pleasantries, Arlak Sorlakson!”
    I held the bow stiffly, waiting her approval before rising. My fingers were growing tired with all that stupid wriggling burshingling demanded, and I could hear the family behind me–all girls, mark my words–whispering and giggling together. The Honoria’s glare burned a hole to eternity in the nape of my neck, while a thumping hangover, carefully cultivated over three days of most enjoyable carousing at Yuthalia, Elaki Fountain’s premier pleasure house, did my cause little aid.
    Her right slipper tapped away fiercely. But why this barely-concealed rage–unless it concerned my last altercation at Telmak Lodge? In which case she should instead be gloating at how Rubiny had dealt with me!
    “R ise!”
    I raised my aching skull to a precise degree, and extended my hand. “Master Telmak.”
    “Never mind that!” snapped the Honoria, slapping her husband’s hand down. “What have you done to my daughter, you wastrel whelp of a sow?”
    A wordless squeak passed my throat.
    She spat, “What. Have. You. Done? Speak!”
    “Done, me? Nothing, of course, nothing –”
    “Nothing? Is that all you have to say? Nothing?”
    “B-But … I have not laid a finger upon the daughter of the House–”
    “If you had dared lay a finger upon her person, I’d have it chopped off in a trice!” The Honoria Telmak shook her head so violently that a bejewelled hairclip flew past my nose to lance into the soft sward. “What did you say to her Rushday last, you … you stinking sodbuster? I checked the records. You were there that very day, you cannot deny it! Why, she came to me in tears! My own daughter, in tears over a useless, philandering male!”
    “Rubiny was –”
    “Silence, husband!” she roared. “If I wanted an opinion I would ask those good women, who this rake is doubtless terrorising with his lecherous, stinking panting as he plots how best to despoil them all –why, even down to this little one, who in Mata’s precious name must be barely five anna if she’s a day!”
    Her insults were leaves snatched away by a rushing stream. I reeled at the notion that Rubiny had been crying over me! She didn’t care a whit … did she? My feet itched to dance a rowdy jig! But I was forced to straighten my lips, especially when the little girl piped up:
    “Mummy, I’m nearly seven, aren’t I? Why’s the rich lady so cross? What’s a rake?”
    “What are you grinning at?” the Honoria demanded, her chin a-quiver in wrath. My lips compressed themselves instantly into a thin white line. “When I learn what you did to my daughter, Arlak Sorlakson, you’d better wish all of Ulim’s demonic Hunt were loose on your trail! I’ll ruin you and your miserable little enterprise, mark me! Fancy, the gall, upsetting my Rubiny! Now, what have you to say for yourself?”
    How could I respond? I tried from my height not to appear as though I towered above her; I schooled my eyes from straying to the provocative cut of her gown–for she was Rubiny’s mother, after all, and the daughter had clearly inherited her mother’s charms–and deliberately imagined tumbling her in a hay barn. Inappropriate? Shallow? Ay to both marks. But this silent rebellion was proof against my humiliation, an act of revenge confined to my thoughts alone.
    “Huh! I thought as much!”
    “I swear, I’ve done nothing to–”
    “Nothing again? Be silent! I’ll be the judge of your nothings!”
    Judge and executioner both, thought