“Shall we walk around the perimeter of the rotunda and try to spot your escort?” Valen asked her courteously.
“Oh yes—thank you.” Selena nodded.
Of course, it would have been faster to walk straight through the center of the rotunda, but nobody seemed to be doing that. After a moment, as they walked slowly along, she saw why.
A sharp drumbeat suddenly cut through the chatter—ratta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tat! And then loud voice called out,
“Masters and Dependent Females, Visitors to our fair planet—may I present, the Stilt Dancers of the Torpal Peaks!”
Suddenly, the center of the rotunda was filled with people dressed in elaborately colorful costumes, all of them wearing gold and silver stilts strapped to their feet. They started dancing, doing moves that Selena wouldn’t have dared to try even in heels—let alone seven-foot tall stilts! Yet they were amazingly graceful, their long costumes swishing and swirling around the flashing metallic stilts as they bobbed and weaved to the bewitching music that was pouring through the rotunda.
“Oh…” she whispered, enthralled by the sight, but even more by the music. She could still hear the drumbeat but there was also some kind of flute playing and something else that sounded like a French horn. On Earth, a display like this might have been clownish or played for comedy. But these stilt dancers were absolutely serious—they reminded Selena of a well-trained ballet corps as they executed their routine flawlessly.
She hadn’t even realized that she’d stopped in her tracks until a voice in her ear said,
“Beg pardon, my lady, but would you like to buy some lovely foodle-smoon? Finest foodle-smoon on all of Ma’shorka Centra!”
“Um, excuse me? Foodle-smoon? What’s that?” Selena said uncertainly.
Dragging her eyes away from the beautiful display, she saw that she and Valen were standing right beside a small kiosk selling what appeared to be tiny, incredibly intricate, jeweled flowers. They came in all different colors, and their petals and leaves were in all different shapes, but each one seemed to be an exquisite work of art. They sparkled like precious gems under the warm golden light of the display case they were in.
“Foodle-smoon is a kind of extremely rich paste made with the cream of the foodle flower,” Valen leaned down to murmur in her ear. “It’s refined and sweetened and then molded into elaborate shapes—most often flowers—before being candied.”
“It looks more like jewelry than food,” Selena remarked.
The foodle-smoon dealer laughed.
“Well, you could wear it, my lady, but it might melt. The cream-fat content is extremely high, which is one reason it tastes so nice when it melts on your tongue.”
“They look beautiful and delicious,” Selena said regretfully. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any money.”
“Oh, of course you don’t, my lady!” The dealer looked shocked at the idea. “Your Master will have the money of course.” He looked up at Valen appealingly. “Now, fine Sir—don’t you wish your lady to try a bit of the best foodle-smoon on the whole planet?”
“Oh, no—he’s not—” Selena began but Valen said,
“As a matter of fact, I would like my lady to try it.” He winked gravely at her, when she started to protest again, and shook his head. “I won’t hear any more about it. Pick the one you want. This gentleman is right—everyone should try foodle-smoon at least once, when they come to Ma’shorka Centra.”
Feeling both embarrassed and pleased—which was a strange combination of emotions—Selena looked at the display case again. The tiny, jeweled flowers were all small—they ranged from some the size of her fingernail to others that were about as big as her thumb—but all of them were beautiful. They were displayed on a kind of black velvet cloth and they were rotating slowly on their circular platforms inside the case, which made them look even more like jewelry.
“I’ll take…that one,” she said, pointing to a tiny white flower, about the size of her pinky fingernail. It was the smallest one she could find and, she hoped, the least expensive.
But to her surprise, Valen overruled her.
“Nonsense—you’ll barely be able to taste it,” he objected. “We’ll take that one,” he told the vendor, pointing to a much larger flower with long, shimmering red petals and broad green leaves, that looked a little like a tiger-lily to Selena.
“Oh, but you’ve already bought me lunch, you really shouldn’t!” she protested, looking up at the big Kindred.
The vendor, who was in the act of reaching into the display case to get the flower candy Valen had chosen, looked up with a shocked expression on his face.
“Pardon me, Sir, but you let your lady contradict you in such a way?” he asked, frowning.
“I wasn’t…I mean—” Selena started.
“My lady is new to the ways of Ma’shorka Centra,” Valen answered smoothly. “But yes, I allow her to speak her mind.” He gave her a stern look. “Though sometimes I am forced to punish her afterwards.”