Legacy of the Witch. Maggie Shayne
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Название: Legacy of the Witch
Автор: Maggie Shayne
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781472000378
isbn:
He smiled a little. “Even if I did make a fool out of myself at the end.”
“You were intent on your form. You didn’t see that stone.”
“Did it seem…good?” he asked. “My form, I mean.”
I met his eyes, touched that my opinion was of any interest to him. “To me it did. I couldn’t look away.”
He smiled wider and came closer. “I’m Harmon, son of Brock. My father’s one of the most skilled swordsmen in the king’s guard. He’s been training me to join him in the ranks.”
“You’ll be a soldier, too, then?”
“I hope to be, yes.” He looked me up and down. “And you…you’re a servant girl, yes?”
I nodded. “Amarrah. I’ve been a kitchen slave since I can remember, but today was my last day. Tonight I get to move into the harem quarters, to be slave girl to the slave girls.” I smiled when I said it, and he did, too, getting the joke.
“Bet they’ll clean you up some. I’ve never seen a dirty slave in the harem quarters.”
“You’ve been inside?” I asked.
“No. I meant…no.” He moved closer to me, then, bending, dipped his hand into the sacred river. Rising, he wiped my face with his wet fingertips. He did this a few times, then stood back. “You’re going to fit in there,” he said. “I see beauty under all that dirt.”
I felt the blood rush straight to my cheeks. He had returned my compliments with one of his own, though he could not have known how deeply it had touched me.
Then someone called my name. The fat cook, who’d warned me earlier that she had orders to get me cleaned up and dressed appropriately for my move into the harem quarters.
“I have to go.”
“If the old bat beats you again,” he said with a sharp eye on my bruises, “kick her in the shins and run away. You should not have to take that. At least not anymore.”
“If she does, it will be the last time. The ladies of the harem are kind. I’ll be grateful to them forever for taking me away from the kitchens.” The cook called again, and I turned. “I’d better go.”
“I’ll see you again, Amarrah,” he said.
“I don’t know how.” The harem quarters were off-limits to most. “But I hope so. Goodbye, Harmon, son of Brock.”
“Goodbye, Amarrah, slave girl to the slave girls.”
I met his eyes one last time and felt like a bolt of lightning shot from his to mine, jolting my heart into a stronger beat. One so startling that I woke up.
I was alone in my bedroom. My gidaty’s photo, a picture of her in her younger and happier days, stood framed on my nightstand. I looked into her eyes, and she seemed to stare intently back at me.
“All right, Tata. All right, I’ll do it.”
Maybe I had lost my mind. Or maybe not. But I was going ahead with my plan, and nothing would stop me. I had promised my grandmother, after all.
* * *
Akron was a lot bigger than Cortland, but otherwise not so different. The U.S. had a very homogenized quality to it. One place wasn’t a lot different from the next, not like my homeland, where miles might as well have been light-years.
I bought a city map from a gas station as soon as I was close, then stopped at a telephone booth to look up the number for the library. I needed to know who Glenda Montgomery’s fiancé was, and I figured my best bet was to go through the engagement announcements in the local newspapers. The library’s microfiche would have what I needed.
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