OCR Text |
Show eyes tightly. Jothra drew back. "Thou must be mad!" he said. "Dog of a boy! Canst thou say such a thing to me, chosen of the GreatMother through Seljuk Sachi herself?" "Sense I some craft, woman," Jothra questioned on his side, "behind such a mad proposal? Thou knowest well they wot naught in the Network that we exist over here. Wish ye to loose that swarm of muddle-heads on the Provinces to tax and tie us up with regulations and guidelines like BauerBison on spits?" "Enrage thyself not on that account," said Lusela through her teeth. "The thrice bedamned buffoons will get no chance of that, I swear to thee. I h a v e . . . - " She paused and smiled aside. " . . . .connections !" "So thou hast connections!" raged Jothra to Lusela some twelve SevenDays later in his throne room. The seed throughout the Four Kingdoms lay lifeless in the ground which, after seeing a surfeit of rain and snow for two solid TwelveMonths in a row, had felt naught a drop since the melting of the season's lightest snow cover within memory. Moreover, they had heard nothing from the vaunted Commendium curing magicians on the subject of hoofworm since the Provincials' message to them through the FarthestPost transhologram on the last day of ThirdMonth. "Now our pack animals are out to pasture as well!" stormed Jothra. He was pacing back and forth in front of his opposite numbers in the other three kingdoms- Lusela, Zud, and the RedDesert regent, young King Damon's uncle, Elsen. "Fat good the pasture will do them," ground out Zud through his teeth, "for the dry grass will soon be ground down under their hooves." "Mayhap the good priestesses should join the northern Anglicans in a 305 |