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Show short of terrifying to her. Moreover, from as far away as the gate into the granary yard, it was evident that her besotted father was as surprised as the young Janni, for he had discarded his arrogance on the instant in favor of drunken bluster- Janni ran silently through the yard and stopped at the corner of the granary, just outside the circle of light shed by the ion flare, and looked at the sight in wonder: her father, her mother, and- by the Saints!-Hoqqam's sister. "Aye," her mother was saying to her father, "and a full ridiculous figure ye be-a man of thine experience, thinking to pair with a child of fourteen!" The raw fury that Janni felt boiling out from her mother fair staggered her. And indeed her father had looked ridiculous, his thick legs spread apart, his hands on his hips, his face puffy and flushed a deep red, garishly outfitted in a green-striped sleeping shift, slashed at the sleeves with bright yellow. Hoqqam's sister was standing a little behind Janni's father, her short, thin hair mussed and matted in back, a threadbare dressing gown loosely tied in front. Behind the cold frames Janni could hear the reds in their nests muttering at the noise and letting go now and then with a piercing squawk. And the young Janni was surprised that Armand paid the hated birds no mind, for he'd always been terrified of the raucous things. "And thinkest thou wouldst run Needlesmith Hold?" her mother went on. Ye have even now sent the cottagers to me, throwing up their places to take their portions in the Jumbles-and with the corn planting not half finished and a band of ruffians to take their place! The records books are in a shambles too, and no less than fifty thousand credits are missing from 220 |