Read 2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows for Free Online Page B

windows. A highly-polished, rectangular wooden table dominated the chamber. Dark wood chairs circled it. Silver trays of steaming meat and plates of bread and other foods covered the table.
    Laurie, dressed in a simple olive shift and a dark green sweater, was already seated. She, like Bill, looked tiny in her loose-fitting clothes. Her long light hair shone white in the hard light.
    The three other women seated opposite Laurie looked like plump dolls in comparison. Where Laurie’s skin was red and chapped, theirs was creamy and smooth. Their breasts were full, as were the curves of their hips, unlike Laurie’s body, which seemed as flat and sharp as an assembly of wooden planks. She resembled the table more than the women sipping from delicate bowls across from her.
    The woman opposite Laurie was older, perhaps forty-five or fifty years old, while the two girls beside her looked barely out of their teens. All three of them had dark hair and wore it up in ornate, twisting braids. Little strings of silver beads hung from their hair and dripped down the pale green folds of their long flowing dresses. John didn’t know what material their clothes were made from, but it caught the light and shimmered like silk.
    “Tumah,” John greeted the women and bowed the same way the servant boy had bowed to him in the bathroom. Bill followed his lead. Laurie twisted around in her seat and smiled at them. Her expression was one of both joy and desperation. John wondered how long she’d been waiting and how well she’d managed to field questions.
    All three women stood. The one in the middle beckoned John and Bill into the room. Her hands were small with long white fingernails. Tiny silver chains hung like delicate manacles between the silver rings on each of her fingers. John guessed that she was the noblewoman whom the convoy had been escorting along with her son.
    “Gentlemen, we are so glad that you have arrived. Please, won’t you be kind enough to join us in our morning repast?” The lady spoke in the most formal form of Basawar, adding soft whispered honorifics and drawing each word out into the next so that she was almost humming.
    John froze, momentarily overwhelmed by the lady’s formality and poise.
    Bill immediately deferred to John dropping back slightly.
    All through the morning John had been silently preparing himself for another conversation like the ones he had easily managed with Pivan and other soldiers. Direct and to the point, more interrogations than conversations, really.
    He’d guessed most of his responses would be limited to yes or no answers. The majority of his effort would have been channeled into listening closely to the questions, so that he made the right choice. He hadn’t thought to expect formality, civility, or niceties. He wasn’t sure that he was up to that level of language yet.
      He felt one of Bill’s bony fingers jabbing into his side, and realized that he had to respond to the lady’s question.
    “Thank you.” John could hear the roughness of his words. “It would be our honor to join you.”
    He seated himself to Laurie’s right. Bill took the chair on her left. John noticed the little movement as Laurie squeezed Bill’s hand under the table.
    “Rashan Pivan’ro’Bousim has told me that you are called Jahn,” the lady said.
    It took a moment for John to recognize Pivan’s name in its full form. His rank of rashan, cavalryman, sounded a little like Ravishan and for an instant John had been deeply confused. He tried not to let it show.
    “Yes,” he said, “I’m called Jahn. This is my sister Loshai and her husband, Behr.”
    “Sky and Honeybee. What lovely names.” The lady turned to the younger woman on her right. “They go together, don’t you think?”
    “Yes, they certainly do. Perhaps it was fated that they should be wed.” The young woman smiled, showing a little gap between her front teeth.
    The lady nodded and then returned her attention to John.
    “Your