Centauriad 1 - Daughter of the Centaurs (23 page)

“We make them for the children,” Zephele explains. “Honus loves them as well. He says that he is a child at heart … as, clearly, are you. Allow me to purchase this one for you.”

“No, please,” Malora says quickly. “It must cost many
nubs, and I don’t really need to have it. Besides, Honus has
real
hummingbirds on his terrace.”

“Who cares how many nubs it costs!” Zephele says in a burst of impatience. Then, calming herself, she adds, “Very well. I’m sure I will have ample opportunities to spoil you.”

The centaurs, shopkeepers and browsers, all stop what they are doing and stare at Malora as she passes. They aren’t rude as much as openly curious, and their eyes seldom rise higher than her waist. It is as if the only parts of her that interest them are those that are different from theirs. This is just as well, for now at least, because it gives her the freedom to stare with equal openness at them. For next to the sound of human voices, it is the sight of their very human faces that quenches some deep thirst within Malora.

Of the males, some are strutting peacocks draped in elaborately woven finery. Others are more plainly dressed, as the cousins were in the bush. All of them carry themselves with a pride and grace that makes Malora fall in love with them all over again, for, surely, they are the Perfect Beings! The women are every bit as splendid, although none of them is as lovely as Zephele. Many of them hold small beribboned dogs—and are trailed by their female Twani—as they pick their way carefully along the cobbled streets, lifting high their delicately booted hooves, their wraps girded with sashes or wide belts or woven cinches, their caps offset with fresh flowers or beads or feathers or gems. Perhaps wearing a cap won’t be so bad, Malora thinks as she stares after them.

“Don’t even
think
about wearing a cap,” Zephele says as they come to a stop before an arched doorway made of bright blue stones. Through the arch waft the mingled scents
of leather and oil, which remind her briefly of her father. Cured skins hang on wooden racks, three and four deep on the walkway, big sheets of kidskin and calfskin soft as butter. What do they do to get the skin so soft? Malora wonders. And the colors! Some of the skins are natural, but others have been dyed in an array of colors that take Malora’s breath away. She wants to gather this rainbow of skins in her arms and make off with them.

Zephele sighs. “I do so hate to think of the poor creatures who perished to give us their hides.”

“I, for one, think of them with enormous gratitude,” Malora says as she strokes a bud-green sheet of kidskin that is as soft as a horse’s nose. “And I see you have no trouble wearing boots of animal skin yourself.”

“Believe me,” Zephele says, “if they could make attractive boots out of some other material, I’d order them in multiples. But nothing fits quite so sleekly as animal skin. I like to think the animals die quickly and without pain. Neal tells me this is so, and Neal Featherhoof would not lie to me.”

“In spite of the fact that he doesn’t know you exist?”

“I meant that he doesn’t know I exist as a mature female centaur. For him, I am still a child,” she explains. “I am also a Highlander, and therefore forbidden to him.”

“What is this place?” Malora asks.

“Longshanks, the cobbler,” Zephele says.

They enter the shop. Displayed on a long table are a row of wooden poles carved in the shapes of centaur legs—both forelegs and hind legs of varying sizes—modeling a wide assortment of boots, from the rustic khaki style Orion wore in
the bush to more elaborate versions made of leopard and giraffe and zebra and snake skins, with buttons of carved ivory.

“Good afternoon, Cylas!” Zephele sings out. “The People have arrived and require your services!” She gives Malora a grin. “I shall not soon grow weary of saying that!”

A pony-sized centaur with piebald flanks, ebony skin, and a bald pate emerges from the back of the shop, blinking behind his spectacles. His own boots are fashioned from white leather. Far from having long shanks, as his name suggests, he strikes Malora as being somewhat deficient between the knee and the fetlock. A wizened Twan folds sheets of leather and arranges them on shelves according to color.

“Malora, meet Cylas Longshanks, cobbler,” Zephele says.

“
Master
cobbler,” Cylas corrects, nibbling on the ends of his gray mustache. “Cobbler to the Apex and Herself and the entire magnificent House of Silvermane.” His shrewd little eyes have not left Malora for a moment. His voice has dropped to a hush. “And to think that in our lifetime, such a being could still actually be walking this earth! A living fossil! What a wonder! What an excellent choice you have made, Zephele Silvermane, bringing her here to me. Other cobblers would not be equal to the task of outfitting the wholly unique contours of this creature.”

