Westgate that opened out on to the familiar streets of Sanctuary that she paused
for breath and turned to meet her daughter’s wide eyes.
‘Vanda, you are a woman now, old enough to take care of the younger ones if you
must, and old enough, perhaps, to understand. If this works, you must promise
never to tell your father what I have done for him.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Vanda said in a very small voice.
Gilla gazed at the teeming life around her, sunlight glaring harshly off browned
faces, sounds of quarrelling and laughter, the rich mixture of odours from the
street, and for a moment felt as if she had lost her skin and had become a part
of all of these.
‘I have borne seven children and seen two die, and lived with the same contrary
man for twenty-six years,’ she said slowly, ‘and I have just realized that I
would sacrifice this whole city for one lock of his hair. If this stuff I am
going to give him kills him,’ she shook the hand in which the crystal vial lay
hidden, ‘I’m sorry, Vanda, but I will go after him.’
Lalo the god was creating a woman, a goddess as beautiful as Eshi, as bountiful
as Shipri, as wise as Sabellia, as dear to him as someone – he could not
remember, but the brush splashed gold like sunlight across Her hair. There, the
ripeness of breasts that could feed a dozen babes, and the opulence of haunch
and thigh, and skin smoother than the silk of Sihan … Lalo smiled, and the
brush moved as if of itself to suffuse that white flesh with a rosy glow like
the inside of a shell.
And then he stepped back from the easel, smiling, and the figure he had been
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268