The Heart of the Mirage by Glenda Larke Read Free Book Online Page A

pretended to consider the suggestion. ‘No, I don’t think so, if you don’t mind. However, a position as a guard in that whorehouse for the highborn in Via Dolce, now…’
    I rolled my eyes. All I had heard from the slave quarters of the Villa Gayed over the years suggested Brand didn’t much like to sleep alone. ‘Sorry to thwart your amorous tendencies, Brand, but you are coming with me to Kardiastan. Naturally.’
    ‘Naturally.’ His tone was as dry as crumbled brick dust.
    More veiled mockery, I supposed. I sighed inwardly and changed the subject. ‘Something else, um, interesting happened today.’
    He raised an eyebrow and waited, alert to my altered tone.
    ‘The Oracle asked to see me.’
    Everything about him stilled. When I didn’t immediately explain, he said, ‘As you say, interesting. From what I have heard, it is more normal for people to beg to see the Oracle, than the other way around.’
    I nodded again. ‘Indeed. And as I understand it, there is quite often a considerable…donation to the temple involved before the Oracle obliges.’
    He gave a half-smile. ‘And you are not known for your generosity to religious cults.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘There was a deputation from the Meletian Temple at the door today, asking for donations for the Moon Festival. A coincidence, do you think?’
    ‘Probably. They come every year. And are disappointed every year. They take enough from me at normal service collections.’ Even as I spoke, though, I was wondering. Was this all a trick to increase my donation? Show the power of prophecy to the unbeliever in order to extract some of her wealth? I heard tales of unscrupulous temple priestesses from time to time. It was no more mad than the thought that the Oracle had the ability to predict the future. No , I thought, I won’t believe that . If the gods did indeed intervene in our everyday life, if the Oracle always spoke the truth, then there would never be disasters such as the Kardiastan Uprising, or the earthquake deaths just last year in Getria, our sister city in the mountains. We would have been warned.
    ‘So, what message was it the Oracle wanted to impart?’ Brand’s question abruptly grounded my thoughts once more.
    ‘That’s just it. Nothing much at all. Merely that I was going to take a journey to look for a traitor and I would be successful and rewarded as a consequence. Substantially rewarded.’
    ‘And is that true?’
    ‘As far as I know it, yes.’
    ‘No details as to how you were to catch your prey? No helpful hints?’
    ‘None.’
    He had put his finger on the real puzzle of what had taken place, of course. There had been nothing in whatI was told that was useful—so why was the message necessary?
    I detailed exactly what I had seen and heard, marshalling my own recollections into coherent order, dismissing the more outlandish of my hallucinations. As I recited Esme’s actual words, his smile broadened into a grin. When I was a child, Brand had accompanied me to all my school lessons; these days he stood behind me at every poetry reading, musical evening, theatre performance, Academy debate. He knew execrable verse when he heard it. He said, ‘So, the Oracle is a bad poet?’
    ‘The worst. Or else Esme is a poor translator.’
    ‘They paint a rosy future for you. A little, um, fulsome in the promises, though, don’t you think?’
    ‘Somewhat.’ I frowned. ‘The whole thing is odd.’
    ‘You know what it sounds like to me? All that talk of “rightful place” and being wreathed, feted, honoured and celebrated in epic poetry? It’s as if they are saying: “You’re not getting what you deserve. Go to Kardiastan and you will get that, and more.” They are appealing to your sense of injustice.’
    My frown deepened. ‘I don’t feel hardly done by!’
    ‘They might think you do. Do you believe in the Oracle, Domina?’
    ‘In its connection to the divine? Or in the truth of its predictions?’
    ‘Both.’
    ‘Well, the temple