Read Throy for Free Online Page B

turned away. Glawen watched her join a group of her friends. “Of course she resists moving! Why should she believe me?”
    “I believe you,” said Wayness. “If other ladies are skeptical, I don’t mind at all. Do you plan to stay here? If not, I’ll serve you sherry and nutcakes and show you where I spent my childhood.”
    “I thought you had gone off with your friends.”
    “They deserted and left me with only the fire for company. I think that they were upset by the news.”
    Glawen hesitated only a moment. “Dame Clytie is having a go at Bodwyn Wook, which looks interesting, but I’ve heard most of it before. I’ll tell my father where to find me.”
    Glawen and Wayness left the Council Hall. Syrene had dropped behind the southern cliff; twilight softened the texture of the great spaces. The view, thought Glawen, was hauntingly beautiful.
    They climbed a flight of narrow steps to the next level. “I have climbed up and down those steps a thousand times, or more,” said Wayness. “You can see our old house yonder: the dark green front with the white window trim. This is the most select area of Stroma; our family, you must know, was definitely upper class.”
    “Amazing!” declared Glawen.
    “How so?”
    “At Araminta Station such matters are taken seriously, and we Clattucs must constantly suppress the pretensions of the Offaws and the Wooks, but I had thought that at Stroma everyone was too cold and too hungry to worry about status.”
    “Ha ha! Do you not recall Baron Bodissey’s remarks? ‘To create a society based on caste distinction, a minimum of two individuals is both necessary and sufficient.’”
    The two walked around the precarious way. Glawen presently said: “Perhaps I should have mentioned this before, but I think that someone is following us. I can’t make out his caste through the dusk.”
    Wayness went to the rail and pretended to scan the vast panorama. From the corner of her eye she looked back along the way. “I don’t see anyone.”
    “He’s slipped into the shadows beside the dark brown house.”
    “It’s a man then?”
    “Yes. He seems to be tall and very thin. He wears a black cape and is as quick on his feet as an insect.”
    “I don’t know anyone like that.”
    The two arrived at the Tamm family house. Glawen appraised the dark green facade, picked out with white decorations and window trim. The architecture, while a trifle crabbed and pedantic, after so many centuries of fortitude, seemed only quaint and picturesque.
    Wayness pushed open the front door; the two entered, passed through the foyer into the parlor, where the sea-coal fire still glowed in the grate.
    Wayness said: “I expect that you will find the room a bit cramped; I do now, myself, but when I was little it seemed quite normal and very cozy - especially when storms blew down the fjord.” She turned toward the kitchen. “Shall I make a pot of tea? Or would you prefer sherry?”
    “Tea would be very nice.”
    Wayness went into the kitchen, to return with a black cast-iron kettle which she hung on the hob. “This is how we make tea.” She stirred up the fire, threw on new chunks of driftwood and sea-coal, causing flames of green, blue and lavender to lick up at the pot. “Here is the proper way to boil water,” said Wayness. “You will spoil it if you do otherwise.”
    “This is valuable information,” said Glawen.
    Wayness prodded at the fire with a poker. “I promised myself that I would not become sentimental if I came here, but I can’t help remembering things. There is a beach down below which is littered with chunks of sea-coal and driftwood after a storm. The sea-coal is actually the roots of a water-plant, which form nodules. As soon as the storm lets up, we would go down to the beach for a daylong family picnic, load up a scow and float it back under the town to a lift.”
    At the door sounded the rap-rap of the bronze knocker.
    Wayness looked at Glawen in startlement. “Who