Warmaidens

by Kelly Coon

  “What? Stop it! We can’t go do it right now! We don’t have a plan!”

  Besides, we were being watched. Bikku and her friend were chewing their grapes, openly staring at us. They turned back around when Iltani bugged her eyes half out of her head at them.

  “This is the plan! Right here, right now. We’re doing this.” Iltani pulled Nanaea and me so close, her brew-drenched breath assaulting us. “We have poison. We sneak in through the kitchens. I run up there and pour it down his throat.”

  “Yes, and then you die. Iltani, we need to think things through. Take our time and deliberate—”

  She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “NO, we will miss this opportunity if we don’t act now. Sometimes you need to go with your gut and make a move!”

  “We told Dagan we’d meet him at Assata’s so we could plan, and that’s what we need to do. Anything else is too risky. Besides—” I lowered my voice, for who knows if these women were loyal Uruku followers. “What’s the point in doing you-know-what this very second if the ensis aren’t in agreement to let Arwia take over the throne?”

  “Well, we could figure it out.” She cocked her hands on her hips, which looked ridiculous considering she was wearing a man’s beard.

  I stared at the walls of the Palace, which were merely fifty handsbreadths to our right. At Nanaea’s face, which was too beautiful even if she put the beard back on. At my own shabby disguise that was rapidly disintegrating in the midday sun. How many times could we get back in here to do this? How many more times would we be this close?

  “Kammani, surely with the level of poverty in the city, a majority of ensis would welcome her in,” Nanaea said. “People are starving. Wouldn’t they want to get out from under his rule?”

  It would only take a few hours to ride back and get Arwia. If we delivered the poison, and he died, the Palace would be in shambles trying to figure out what to do. In that time frame, we could ride in with her and she could announce that she’d never died in the tomb and take her throne. In fact, if Uruku was already dead, Sarratum Tabni would likely send in her army to make sure it went smoothly. Without Uruku pulling the strings, surely the guardsmen of Alu wouldn’t fight.

  Would they?

  I chewed on my lip and took the blue vial from Iltani’s bag. As I did so, I felt unease flowing through me. “Iltani, getting into the Palace will be difficult and dangerous. It will mean risking all of our lives. Besides, Dagan will be looking for us at Assata’s soon.”

  “We can get in and out of the Palace in an hour. Easy,” she said.

  “We don’t even have food to deliver it in.”

  “What about those grapes the fishmongers are eating?” Nanaea eyeballed the women, who were glancing at us out of the corners of their eyes.

  Gods of the skies.

  But…they did have a point.

  I rubbed my forehead and sighed.

  We had to do it. For the sake of the rest of our lives. For the sake of all of their lives here in this city.

  I held the bottle up to the sunlight and shook the serum. “Fine. But we’ll need different disguises.”

  “Haha!” Iltani rubbed her hands together. “I knew you’d come to your senses.”

  “I can take care of that. Hand me your beard, Kammani.” Nanaea stowed her own beard in her pocket. “You’ll be dressed as a noblewoman. You’ll wipe all of that off your face, but walk with a straight back and keep your chin up. As if you’re truly wealthy.”

  “Without any disguise at all? They’ll know who I am!”

  Iltani snorted. “Oh please. You are not as remarkable-looking as you believe, as much as Dagan thinks otherwise.”

  I bristled. “Iltani, I’ve had about enough—”

  “Shh!” Nanaea whispered, looking at the fishmongers. Bikku was openly staring at us. “You will blend in, and that is an extreme virtue. Now hand over your beard if you want to live. We must walk out of here different than we came in.”

  Begrudgingly, my pride stinging from Iltani’s bluntness, I peeled the beard off, and Nanaea picked the bitumen off my cheeks as I winced.

  Nanaea attached my beard to her face, and stuck a bit of the black goo onto her front tooth to make it look as if it were gone. She let her long black curls go free, tied a scrap of linen over her forehead, and flipped her vest inside out. Suddenly, she was a different person.

