Stormqueen! by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Edwin Zimmer Read Free Book Online

another’s tune or in another’s voice.”
And Allart, reading those words, had known that from childhood he had been attempting, at the command of his father and brothers, tutors, arms-masters and grooms, servants and superiors, to sing to a tune, and in a voice, which could never be his own. He had become a cristoforo , which was believed unseemly for a Hastur; a descendant of Hastur and Cassilda, a descendant of gods, one who bore laran; a Hastur of Elhalyn, near to the holy places at Hali where the gods once had walked. All the Hasturs, from time immemorial, had worshiped the Lord of Light. Yet Allart had become a cristoforo , and a time had come when he had left his brethren and renounced his inheritance and come here to be Brother Allart, his lineage half forgotten even by the brethren of Nevarsin.
Forgetful of self, and yet all-mindful of his own individual and unique place in the choir, in the monastery, in the Universe, Allart sang the long hymns; later he went, his fast still unbroken, to his assigned work of the morning, bringing breakfast to the novices and students in the outer refectory. He carried the steaming jugs of tea and hot bean-porridge to the boys, pouring the food into stoneware bowls and mugs, noticing how the cold young hands curved around the heat to try to warm themselves. Most of the boys were too young to have mastered the techniques of internal heat, and he knew that some of them wore their blankets wrapped under their cowls. He felt a detached sympathy for them, remembering his own early sufferings with the cold before his untrained mind could learn how to warm his body; but they had hot food and slept under extra blankets and the more they felt the cold, the sooner they would apply themselves to conquering it.
He kept silence (though he knew he should have reproved them) when they grumbled about the coarseness of the food; here in the quarters of the children, food rich and luxurious, by contrast, was served. He himself had tasted hot food only twice since entering the full monastic regimen; both times when he had done extraordinary work in the deep passes, rescuing snowbound travelers. Father Master had judged the chilling of his body had gone to a point where it endangered his health, and had ordered him to eat hot food and sleep under extra blankets for a few days. Under ordinary conditions, Allart had so mastered his body that summer and winter were indifferent to him, and his body made full use of whatever food came his way, hot or cold.
One disconsolate little fellow, a pampered son of the Lowland Domains with carefully cut hair curled around his face, was shivering so hard, wrapped in cowl and blanket, that Allart while spooning him out a second portion of porridge - for the children were allowed to eat as much as they wished, being growing boys - said gently, “You will not feel the cold so much in a little while. The food will warm you. And you are warmly clad.”
“Warmly?” the child said, disbelieving. “I haven’t my fur cloak, and I think I am going to die of the cold!” He was near to tears, and Allart laid a hand compassionately on his shoulder.
“You won’t die, little brother. You will learn that you can be warm without clothes. Do you know that the novices here sleep with neither blanket nor cowl, naked on the stone? And no one here has died of the cold yet. No animal wears clothing, their bodies being adapted to the weather where they live.”
“Animals have fur,” protested the child, sulkily. “I’ve only got my skin!”
Allart laughed and said,“And that is proof you do not need fur; for if you needed fur to keep warm, you would have been born furred, little brother. You are cold because since childhood you have been told to be cold in the snow and your mind has believed this lie; but a time will come, even before summer, when you too will run about barefoot in the snow and feel no discomfort. You do not believe me now, but remember my words, child. Now eat