The Stone Dogs by S.M. Stirling Page B

gong by the table. Another seated herself at a harp nearby and began to play softly as the Draka assembled. The table was near the house wall, the usual rectangular slab of polished stone on curved wrought-iron supports, shaded by oleanders. Yolande dropped into her wicker chair and grabbed at a roll from a basket, breaking the soft fresh bread and eating it without benefit of butter. The taste was intoxicating, and she finished it off and took another, more slowly. Muriel and Veronica had arrived, looking sleekly content; they nodded around the table as they drew their chairs closer.
    "Where is yo' father?" Johanna asked, as the serfs handed around the first course; it was iced beet-and-cucumber soup, for a warm day. "And are they starvin' yo' down at that school, child?"
    "Mmmph," Yolande said, then swallowed to clear her mouth.
    "No, I just had a… really strange sensation. It's funny, I was lookin' at Myfwany an' thinkin' on how nice she is, then all of a sudden my head was swimmin', and my knees felt watery and my skin went cold an' I broke out in a sweat; and then my stomach felt strange. Figured I must've not noticed how hungry I was…
    What are y'all laughing at?" she concluded with bewildered resentment.
    Her mother had put fingertips to brow and her shoulders shook. Aunt Alicia was coughing into a napkin; Myfwany looked back and forth between them, blinked in understanding, and then focused on carefully pouring herself a glass of white Procanico wine. Mandy looked at her owl-eyed.
    "Y'are joshin', 'Landa?" she asked, and turned to Veronica and Muriel. "She is joshin', isn't she? Please, tell me, nobody could be that ignor—"
    "Johanna!"
    It was her father's voice, from the french doors that gave onto the terrace from the main house.
    "Look-see who I've brought to lunch!"

    "… so it turned out they were just Keren tribesfolk who wandered across the border," her brother was saying. "It's pretty wild there in south Yunnan, mountain jungle. Of course, they could have been Alliance operatives pretendin to be tribesfolk, so we turned them over to the headhunters." He grinned and buffed his fingernails. "And my tetrarchy got extra leave fo' stumblin'
    across them. Scramjet shuttle to Vienna, overnight dirigible to Milan, caught the train to Florence an' so forth."
    The soup was removed and the next course arrived: seared sea-scallops with asparagus, stuffed Roman artichokes and truffled walnut oil, then insalata in cumin vinaigrette and a paella salad on the side. Plain country food; her parents disapproved of the modern Orientalizing fashion of bits and pieces of this and that, saying it was bad for the digestion and distracted the attention from the real pleasures of dining and conversation. Hunger satisfied, she touched a finger to her wineglass for a refill and watched the others. John was getting respectful attention in his description of an impromptu tiger-hunt in the rhododendron thickets of the Yunnan mountains, up on the Nepalese border. Mandy was drinking it in, with her chin resting on her hands.
    Well, he is pretty dashin ', Yolande thought critically, glancing at her brother. Tall and long-limbed, which showed to advantage in garrison blacks. Russet colored hair and close-cropped beard, straight high-cheeked features and gray eyes against brown-tanned skin, set off by tasteful ruby ear-studs and the silver-niello First Airborne Legion thumb-ring.
    "… so I ought to be able to squeeze in a week here to home,"
    he finished.
    Johanna signed for the serf to remove her plate and lit a cigarette. "Well be havin' some people over next Tuesday, if yo'
    haven't lost the taste fo' countryside jollifications… I'm goin' over the orchards this afternoon. They're in bloom; why don't yo'
    come along and help show Yolande's friends about?"
    "Hmmm." The serfs were bringing coffee and deserts, blueberry lemonade sorbets and almond flan with fruits and cheeses. "Actually, mother, I had somethin' else planned fo' this