  “And I’ll deliver our gift as plain old me.” Iltani pulled the beard off, stepped out of her long cloak, took off the trader scarf, and wiped off the heavy lines that Nanaea had painted on her forehead and around her eyes. “I’ve a better shot at going unnoticed as a poor girl than a trader in the Palace.”

  Nanaea looked her up and down. “You’re right. It’ll work.”

  Iltani eyeballed me speculatively as I tried to make myself appear to be a wealthy noblewoman, smoothing down my hair and shrugging out of the trader cloak to reveal my plain linen tunic.

  “It isn’t enough.” She shook her head. “Nanaea, look at her.”

  Nanaea fussed with my hair and belted up my tunic to expose more of my knobby knees, but neither appeared satisfied with the results. Annoyed, I yanked my tunic back down. “There’s nothing else to do.”

  “Oh yes there is.” Iltani jerked her head at the fishmonger sitting next to Bikku. She wore a deep purple tunic, which was clean, expertly woven…and about my size.

  “What?” the woman asked around her bite, eyeing us suspiciously.

  Out of her pocket, Iltani produced a mina. “Give us your tunic. We’ll give you the tradesman cloak in return.”

  The woman stuck up her pert nose. “Go to Alani. This is my favorite.” She swiveled on her stool, and before I could stop her, Iltani was out of a crouch and had the woman on her knees, one hand in her hair, the other pressing the dagger from her thigh into the woman’s throat.

  “Well, you lost the opportunity for payment. Now you’re wagering with your life. Remove your tunic.”

  “Take it! Take it!” the young woman screeched.

  “Iltani! Let her go!” I glared at her.

  Ungracefully, she dropped the woman to the ground. Just as the woman was opening her mouth to scream, I grabbed the mina from Iltani and thrust it into her hand. “For your silence. And”—I looked at Bikku—“we’re going to need your grapes.”

  “For Lugal Uruku?” The woman’s round face was swollen in the heat. She had to be miserable in her condition.

  Iltani’s eyes hardened into copper coins. “I don’t care if you’re with child,” she growled. “I will beat you senseless if you open that mouth of yours.”

  “Iltani, stop it!”

  She pointed the knife at me. “You may be an A-zu, but that doesn’t mean we always have to heal people, my friend.” She slowly slid the dagger under the woman’s nose. “I’ve killed before, and I’m not afraid to do it again.”

  “You’ve never killed anyone, Iltani. Be quiet. Put the dagger down.”

  Bikku blinked at me, unfazed by Iltani’s threats. “You’re an A-zu? I always wanted to be one of them.” She wiped a trickle of sweat from her temple. “No, what I meant was that if you were talking about that man pretending to rule, I can help you. You can have the grapes. Her tunic.” She pointed to her friend, who was sobbing on the ground. “That Uruku killed my husband, and he’s called a bridal gifting to happen in two days’ time. One of my friends is being gifted in the ceremony so her father doesn’t have to pay the dowry.”

  Bridal giftings often happened west of us, in other cities, but not down here in the south. Young women were rounded up like cattle in the public square, usually the poor and those from noble families who had gotten to a certain age and were not receiving offers of marriage. The men of the city were given their choice of brides, wealthiest men choosing first. Neither a bride price nor a dowry had to be
paid. I gritted my teeth for those poor young women sitting in a holding pen somewhere, some likely younger than Nanaea.

  “And the scum Uruku is allowing this to happen.” The thought made my skin prickle with disgust.

  She pursed her lips. “Lugal Uruku says it is his gift to the poor. Providing a life of means for their daughters.”

  Likely his way to try to get them to calm down, though it seemed that any unrest was being squashed immediately by the lack of food.

  I studied the woman closely. Her eyes lacked any kind of affect in them as she talked, and I realized what I was seeing. It was the same face I’d seen many times on those who had experienced the stark tragedy of a family member gone too soon: shock. But burning inside there was a small fire, too. She was serious. And though it went against my better judgment, something else burned inside, urging me to go, go, go.

