She needed to get back to the tent and start preparing dinner. Atark would be there tonight, and on the rare times when he did eat dinner with Thelena, he was always very prompt and expected the meal to be ready. She picked up the bucket and her heavy coat and went down the hallway. The place was full of Kaifeng, but they paid her no mind, and she wove her way between them. When she entered the more formal (and cooler) areas, she stopped to put her coat on. There was a large gilt-frame mirror on the marble wall across from her, and she stopped in shock when she saw the strange woman looking at her from it. Is that really me?
The face seemed familiar, in spite of the new scar on the right cheek, but the eyes… There was a tiredness and pain—and fear—in those eyes which had no place in her memory of the person she once was. That memory was of a smiling girl modeling a white, frilly wedding gown. What had ever become of that gown? Had it been burned in the fort, or had some Kaifeng woman cut it up for rags? The thought made her very sad. Phell had bought her that dress. It was gone, he was gone, the ring he had given her was gone, too. She had tried not to think about things like that, but now the memories came flooding back and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Crying did no good, she had learned that, but she could not help herself. A few people glanced in her direction as they passed, but she was just another weeping slave. The city was full of them. She finished putting on her coat and lacing it up. She wiped her nose on the sleeve and picked up the bucket again as she headed for the door.
Suddenly, a strong arm grabbed her and she was pulled through a different door into a small cloakroom. Two men were there, and for an instant, Kareen was afraid that she would be raped again. She didn’t scream—she’d learned not to scream—she just looked at the pair with fear-filled eyes. One of the men was quite old and bearded, but the other was younger. They stared at her intently, but the looks on their faces were not ones of lust.
“You are Atark’s slave?” asked the younger one. He was nearly whispering, and it was hard to understand him, but she managed to figure out what he said and she nodded her head. “You live in his tent?” She nodded again. What was this all about?
The older one talked rapidly to the younger, and she could not catch more than a few words. The younger one turned back to her. “Is there a something something in the tent?” Kareen wasn’t sure what he had asked. Something in the tent, but she did not understand several of the words.
“Forgive me, lord, but I do not understand,” she said. That phrase she knew how to say perfectly! The young one got angry and slapped her, but not terribly hard. The old one touched his shoulder and shook his head. He said some more, and then the young one addressed her again.
“Is there a small…” he tapped the door and then the small table. The word he used was similar to firewood. Wood? A small wood what? The man held his hands out about a foot apart and then moved them so that one was above the other and then again so that one was in front of the other. He kept moving them, and Kareen realized that he was defining a shape like a…
“Box!” she exclaimed in Berssian. “A small wood box!” The two men looked puzzled and she could see they could not understand Berssian. But they seemed to realize that she had understood the question.
“Is there one in the tent?” asked the young one urgently. A wood box? In the tent? She tried to think. There wasn’t anything quite that size or shape that she could remember except for…Atark’s box! The little box that he let no one other than Gettain touch, not even Thelena. Atark treated it like it contained precious gems. And there were times when he went to his little tent carrying the box… “Is there?” snarled the man. Kareen nodded yes.
“Can you get it? Bring it to us?”
“No!” she exclaimed. The young one grew angry again and drew a knife. Kareen gasped and pressed against the wall at her back. “Please, Lord! There are guards! Always guards!” For an instant, she thought he was going to kill her, but the old one said something and shook his head again. The young one slowly put the point of the knife to her throat.
“Say nothing or you die!” he hissed. Kareen nodded her head as much as the knife would allow.
“Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord!”
The men left the room, leaving her alone. She was still clutching the bucket, although half the water had spilled. She stood there, breathing hard, for a long time. Then she pulled herself together and hurried back to the tent.
* * * * *
Thelena looked at the singing, dancing swarm of people in the enormous ballroom and told herself that she should be as happy as all of them. It was the Mid-Winter Festival and celebrations were going on all over the city. The Kaifeng had never seen anything like this. Usually there would be no more than a single tribe gathered together to celebrate surviving halfway through the winter. But now, countless thousands had gathered in Berssenburg, and the gaiety was without bounds. The great ballroom of the royal palace was filled with the leaders and their families. Hundreds of slaves saw to it that they lacked for neither food nor drink. Musicians and jugglers and tumblers provided entertainment. Thelena should have been happy.
But she wasn’t.
In spite of the crowd, there was not a person within ten feet of her. She had a tiny island of complete privacy in a sea of people. She thought she had become used to the way her people shunned her, but somehow it had never been quite so obvious as it was now. There were no taunts or nasty looks or whispered comments, they simply ignored her. There were a thousand people around her, and she felt completely alone. Her father was off with the kas playing politics, and she had no one to talk to.
A slave walked past with a tray full of wine goblets. Thelena grabbed one and drank deeply. She was drinking a lot more wine lately. When she had been a slave, she had rarely had the chance. Now she could have as much as she wanted. In fact, she could have as much of just about anything as she wanted. Gold, jewels, furs, she had but to ask Gettain, and they would appear. She could have anything. Anything but friends. Except for Kareen, she had no friends at all. Not a one. There was her father, of course, but he was often away; and even when he was there, he seemed more distant. She knew he was under a lot of strain with his teaching and all the politics between the kas, but it all meant that he had little time for her.
And she was twenty years old and had no husband.
Most Kaifeng women married by age fifteen. Her mother had been working to arrange a match for her when the Varags caught them. She had actually been talking to her about prospects when those monsters rose up out of the grass. Those old prospects were all long gone now, of course, and there would be no new ones, either. Four years as a slave in a Berssian fort had seen to that. No respectable man would ever want her now. They would all know what had happened to her, and she wasn’t even pretty anymore. A broken nose and missing teeth had marred whatever beauty she once had.
