Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles #4) - Ilona Andrews Page 0,29
fangs at her. “It will be done, lady.”
The tachi watched her with calm interest. Nobody spoke.
The server arrived with a massive wooden cutting board bearing a loaf of freshly baked bread. A second server set a large bowl of fruit in front of her and a glass gravy-boat-like vessel of honey. The two servers parked themselves behind her. They didn’t bring the platter. No matter.
Maud sliced the crust off the bread, trimming the round loaf into a square shape. At least the knife was sharp. That was one thing one never had to worry about with vampires.
The tachi kept watching.
She cut the bread into precise half-inch cubes, placed five of them together onto the plate, one in the center and four in the corners so they formed a square. She picked up the honey and slowly dripped a few drops onto each cube, until the bread soaked up the amber liquid.
The tachi at the edges of the table leaned in slightly.
Maud plucked the blue kora fruit from the bowl, peeled the thin skin and carefully cut the fruit into even round slices. She managed eight slices, seven perfectly even and one slightly thicker. She placed the seven slices around the cubes. The eighth was a hair too thick. She pondered it.
The tachi pondered it with her.
Better safe than sorry. She reached for another kora.
The tachi to her left emitted an audible sigh of relief and then crunched his mouth shut, embarrassed.
After the kora, she cut the red pear, then the thick yellow stalks of sweet grass, slowly building a mandala pattern on her plate. The kih berries followed, perfect little globes of deep orange. She carefully arranged the berries and took one last look at the plate. It was nowhere as perfect as it should’ve been, but that was the best she could do with what she had.
Maud got up, lifted the plate, and offered it with a bow to the royal.
“Lady of sun and air, it is my great honor to share my food with you. It is humble, but it is given freely from the heart.”
The table was completely silent. The royal looked at her with her six glowing eyes.
Color burst on her exoskeleton, the pale neutral gray turning the deeper azure of the morning sky. She reached out her long elegant arm and took the plate.
“I accept your offering.”
Maud exhaled quietly and sat. The color around the table darkened slightly. She could tell the shades of blue, green, and purple apart now.
The two vampire servers behind her took off at a near jog.
She reached for the next fruit and began peeling it.
The royal speared a cube of honey-drenched bread with her claws and popped it into her mouth. “My name is Dil’ki. What is yours?”
“Maud, your highness.”
Dil’ki clicked her claws. “Tch-tch-tch. Not so loud. The vampires do not know. Where have you learned our customs?”
“My parents are innkeepers on Earth.”
A deeper blue blossomed on Dil’ki’s segments. The tachi around the table shifted, their poses less stiff.
“How delightful. Do you speak Akit?”
Thank the universe for dad’s insistence on a superior speech implant. “I do.”
Maud arranged another, less complex mandala and passed it to the tachi on her right.
“We will speak Akit,” Dil’ki declared, switching to the dialect. “Do you understand me, Lady Maud?”
“I do,” Maud said.
“Yes.” The royal leaned closer and popped a berry into her mouth. “Tell me, what are you doing here, among these barbarians?”
“One of them asked me to marry him.”
“No,” the green tachi from the right gasped. “You mustn’t.”
“They can’t even make proper seats,” another green tachi said. “Some of them are joined into benches.”
“You must be very brave to come here,” a purple tachi said from the left.
“Did you say yes?” Dil’ki asked.
“I said I would think about it.”
The vampire servers arrived, bearing platters of precision sliced fruit and cubed bread. The tachi fell silent. The food was placed on the table and the servers backed away.
“You may serve yourselves,” Dil’ki said. “If poor Maud has to feed us all, we will be here all night.”
The tachi clicked the mandibles inside their mouths, chuckling. An instinctual alarm dashed through Maud. Every hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Claws reached for the platters, each arranging their own small masterpiece of fruit on their plate.
“Which one asked you?” Dil’ki asked.
Maud craned her neck. If Arland was anywhere, he’d be at the host table, but she couldn’t really see him. “The big blond one. The son of the Lady Ilemina.”