The Pig Comes to Dinner Read Online Free PDF

without this chance to dismiss from my mind all rumors of a curse yet to be fulfilled. This is your gift to me, and I thank you again, and again.”
    â€œYou lie, Kitty McCloud.”
    â€œOh? And wasn’t I just a few moments past the noble truth teller?”
    â€œYou are. Except when you lie.”
    â€œNow there’s logic for you!”
    â€œYou’re a prophet. Your books are the proof.”
    â€œI’m a coarse and pushy money monger who sells longdead writers for coin. And you know it as well as everyone else, including myself.”
    â€œLook me in the left eye and say that again.”
    Before Kitty could oblige, she realized she’d been watching a young man at the far end of the hall. Sweetly handsome he was, but sad and sorrowful as well. He seemed to be searching for someone he might never find and was already mourning the loss. The more Kitty watched him, the more annoyed she became, almost as annoyed with him as she was with Maude. His skin was tan, a more pallid shade than his clothing, but not so much a tan bestowed by the sun but rather a pallor no sun had seen. He was obviously one of the squatters come to mock her at her wedding feast. He’d costumed himself like a peasant—even his feet were bare—a servant of such low estate that by an old custom he could allow himself but one color for his clothing. If she, Kitty, were to presume to be Lady of the Manor, he would come as corrective to her pretensions, posing as a menial familiar with the tyrannies of the Lords Shaftoe themselves.
    Yet the more Kitty observed him, with his gaze moving slowly from one side of the hall to the other, all sorrowful, the more her annoyance gave way first to mild interest, then to increased absorption.
    Maude, aware that Kitty had experienced another shift in concentration, followed Kitty’s gaze. Kitty herself had dismissed the smile she’d chosen for her interview with the Hag and, without so much as a nod in Maude’s direction, said, “That young man all done up in brown, who is he?”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œThere, the wall straight across and a little to the right. Dressed himself up like a peasant.”
    â€œI don’t see him.”
    â€œWearing all brown. Jacket, tunic, pants to just below the knee. Bare feet even.”
    â€œI still can’t find him.”
    â€œNever mind. Just curious. One of the squatters come to make fun of me.”
    â€œKnowing you, it’s something I’d not advise. But I still can’t find him.”
    â€œWhat he needs most is a full plate of food, and a bit of color in his cheeks. And a pair of shoes for his muddy feet. And a pretty girl to cheer him, all sad the way he is. And next time he puts on his costume he should give up the homespun, the way his jacket has rubbed his neck all raw. Serves him right, making a spectacle and a joke the way he is.”
    Slowly Maude turned back to Kitty and straightened her spine, a sure sign that she was about to deliver some further pronouncement. But before the Seer could have her say, Kitty let out a quick laugh. “No. Wait. It’s all right. He’s found the girl he was looking for. And she dressed the same as he. No, not the same. But all done up in something quaint, including a great brown cloak and the hood pulled away and her long hair flowing down on her shoulders. A match for him all right. But look: she’s just as sad as he. Now there’s a pair! And the cloak has had its revenge, all rough wool scratching her neck, too, right down to the blood practically. Small pleasure are they having by the looks of them. She could take in a bit of beef the same as he and show herself more to the sun. Look at them. She taking his hand, he touching her cheek, as wan as any I’ve ever seen. Now the two of them looking this way, right at me. To see if I appreciate the joke.”
    Kitty smiled and gave her head an exaggerated nod up and down.