Read Miami Days and Truscan for Free Online Page A

clothes?”
    “Silly man, the child cannot wander around the Rata without them! But of course, I take care of the clothes! Even now, Saraya shortens the kirsons. This child, she’s too short! Saraya will bring them.”
    “Make sure you get her some dark green ones,” he said, as he exited the door. “Dalph says he’d like to see her in green.”
    “Out! Out! You and Dalph! Think you not I know how to dress this child?”
    “I’m gone!” he said and closed the door behind him. I heard his laugh as he walked down the hall.
    I stood by the tub, waiting for Kiera to leave. I wasn’t accustomed to bathing with an audience.
    “Come, child. Off with the clothes. I help you wash your hair.”
    “Kiera, I don’t—”
    “Come. You feel much better.”
    “Face it, Tess,” I told myself. “You ain’t in Kansas anymore.” So I stripped and slipped into that lovely, beautiful hot water, and nothing else much mattered for the next twenty minutes or so.
     

Chapter Five
     
    Actually, nothing much mattered for the next couple of hours or so; I slipped into a soft slip-like garment Kiera produced, lay down on the bed, and knew nothing more until Kiera shook me gently awake several hours later.
    “It is nearly time for the evening meal,” she said. “Come, I have your kirsons.”
    I sat up and inspected the garments she’d lain on the foot of the bed, surprised by the feel of the fabric, akin to the silky like comfort of high-quality cotton. Several were of some material which, like the fabric adorning my bed chamber, reminded me of velvet.
    “You like?” she asked anxiously.
    “I like,” I affirmed, rubbing my hand up and down the skirt of one such garment, trimmed in gold thread and accompanied by a belt of some metallic material. Gold? Surely not, though that was the only thing to which I could relate it.
    “But all of this, it’s too much.”
    “Ah, that one! Yes, Dalph would be pleased you like, he picked that one himself.”
    “Himself? Dalph?”
    “But yes. He will be sorry he was not here for the first time you wear it. But there will be other occasions.”
    “He won’t—oh. Johnny said he was going right back out.”
    “Yes, it is time. Always, at this time. Night patrols.”
    “Why?”
    “It is how things are. How they have always been, how they will always be.”
    “I’ll wait,” I said.
    “Wait?”
    “To wear it. Let’s pick another.”
    “No! It is the best. You must wear it tonight, at lammas—supper. In the Great Hall.”
    “Why?”
    “Because. You must.”
    Supper. Lammas. Great Hall. Alone. On exhibit. I felt a surge of panic which must have shown on my face.
    “My McKay, he is here. He will be with you. For the next days until Dalph returns.”
    That did make me feel better, and I surrendered to her ministrations. I looked in the large mirror, beaten silver or something similar, and stared at my reflection. Who was this woman, draped in the soft, velvety green, wearing her golden trimmings? My hair wasn’t excessively long, but it was a lot longer than it had been in years, and Kiera sat me down, parted it in the middle, and pulled it to the back. It was intricately braided, something on the order of French braids, and firmly secured at my nape. I’d never thought I was conventionally pretty, certainly not beautiful, but I knew that I’d always had, for lack of a better word, something. Something striking that set me apart from the crowd. Now I knew what it was. I looked Medieval. Like something out of a tapestry.
    “You like?” she asked again, but she knew the answer.
    “Kiera,” I declared firmly, “I have never looked like this in my life!”
    She smiled, apparently satisfied. “Dalph and my McKay, they will be pleased also.”
    Johnny certainly was. He gave a low whistle when I walked out of my door.
    “Hot damn, darlin’! Good thing Dalph’s the one found you. Have to beat the nobility off with a damn stick if he hadn’t!
    Medieval, indeed. To the victor