In the centre of the square stood a statue of a lady September knew well by now, patted together from cream-colored crumpets. Below her benevolent gaze, a long table groaned with food: apple dumplings and apple tartlets and candied apples and apple chutney in big crystal bowls, huge roasted geese glistening brown and gold, giant potatoes and turnips split and steaming, rum cakes and blackberry pies, sheafs of toffee bundled together like wheat, squash soup in tureens shaped like stars, golden pancakes, slab
Umm Bano is a magician of power and dispenser of supernatural justice on behalf of the Queen of Vijayanagara. That empire, true to its name, has victoriously spread across not only the subcontinent but throughout firang lands. Magic, operating on many levels, is the substrate from which Vijayanagara rules. As a world imperium, it faces not only physical threats but also aetheric ones, from within and from without. A college of magic has rigorously instructed Umm Bano in the arts dark, defensive, offensive a
On the table the appetisers were waiting: eggs stuffed with mushrooms and mayonnaise, red and black caviar canapés, beetroot and prune salad, the Olivier salad mandatory at every Soviet feast, home-made marinated roast peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, herrings and dill pickle, thinly sliced yellow cheese and various kinds of sausage, with larger or smaller lumps of fat. On the windowsill stood bottles of wine and champagne, vodka and brandy, Borzhomi mineral water and orangeade. From The House with the Stai