Romani Armada Read Online Free

the meandering path that would eventually lead her to the big round farmhouse structure where she would, she hoped, find Mariana.
    Deonne knew she was striding. She knew she was angry. She also knew that every postcard-worthy vignette she saw as she made her way across the village was having the opposite effect on her than the one the village elders and their environmental design consultants had intended. The placid peace wasn’t imparting calm and serenity. It was just pissing her off.
    She wanted to stomp like a child but stomping would just slow her down. Besides, the bridge, while it looked like it was made of fragile, ancient wood beams, was actually made of plasteel and was likely to outlast vampires. She could stomp until the sun set and get nothing but bruises for her efforts.
    Besides, there was no one around to see her stomping and stomping in flat shoes didn’t have nearly the same effect as stamping her feet while wearing heels.
    She swung off the bridge and onto the worn, wide sandy path, into the shade of the big old trees that hung over the river here. The water gurgled along the bank, sounding cheerful and Deonne glared at it, determined not to let it improve her mood.
    The big house where many of the Agency people were still staying looked like a centuries old farmhouse on the outside. It had the same big circular ochre-colored walls as many of the genuinely old buildings in the area, with a handful of smaller buildings grouped inside the protective walls, all of them topped off with the faded, curved terracotta tiles.
    The narrow, intricately-carved double doors with their dragon’s mouth handles were thrown wide open in welcome and lay flat against the walls like shutters. Deonne walked through them into the tiny compound and directly over to the door of the room where Mariana had set up office.
    Deonne rested her hand on the green round handle and took a deep breath. Then she pushed the door open and stepped through.
    Mariana was at her desk. As usual. She looked up as Deonne entered and smiled. “Why, you look ever so lovely this morning!”
    Deonne tried to smile. “Thank you.” She let her gaze flicker over Mariana’s appearance. Even though they were nearly two hundred years in the past, the woman seemed to have made no attempt to be stylish, even here where she had the resources of an entire wardrobe department to call upon. She wore the same three basic outfits the Agency wardrobe department had supplied her with when they had first arrived and kept her hair pulled back in the same unadorned braid that did nothing to flatter her face.
    Mariana smiled briefly again. “Is there something you need, Deonne?”
    Deonne pushed the sleeves of her jacket up. In this decade the sleeves were wide and anything but practical, but they did have a pretty effect when the arm was raised. But for right now they were in the way. “That moronic neighbor of mine is at it again.”
    Mariana frowned for a moment. “The lute player?”
    Deonne breathed hard. “It isn’t a lute! It’s a…whatever you call it. An erhu. And a whole flocking Chinese opera to go along with it. He was sawing away on it at three a.m., Mariana! Three a.m.”
    Mariana pressed her fingertip against her lips. “Did you ask him to stop?” she said.
    “Of course I asked him to stop!” Deonne pushed her fingers against her temples. “He doesn’t speak common. Or any language I know and I don’t speak Chinese. Any dialect. I pounded on the wall that separates our apartments, but apparently sign language isn’t a common language either.”
    Mariana laughed, then pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry, but that was kinda funny.”
    “It wasn’t remotely funny at three this morning,” Deonne told her, holding back the fury that wanted to boil all over the woman. She put her hands on her hips and squeezed her fingertips into her flesh. “Nayara saw fit to put you in charge while she’s not here—”
    “Oh, I’m not in