The Winged Histories Read Online Free Page B

grandfather used to sit. This chair was wrought with curious forms of dragons, dogs and rabbits and stranger creatures, goat-headed lions and winged dolphins. It stood alone beneath the trees, a little away from the house, covered with dust and dried leaves. Siski cleaned it off with the hem of her skirt. Beside it stood the timeworn brazier with which our grandfather had warmed himself in the winter months, where we once made a fire with the idea of roasting nuts and Dasya burned his arm and Siski blew on the injured spot to cool it. Dasya did not tell anyone but sat very stiff and pale through dinner, saying nothing and eating with his left hand. The next day the old brazier was blacker than ever as if it had never been used. “There must be a curse on it,” Siski said. And Dasya said that if it was cursed, so much the better, for we had gone to that strange place on the north side to play Drevedi, knowing that no one would look for us in our dead grandfather’s lonely patch of trees on the unlucky side of the house. Siski sat on the chair: she was Oline, the Dreved of Dolomesse. Dasya was always the Dreved of Amafein. Usually they made me a soldier or peasant or ill-destined king to be put to death repeatedly under the trees.
    Afterward we went back to the house and into the silver room where the adults sat talking quietly in groups. Their chairs and couches seemed so far away, under the lamps. “How restless you children are,” Grandmother called. And sometimes everyone was restless or the weather was hot and we would go for an evening walk around the grounds, walking up and down the rows of flowers and along the pitch-dark banks of ivy, which gave off a bitter scent. Down the avenue of limes, everyone keeping to Grandmother’s pace. Voices floating in the evening hush. “Why don’t you keep dogs?” said a visiting neighbor, and Grandmother said, “My dear boy, because we are not under siege.” And when we turned we saw the lights of Faluidhen in the darkness of the grounds, and working by smell I found my way to Mother’s dress. I touched the folds of cotton and took her hand. “Is that you, my love?” she whispered, squeezing my fingers. “Come and walk with Mother.”

    Later I thought of Dasya, when it seemed that I would never have the chance to think of anything again. At first I thought: How tired my arms are! —and I was glad my sword had spun away and lay distant in the snow. Yes, and it was pleasant simply to lie there with my arms at rest in the dazzling whiteness, flung back on the slope. The others seemed suddenly quiet, they had lowered their voices as if they were talking privately and did not wish to disturb me. The swords struck one another with a tinny sound, like that of children playing at dakavei in a neighboring courtyard. The air was fresh and sparkled in my lungs and then the Brogyar rose up suddenly and blocked the brilliant sun, and a moment later when his face grew clearer I recognized his sagging eyelid and his mouthful of rotting teeth. So then I had not killed him. He was breathing raggedly and the sound thrilled me, for he was close now, very close. His hair stuck out from underneath his cap, it had no color except at the edges where the sunlight made it glow. I noticed the iron studs along his leather jerkin where his coat fell open and I could see his gilded belt when he raised his arms. Then the arms descended, and there was pain. There it was, it was the pain of which I had heard, it had arrived. It was the rest of the pain which I had waited for when I had fallen from my horse or been struck by the masters at the school, it had simply been waiting for me too and now it stepped from behind a screen, clad in majesty like the body of a god. When I could breathe again I opened my eyes and saw the Brogyar through a veil of light and he was smiling at me, and I knew his smile for it was the smile of the mountains. There, his eyes were alight, he was biting his lip, unable to