  “How can you help?”

  “I’ll get you into the Palace in the fish cart. Through the kitchens, like your wild friend over here says.”

  Nanaea stood and straightened her beard. She looked more manly than I could have thought with the added bulk of the vest. And Iltani was a poor girl, likely sweating over bubbling pots of stew.

  Will this work? Or will we die?

  “Don’t even think about changing your mind—I see your brain working in there.” Iltani poked me in the temple. “I’m already geared up. If we get to land our heels on that bug and squash him, we should all take every risk we can.”

  MY HEART POUNDING, hands shaking, I crept with Iltani and Nanaea around the ovens in the courtyard kitchens as the Palace workers bustled about, faces flushed. The fishmongers had dropped us off in the cover of some olive trees, the grapes tucked into my sash. Once inside, we’d find a bowl from one of the lower storage rooms, add the grapes, and lace them with the gochala. Then Iltani would deliver them to Uruku as a serving woman, and we’d pray he ate them swiftly.

  Bikku had sworn not to tell anyone we were sneaking inside, but her friend looked cagey. We’d threatened her entire family with a swift, painful death if she alerted anyone to our scheme, and terrified, she’d agreed to keep her trap shut.

  But just in case, we bound and gagged them in their wagon in a grove of fruit trees behind the Palace. If only I’d had the nerium to knock them out.

  My plan had been to act like we all belonged and saunter right in, but with the number of guardsmen around, it didn’t seem like the smartest move.

  They glowered from their posts, hands on the hilts of their sickleswords, likely to prevent theft by the kitchen workers as they sweated in the afternoon heat. The workers kneaded rounds of bread, pulling and twisting the dough. They chopped dates for desserts, and stirred great vats of stews over open flames for Uruku and Gudanna’s tables.

  Dogs wandered in and around the savory smells, noses lifted high, saliva hanging from mangy jaws. But no scraps were thrown to them. Any bits of fruit or fish or vegetables left over from these meals likely went into the mouths of the kitchen workers, though it wasn’t much, apparently. Their arms trembled with fatigue; their faces hung with the gray appearance of malnourishment. How awful it must be to work with food you couldn’t eat.

  But we could not help them right now.

  Soon.

  “On three.” I clasped Nanaea’s hand. Her deep brown eyes determined, pretty cheeks flushed, she set her chin.

  Iltani squatted in the dirt in front of us like a jackrabbit. She whipped her head around, dimples flashing with excitement. “One…two…three!”

  We darted from one oven to the next, hiding between it and the scraggly bushes lining the perimeter. The heat was suffocating, especially in the heavy silks of the noblewoman’s tunic. According to my memory, we’d need to run into the back corridor, find a staircase, and head up a long, narrow set of stairs in order to maneuver through the vast corridors to get to Uruku’s chamber.

  “Once more, and we’re in,” Nanaea whispered.

  “Again, on three. One…two…and…three!”

  We bolted for the Palace, but as we rounded the corner, out of eyesight of the kitchen workers, someone reached out and grabbed me and Nanaea around our waists. The grapes tucked into my tunic spilled all over the ground as we wriggled and squirmed.

  “Let them go!” Iltani demanded.

  The arms around us slackened, and with a firm yank, we tugged away from a young guardsman wearing gear too big for him. He unsheathed his sicklesword and leveled it at our throats. Iltani’s hand stilled on her thigh, close to her hidden dagger.

  “Why are you creeping so close to the kitchens?” The boy’s voice cracked with youth.

  Flustered, I said the only thing that came to my mind: “Because they’re unclean! Stay away from them!”

  He took a step back, his face distorted with fear. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve contracted leprosy!” I hissed. “Stay away or you will be infected yourself!”

  He took two more faltering steps backward, his brow furrowed. “Why are they not bound with cloths, then? Where are their sores?”

