Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,7

at the end of one of her last days as a potter. There had only just been time to glaze it. It was a tiny eight petalled flower, a copy of one she had seen once on a vase. It was white and showed up in contrast to her skin where it lay on a leather thong between her breasts.

Chapter 4

Many times over the next few months Alessia saw Danthys. Sometimes the two families ate together on the shady side of the courtyard, Mikolos and Bullneck sharing memories of past exploits, teasing each other about their failings and including their wives and children in the banter. Alessia got used to being considered one of the family and stopped blushing when attention was focussed on her. Unless it was Danthys. He had only to look her way for her to feel that the whole world was looking at her. Yet she didn’t care. Let them look, she thought, what harm? But she was never alone with him. Alessia began to wonder if Danthys was really interested in her, or if his relaxed friendliness was simply because she was part of Mikolos’ family. She missed her sisters and because she was so busy working she had not had the opportunity to meet anyone who could become a new friend. Now she was in her new home, watching Rasifi start some of the preparations for the celebrations of the grape harvest and remembering sadly how she and her old friends had wound vine leaves into each others’ hair last year. Rasifi noticed that she had gone quiet.

“Your first festival with us – quite an event!” Rasifi came over to Alessia and put a large arm across her shoulders, hugging Alessia to her. “But your first away from your people. It’s hard, remembering. But you can use that remembering to make contact with them, of a sort.”

“How?” Alessia was puzzled. How could she make contact with people who were so far away?

“Come outside with me.” Rasifi led the way out of the house and down the street to where it widened out and they could see the darkening sky, kept brighter by the rising moon.

“It’s the grape harvest at your home too, isn’t it? And they’ll be missing you too, won’t they?” said Rasifi, “They’ll be thinking of you just as much as you are thinking of them. So look at the moon and ask her to look down on them and send your love to them. They will hear, I’m sure of it.” Rasifi raised her arms to the moon and closed her eyes. Alessia copied her and in her mind sent the messages as Rasifi had suggested. As she did she felt a strange happiness steal over her, almost as though her mother had crept in to watch her as she used to do when Alessia was very small. She sighed and opened her eyes. Rasifi was smiling at her.

“Well, did it work? Did they hear you?”

“I can hardly believe it, but I think my mother did,” said Alessia slowly. It would be lovely to know, she thought. When I see her next I will ask.

“She heard you, Alessia. I made sure of that. She looked out of the window and saw the moon and thought of you. They haven’t forgotten.” Trynor stroked Alessia and faded out.

“So now we can concentrate on getting ready for the festival. Come on, we have some cooking to do.”

The main celebrants of the grape harvest were, of course, the people who worked with the grapes and who made it into wine. But it was a happy day for everyone and everyone made the most of it, gathering in the late afternoon in the open area between the town and the palace. There would be bull-dancing to ensure a plentiful harvest this year and to keep the vines in good health for the next season. There would be a procession of children, dressed up in colourful costumes, usually with a grape theme, with prizes for the most imaginative. There would be feasting, plenty to drink, bonfires, singing and music-making.

Rasifi told Alessia that she missed her daughter Elena most acutely whenever she had to make herself presentable, as having another’s eye to help apply the rouge and kohl was so much more reliable than depending on the images in a mirror.

“I can be quite a sight! Ours is a good smooth mirror, but it is still not as clear as the real thing. It is good to have