Zephele rolls her eyes. “My brother Orion Silvermane would like his brand-new pet to have her feet clad in boots.”

“To be sure,” the cobbler says, trotting over to his desk for string and chalk. “Have her step over here.”

Malora stands with her feet on a sheet of rough leather while Cylas kneels and makes a tracing of her feet. Longshanks
works slowly and with great care, his fingers trembling. After he has traced the bottom of each foot, he goes on to measure the tops of her feet, her ankles, and her calves. He makes notations on a small slate.

While Cylas works, Zephele paces the shop, examining the goods and returning after every lap to tap a hoof and make impatient little noises. Finally, she says, “We’re expected at my brother’s distillery, so a certain haste is in order.”

Cylas rears back. “You won’t appreciate it if I make a boot that binds her frail foot or sags or is otherwise unsightly. This is the first human boot to be produced in our time!”

Malora doesn’t want to tell him that the People, young and old, all wore boots. “Could you,” she ventures, addressing the shiny black bald spot on his head, “in addition to boots, possibly make me breeches, like the ones you make for Honus?”

Cylas looks up at Zephele. “With your permission …?”

Zephele’s expression is uncertain, then she says, “Why ever not? What is good for one pet is, I am sure, good for the next. Be sure to make it possible for her to remove them. Do you know that the skins she wore in the bush she actually sewed onto her body?”

“So I hear!” he exclaims as he holds the string up to her legs. According to Sunshine, Malora’s leopard pelt drew quite a crowd when West brought it down to the furnace to be burned.

“What did she use for thread?” Longshanks asks.

Zephele looks to Malora for an answer. “Whatever sinew came to hand,” Malora says, irritated that the cobbler continues to speak to her through Zephele.

“Has she any idea what such a crude material would do to delicate calfskin and kidskin?” Cylas says to Zephele. “Tell her I use silk thread, dyed to match.”

Zephele says, “He says that such a crude material—”

Malora says pointedly, “I can hear him, Zephele.”

Zephele claps a hand to her mouth. “Oh! Of course you do. Silly me. Dear Master Longshanks, please tell me you are finished with this excessively tedious business.”

Cylas rises to stand, his hips creaking. He gestures to the racks. “Perhaps she will consent to select a color?”

“We have no time for dithering,” Zephele says with an imperious wave of her hand. “Make her a pair of boots and a pair of breeches out of each and every one of these colors of kidskin. Have fun with the buttons.”

Malora is startled by the enormity of the order. There are at least twenty different colors of leather. But Cylas nods amiably. “I should have a prototype made from muslin ready to fit her tomorrow.”

As they leave the shop, Zephele wakes up Sunshine, who has been dozing in a pile of furs, then she calls out to Cylas, “The People extend their heartfelt thanks in advance for all your diligent and skillful labors!” Then she winks at Malora and says, “I told you I’d find a way to spoil you, didn’t I? Oh, this is entirely too much fun!”

Malora, Zephele, and Sunshine are now heading down an alarmingly steep hill. Malora wonders whether it is treacherous when wet and how the centaurs, not to mention the horses they employ, manage it without slipping. Zephele, leaning back as she descends, explains that Mount Kheiron’s roads circle the mountain in rings intersected by forty-eight
ramplike roads that converge at the Mane Way. Three tiers down, they depart from the ramp onto the ring road, where there are more homes, less grand than those on the Mane Way but finer than anything in the Settlement. Here, too, children play games with balls and dolls and hoops, shouting back and forth. The sight of Malora inspires a new game. The object is to sneak up behind her and tug her braid before she can catch them. Zephele tries to shoo them away, but Malora is happy to play the game. Unlike Longshanks and the other strangers she has encountered, these frisky young colts and fillies are willing to risk bodily contact. Still, she lets them win for fear of catching them and turning them fearful.

The road comes to a dead end at a large gray building. At first, it reveals an unusually dull facade. But then they come around to the side, and Malora stops and stares. Three towering paintings rise up before her, separated by single columns of gray stone. They are the most beautiful paintings Malora has yet seen in a city filled with beautiful artwork.

