Law of the Wolf Tower: The Claidi Journals Book 1, Tanith Lee [pocket ebook reader .TXT] 📗

are ‘Zebras’, not horses. They had black and white stripes that make you dizzy. And there were three teams of ‘Oxen’ the colour of walnuts.

Tents had been pitched, carts and wagons stood about, courtyards streamed with drying coloured washing. There were wells and pools, and ornamental fountains, all crowded.

Impossible racket. Sounded to me like a thousand different languages.

Going up some stairs carrying bundles, I saw, over a wall, more of the city lying below. There were the jewellery domes, and there a slim green tower with a golden bell in it, and squares, and roads, and buildings as decorated as cakes, and all pale glowing colours with sun on them. And gardens – everywhere gardens. (There was another of those turning, flashing crystals I could see, as well.)

Over the smells of Hulta and people and animals generally, scents of spice and cooking, and tobacco, of vines and flowers, and the smell of brickwork in the sun that I’d half forgotten.

We girls and women on our own got quite a big room to ourselves. Like all the other women in the Rest, we immediately began washing clothes and underthings and sheets, hanging them out of the windows, and even from the rafters.

The queue for the bathrooms was long, but worth it.

I’d forgotten too the delight of cool-skin-temperature water scented with a few stolen herbs and perfumes. Here you can buy them. Or I couldn’t, but Teil did, and gave some to me. And soap and other things to keep one smelling nice.

I washed my hair. The last time was in the red rain. (I’d gone to groom Sirree, but it had already been done. The Rest has its own grooms, and Argul had paid to have all the horses and dogs tended. Even a couple of Hulta pet monkeys were being brushed, and scented with banana essence.)

At first, the people of the city were hard for me to sort out from all the other people packed in here.

They seem a mixture, like everyone. But their clothes are always the most amazing silky stuff, and fabulous colours. So that’s how I identify Peshambans now. Oh, and sometimes they wear masks. Not over the whole face, just the eyes. It’s a fashion – to make them more like the dolls this city’s supposed to be full of?

Excitement in the room we share. There’s a festival tonight. (I thought of the Featherers and felt uneasy, but it’s nothing like that.) Large chests from the wagons had been opened and astonishing garments taken out. Fit to rival Peshamban clothes.

One of the girls insisted on giving me – it was a ‘present’ – a deep blue dress sewn with embroidery and silver discs. Everyone clapped when I’d put it on. I felt shy, touched, and also rather resentful. A funny combination, but I think they feel sorry for me about Nemian. (Who, I may add, someone told me has already gone swanning off into the city.)

I did like myself in the dress when I glanced into the mirror.

We made each other up, black round the eyes and powder, and scented sticks of colour for the mouth.

‘Pretty Claidibaabaa!’ they cried, prancing round me. I really was the centre of attention.

Someone else then gave me silver earrings with sapphires in them. Real true sapphires.

‘Hultai chura!’ they squealed.

I concluded that must mean Darling of the Hulta. (!!!) (But why?)

We had lunch in the main hall, where food can be bought – pancakes and vegetables – then later in the room they were teaching me steps to wild Hulta dances, gallops and stampings and tossing the head (like a horse).

I haven’t laughed like this for so long. We laughed ourselves daft.

I feel a bit guilty now, thinking how Daisy and Pattoo and I found ways to giggle and mess around despite the filthy rules and cruelty of the House.

But the afternoon is turning over to sunfall and soon it’ll be that time which is my mother’s lovely name.

I can’t help it. I want to have fun tonight.

Nemian – well. Grulps, as the ruder Hulta say. Yes, grulps.

Someone will like me, dance with me, hold my hand. I’m not going to worry about if or who. Someone will. It’s that sort of night.

And I never was a princess. That was a lie. Wasn’t it?

There’s a song … it said … Moon in a cloud …

How to make sense of this.

I’ll try, but please, please my unknown, invented friend, be patient, it’s not easy.

A huge square in the last daylight, with tall gracious buildings around, views of parks, and cloudy dark-green trees, and down here orange trees with orange-gold fruits. At the east end of the square, some steps go up to a pavement of apricot marble. On this stands another high white tower. At the tower’s top, a clock. Actually, a CLOCK.

It must be, if it had been down on the square and anyone could’ve measured it, about the size of the Alabaster Fish Pool in the Garden of the House. Vast.

The CLOCK is in a frame of gold and silver, and up there, in front of it, stood three carved figures, very lifelike, except for being so big, painted and gilded. One was a girl and one a man, and in the middle was a white horse up on its hind legs. Out of the horse’s forehead ran a crystal horn. And later I noticed it also had silvery folded wings.

As we arrived, people were leaning out of small windows at the tower top, and lighting hanging lamps.

The square was full, and a cheer went up from the Peshambans, and from everyone else. Even we cheered. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed polite.

Blurn appeared, very smart and over-the-top in dark red, patterned boots, and earrings.

‘Hi, Claidi. Like the clock?’

‘It’s good.’

‘They worship it,’ said Blurn.

‘Sorry?’

‘The Peshambans. They worship that clock.’

The CLOCK was a … god?

But Blurn had stridden on. And as the soft lights spangled over the CLOCK, other lamps were lighting all around.

The sky got