The Golden Key by Kate Elliott, Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson Read Free Book Online

‘Vedra—”
    But she was beyond hearing, beyond marking his appalled disgust, beyond anything but shock so deep as to paralyze her. She crouched awkwardly, limbs trembling as she gasped and gulped in the aftermath of her belly’s rebellion. Tangled hair straggled into her face, obscuring her expression.
    They dared not linger; he dared not shout or otherwise show his extreme displeasure lest those in the Crechetta hear them, find them, punish them … and he, as she, had just witnessed a punishment he would never banish from memory, even if he lived forever.
    Therefore Sario clamped his mouth shut on further elaborate complaints and instead grabbed a handful of her linen tunic. He tugged. “’Vedra, get up! Get
up
—we have to go—”
    And they did go, immediately; she managed awkwardly to find her feet at last with his urging, to flail upward, gagging still. She clamped hands against her mouth so as to seal in any further calamities.
    The tiny chamber stank. Sario tugged again on her tunic and headed down the steps; he knew the staircase well, better than she. It took effort to get her down without losing her to a tumble.
    “Out,” he hissed. “We have to go out, outside. If they heard you—” It was possible, though perhaps not, but they dared not risk discovery. What they had witnessed …
    Down and down, fourteen steps counted twice; at the bottom he unlatched the lath-and-plaster door, stuck his head out warily, then plucked at her tunic. “Come on, ‘Vedra, we have to go outside.”
    “Stop pulling, Sario!” She yanked the tunic away, then dragged it upward to scrub her mouth and face violently, as much to rid her memory of truth, he knew, as to clean away the proof of her weakness.
    Such actions guaranteed he would not now catch any part of the fabric to pull her onward. “’Vedra, hurry!”
    Out through the painted curtain, into the corridor, winding through the mazelike coils and angles away from the centralrooms, where people gathered—they avoided people, now—and to a door that he unlatched hastily, nimble fingers working, and shoved open on a gusty breath of relief.
    Sunlight flooded in; they tumbled outside, squinting, like a brace of awkward puppies into an alley near the side of the compound: cobbled alley, narrow, and slanted from either side toward the center, where it met in a shallow gutter to carry rain and refuse away. But there was no rain now, not today, only bright and blinding sunlight leaching into the cracks in their souls and illuminating unrepentantly, reminding them of what Chieva do’Sangua was, what it meant, what it did, how it was accomplished. …
    —
bells
—
    Meya Suerta throbbed with bells.
    In the pure light of the summer sun, Saavedra’s face was white as a corpse-candle. Even her lips, so tightly compressed, were pale, as if she feared to be ill again.
    Sario’s disgust was not lessened, but in view of her obvious discomfort he was moved to suggest a solution. “The fountain,” he said briskly. “Come on, ‘Vedra—you need cleaning.”
    He took her there to the fountain nearest Palasso Grijalva, to the primary fountain in the zocalo, the square of the artisan’s quarter, where they and everyone else involved with the trade and craft lived. In the heat of the day most people lingered indoors, partaking of cool fruit drinks or relaxing drowses, though now the bells began to draw them out of doors again.
    Saavedra leaned over the stone ledge and scooped up handfuls of water, sluicing her face. The front of her tunic was soon sodden, but Sario thought a water-wet tunic far more bearable than one exhibiting the proof of her weak belly.
    Distracted, he frowned.
So many bells
— From the cathedral, every Ecclesia and Sanctia in the city, but rung in celebration, not tolled in memorial.
    Saavedra hooked her elbows atop the lowest basin and leaned there, staring down into the water. Tangled, sweat-dried curls cascaded over her shoulders, floated atop the surface