“This is where the Hands of painting, sculpting, and draftsmanship are taught and practiced,” Zephele says.

The paint glistens in the sunlight, as if it were fresh. The three centaurs pictured, shown against a background of forests and gardens, are, as Zephele explains, each performing their Hand—sketching, painting, and sculpting. They are so vividly rendered that they look alive. The subjects the artists are studying are also in the paintings: a horse, a bowl of fruit, and a centaur maiden. Their respective works of art are depicted in progress, a partially rendered drawing of the horse, a half-painted bowl of fruit, and a centaur maiden statue, from the neck down, chiseled from a large block of stone. Above
the centaurs’ heads, putti hover, ready to hand the centaur artists fresh tools: stubs of charcoal, pots of paint, and various chisels.

A wide stone terrace stretches out beneath the paintings, where dozens of real centaurs, male and female, stand before wooden frames that Zephele calls easels. They are sketching or painting the landscape beyond: a forest spreading out like a large pool of dark green water ruffled by the wind. Heads pop up to observe the view, then duck back to the easel. They look like a herd of grazing horses with their heads all facing in the same direction, only instead of the sound of munching, there is the harsh rasp of the chalk and charcoal and brushes against paper. What a peculiar waste of time, Malora thinks.

“Poor Orrie’s distillery is hidden away in the dingy old basement of this glorious edifice. His quarters are really too shabby for words,” Zephele says as she leads Malora through a wide entryway. “I tell Orion he simply must find new, more elegant quarters in which to practice his Hand, where it is light and airy, but light and airy apparently don’t conduce to alchemy.” They enter a high-ceilinged room, where more centaurs, with paintbrushes poised, contemplate a large bowl of fruit elevated on a draped table. As they pass through the room, one or two centaurs look up from their paintings, their eyes widening at the sight of Malora. In the next room, a centaur draped all in white stands on a platform, as still as a statue, while other centaurs stare at him raptly and trace his likeness onto paper. The centaur is ancient, with a grizzled head and a sunken chest. Malora feels sorry for the old fellow, who looks rather weary.

“Sunshine,” Zephele whispers to the Twan. “Settle down
here and take a little snooze. Perhaps the artists will paint you while you sleep and give this poor old fellow a rest.”

Then Zephele leads Malora down a long, shallow staircase that ends in front of a wooden door. “We must knock and make ourselves known,” she whispers to Malora. “Once I went in without knocking and he was very cross, indeed.” Zephele lifts her hand and raps once.

“Enter!” Orion calls from inside.

“You might want to hold your nose,” Zephele warns as she turns the knob and pushes open the door.

The smell overwhelms Malora at first. Hundreds of scents assault her. It is as if she has entered a room containing a mob of people, each trying to elbow the others aside to make him- or herself known to her. There are loud, brash scents and pale, retiring ones, floral scents and fruity, earthy ones, and scents as salty as fresh blood. There are woody scents and spicy ones, smoky scents and moldy ones, rich, meaty scents and grassy ones. There are scents that smell delicious enough to eat, and others that make Malora want to gag. She doesn’t hold her nose as Zephele has directed, because she doesn’t want to hurt Orion’s feelings. But she does switch to breathing through her mouth, because it is the only way she can dim the clamor in her head of the many scents.

Malora’s eyes now register the narrow-shelved cases that
line the walls, teeming with glass vials of all shapes and colors, shimmering like gems in the pale light sifting down from windows set high up near the ceiling. Orion, swaddled in a black leather wrap, stands over a fire in the center of the room, over which a covered pot simmers. Running out of the top of the lid, like a twisting vine, is a long, coiling metal pipe. The pipe, sweating and dripping and wrapped in cloth, makes its winding way to yet another pot. On a tufted cushion, off in the shadows, she spies West, snoring softly.

Now that her nose is accustomed to the distillery, she picks out one scent more dominant than all the others—and as familiar to her as an old friend, although she can’t quite place it. Orion dips his hand into a bucket and removes a wet cloth. He wrings it out and packs it around a section of the coiled pipe. Drying his hands on the front of his wrap, he looks over and gives her a warm and welcoming smile.

“You came!” he says.

“Of course we came,” Zephele says. “Did you think we wanted to spend the entire day as prisoners of the polymath?”