needs the exercise.’
Lalo nodded and, as he straightened, Gilla touched his cheek, and he understood
what she could so rarely manage to put into words, and smiled.
‘Don’t let the fish-eyes gobble you up!’ he replied.
Gilla snorted. ‘In broad daylight? I’d like to see them try! Besides, our Vanda
says they’re only people like ourselves, for all their funny looks, and serving
that Lady Kurrekai, she should know. Will you trust Bazaar tales or your own
daughter’s word?’ She backed out of the doorway, hoisted the child on to one
broad haunch, and scooped up the market basket.
The building shook beneath Gilla’s heavy tread as she went down the stairs, and
Lalo moved back to the window to see her down the street. The hot sunlight
gilded her fading hair until it was as bright as the child’s.
Then she was gone, and he was alone with the mirror and his fear.
A man called Zanderei had asked Lalo if he had ever painted a self-portrait
whether he had ever dared to find out if the gift the sorcerer Enas Yorl had
given him of painting the truth of a man would enable him to make a portrait of
his own soul. In return, Lalo had given Zanderei his life, and at first he had
been so glad to be alive himself that he did not worry about Zanderei’s words.
Then the Beysib fleet had appeared on the horizon, with the sun striking
flame from their mastheads and their carven prows, and no one had had leisure
to worry about anything else for awhile. But now things were quiet and Lalo had
no commissions to occupy him, and he could not keep his eyes from the mirror