Lilah Read Online Free Page B

head.
    â€˜It certainly looked like it,’ Sogdiam insisted. ‘There were tears in her eyes.’
    â€˜There are days like that, when you feel sad,’ Lilah said, with a lump in her throat. Then she changed the subject. ‘Tell me one thing. How do you know when we’ve arrived? Our chariot never comes near the lower town. You can’t hear the wheels from here, and I don’t see any of you in the fields. But no sooner do we get here than you all appear, shouting like Greeks.’
    Sogdiam nodded proudly. ‘It’s me who knows, not the others.’
    â€˜You? How do you know?’
    â€˜Easy. It’s your day,’ Sogdiam said, as if stating the obvious.
    â€˜What are you talking about? I don’t have a “day”. I might have come yesterday or tomorrow.’
    Sogdiam laughed. ‘But you came today! You always come the day of your day.’
    â€˜But it’s not just the day, it’s the exact moment . . .’
    â€˜It’s the same,’ Sogdiam said. ‘You always come at the same time of the day. Didn’t you know that?’
    â€˜Well . . . perhaps not,’ Lilah said, surprised.
    â€˜But I know. In the morning I get up and I know.Sometimes at night, when I go to bed, I say to myself, “Tomorrow, Lady Lilah will come.” And you do. Ezra knows it, too. He’s like me.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ Lilah asked, her voice betraying more emotion than she would have liked. ‘Did he tell you?’
    The boy chuckled. ‘No need, Lilah. The day of your day, he washes himself thoroughly, rubs his teeth with lime to make them whiter, and asks me to comb his hair. In all the time you’ve been coming, haven’t you noticed how handsome he is when you arrive?’ Sogdiam was laughing so heartily that his limp became more pronounced.
    Lilah laughed too to cover her emotion. ‘It seems I have no eyes for anything, Sogdiam. Whenever I come here, I’m so busy making sure you have all you need, I just don’t pay attention.’
    Sogdiam admitted, with a pout, that this might be a valid reason.
    They walked for a while in silence, along alleys and past meagre gardens. The houses of the lower town were mostly huts of cane and mud. Some, the
zorifes
, consisted merely of roof of plaited palms supported by poles, with no walls. Women were busy over their frugal hearths, while their children tugged at their tunics.
    Dirty as the streets were, and foul with stagnant water after the rains, Lilah had always refused toventure in with her chariot. The carved, cushioned benches, the axle heads inlaid with silver and brass were worth more in themselves than a hundred hovels in this wretched slum.
    She and Sogdiam were being watched by inquisitive eyes. Everyone had known for a long time who this beautiful young woman was, and where she was going with the boy and the heavy basket. Men and women alike stared avidly at her splendid tunic, her elegant hair, her leather clogs with their curved tips. Even her walk was different from theirs: she moved forward with a light, lively step, hips swaying in a way that was reminiscent of dances, feasts, banquets, and amorous songs at twilight. In a word, beauty, and the rapture the world might be for others.
    As often as they had marvelled at Lilah, the inhabitants of the lower city never tired of the spectacle. For them, Lilah was a mirage, an image of something they would never know.
    Most had never entered the upper town – if they tried, they were driven away brutally by the soldiers – let alone the Citadel. The most they could glimpse, above the roofs of the slums, beyond the gardens and the fine houses of the upper town, was the outer wall and colonnades of the Apadana. Against the morning sky, the Citadel seemed to touch the clouds, which was as it should be for the dwelling of the gods and the King of Kings.
    Men and women alike had asked Sogdiam if the lady