  Another guardsman stepped around the corner, sicklesword drawn. Iltani, Nanaea, and I stood closer together. This one was still young but had cunning eyebrows and a scowl. He pointed his weapon directly at my heart, which was beating so hard, I was certain they could see it through my tunic.

  “What are you doing with this tradesman and a poor gutter rat, noblewoman?”

  “I’m…I’m taking them to the temple to pray. They’ll die soon of their illness. Leave us to our business.”

  “No, get out of here. The Palace doesn’t need to be filled with disease.” He shooed us away from the corridor with a frown, but that would never do! We needed to be inside the corridor and on our way upstairs!

  “They’ll die!” I growled. “Let us pass.”

  Scowling, he advanced, holding his sicklesword in his barley stalk of an arm. And though it was thin, his arm did not shake as he pointed the weapon at my sternum.

  “Stay away,” I told the guards, holding my hands out as if to protect them. “The flesh-eating disease will infect you if you breathe the air that they expel.” I eyeballed Iltani and understanding filled her eyes immediately.

  She coughed openmouthed in their direction, and their faces twisted in fear. They backed away, ducking their chins into their chests, but the guardsman with the sword continued to train it on me.

  “We should kill them. Put them down.”

  “But they’re sick!” the younger one argued.

  “So? Fewer mouths for the city to feed.”

  “My ummum says it is of Alani to kill the weak! We’ll be cursed!”

  The older boy frowned. “She said that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well,” he sighed, looking between us and the younger boy, as if debating himself. “Stay here with them. I’m going to find Lamusa. He’ll know what to do.”

  The younger guardsman nodded, and the older one disappeared around the corner.

  “Now stay put.” The boy trained his own wobbly sicklesword on us. Iltani looked at me with a glint in her eye, and I knew she had a plan. She sidled up to him, hips swaying, the grin of Alani on her face.

  “You’re much too handsome to be wearing that awful frown.” She smirked. “Smile. Show me those teeth.”

  The boy flushed crimson. “Stay where you are.”

  She pressed her fingertip against the edge of the sicklesword. “Ooh!” She winced. “That’s sharper than I thought!” She sucked her finger. “I think I’ve cut it bad.” She looked up at him, eyes wide.

  Nanaea and I tensed, looking for an opportunity. A moment of weakness.

  And in one second, we had it.

  “Let me see.” The boy dropped his sword a handsbreadth, and that was all the space we needed.

 
Iltani kicked him between his legs, and he doubled over with an “Ooof!”

  I knocked the sword from his hands. “QUICK! Get his arms!”

  Iltani and I wrestled his wiry arms behind his back while he gurgled in pain, and Nanaea whipped the linen from her head and knotted it around his wrists.

  “His mouth!” I hissed as I held him still. “We have to shut him up like we did with the women!”

  “I’ve got it.” Iltani took the blunt edge of his sicklesword and whacked the boy in the temple with one swift crack. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he was still.

  “Get his legs. We have to hide him.” I spotted some scrub and hoisted him under his arms. “Over here!”

  Yanking and tugging, we managed to pull him over into the bushes and threw some branches on top of him. I checked his pulse to make sure Iltani hadn’t killed the poor boy, but he was fine. I wasn’t sure he would be when his friend came back.

  “Let’s go! We won’t have much time. We have to find more food since that stupid boy knocked all the grapes into the sand!” I whispered, and we darted into the cool, dank corridor, my heart beating hard and fast. There were empty doorways up and down.

  “Look into each one. They must keep the stores in one of these. Go. Go!” Iltani commanded.

  We raced from one room to another. But though I found dough rising in the warmth of the sun, hanks of meat hanging from hooks, and a room stocked with linens, there was no fresh food.

  “Kammani! Here!” Nanaea popped her head out of one chamber and motioned me across the hallway. The three of us ducked into a narrow pantry with shelves bearing casks of oils, nuts, and grains. The tang from baskets of overripe fruits filled the room, and assorted copper platters, bowls, and trays for serving gleamed with a high shine.