She took another drink from the cup and looked at the people dancing. Mostly young men and women, although a few older ones were joining in. They laughed and sang and flung each other about the floor in a traditional dance. Many of the watchers were clapping their hands in time with the music. They all looked to be having a wonderful time. She would dearly love to be out there dancing with them.
She was standing there, her mood growing blacker and blacker, when she noticed a young man a few yards away glancing at her. He was not particularly large or handsome, but he kept looking at her. She did not recognize the pattern or color of the ribbons in his braids. He must come from a distant tribe, newly arrived to the city. He saw her looking back at him, and he smiled awkwardly. She was so startled, it took her several moments to gather the wits to smile back at him. He blushed and looked away, but he soon looked back and smiled again. A strange thrill went through her. No man had smiled at her like that in she could not remember how long. A very long time, she thought. Indeed, it had been a long time since any man had touched her. She had managed to avoid the men in the fort for a number of months before it fell—and there
had been no one at all since then. Nearly a year since she had been with any man, she realized. Once, she had felt quite certain that she would never miss the touch of a man again, but lately she had felt…different. And that fellow over there wasn’t bad looking at all.
Her daydreaming was interrupted when another man came up to the one who had been smiling at her and whispered in his ear. His eyes jerked up to stare at her and his smile vanished. His face went pale, and he turned and plunged into the crowd and vanished. She stared at the spot he had occupied, holding in her anger and her tears, for a long time.
It was still early and the celebration barely started, but there was nothing that could keep her here now. With a face as rigid as stone, she gave her empty cup to a slave and went back to the tent. The air in the courtyard was very cold, but there was not much wind. Snow had been banked up several feet high around the sides of the tent, and the path leading to the entrance had been stamped down and then covered with some straw. Two guards sat near a roaring fire a few yards away. Thelena told them to go inside and get warm and have something to drink. They thanked her, but they did not move. She shrugged and went in the tent.
The fire had burned down and she threw some more wood on it. She sat next to it, stirring the ashes and staring into the hot coals. There was something fascinating and restful about a fire. She remembered how she loved to be put in charge of the family fire when she was little. There were times when she had pretended the fire was another pet, something she would feed and take care of. She had had a number of pets as a child, mostly ponies. She wondered what had become of the horse she had been riding when the Varags caught her. Sela had been its name, but she never saw it in the fort after her capture.
She glanced over to where Kareen was sleeping. She’d begged to be excused from serving at the celebration, and Thelena had allowed it. Kareen had been acting rather oddly the last week or so. She wasn’t sure what was wrong. Kareen claimed she had not been raped since the city fell, so it wasn’t that. As she watched, she could see the blankets shaking.
“Are you cold, Kareen?” She wasn’t sure if she was awake, but she answered immediately.
“Yes, a little. But thank you for the extra furs, Thelena. They help a lot.”
“You are welcome. But there is another trick to staying warm that works very well. I’ve been meaning to suggest it.”
“What?”
“Snuggling. Two people together will stay much warmer than one alone. I’m getting a bit chilled sitting here. Do you want to try?”
“All…all right.”
Thelena noticed the slight hesitation on Kareen’s part, but she crawled over anyway, found the edge of the furs and blankets, and slid in next to Kareen.
“Brrr! You’re cold! I think I’m getting the worst of this bargain!” she protested.
“Patience. Roll over on your side, facing away from me.” Kareen did so, and Thelena snuggled up against her and draped her arm across Kareen’s waist. They were both fully clothed, so it took a while to feel the shared warmth, but after a while Kareen sighed.
“You are right: it is warmer this way.”
“It can be a little awkward until you get used to it, but it still beats waking up shivering every half-hour.”
They lay like that for a while. Then Kareen stirred slightly. “Did you have fun at the festival? It still seems early, and I can hear the music in the distance.”
“It was too loud and too crowded and I was tired,” lied Thelena. She did not fool Kareen for an instant.
“I’m sorry they were cruel to you, Thelena. People can be so awful sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen how they treat you. It is not fair. You did not choose to be caught by the Varags. And except for chance, you would have died—like they expected you to.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter to them.”
“I’ve sometimes wondered how I would be treated if I ever got back to my own people,” said Kareen. “There are those who would act just like your people do. They would shun me and treat me just as cruelly.”
Thelena hugged herself to Kareen a little tighter. It seemed like she was the only one she could talk to anymore.
“It is so unfair,” continued Kareen. “The men want their own women to be proper and chaste, but they go out and rape other men’s women with hardly a thought. But if their own women are raped, that leaves them in disgrace. As if we had a choice!”
“It is unfair, but I doubt it will ever change.”
“No.” They were both silent for a while, but then Kareen spoke again. “Thelena? Do you think your father will ever take me to his bed?”
Thelena twitched. She had wondered the same thing herself. “Would…would you wish him to?”
“I…I don’t know. I’m very afraid of your father, and I know he does not like me. But it would be the only way I could ever be more than just a slave. And…and…” she trailed off.
“You are much more than ‘just a slave’ to me, Kareen. You are my friend. My best friend.”
Kareen took hold of her hand and squeezed. “Thank you, Thelena. Having you to talk with is the only thing that makes this bearable for me.”
Thelena’s thoughts turned back to the man at the festival. “Kareen? Do you ever get…lonely?” There was a long pause, but eventually she answered.
“Yes.”
Thelena wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say next—or if she should say anything at all. Her own feelings were swirling around, but her affection for Kareen was growing stronger and she could not stay silent. “I…I learned about the customs of your people in the fort, and I know that our customs must seem very strange to you. But here, there are always more women than men in our tribes, and the men can often be away for weeks or months at a time tending the herds or on the great hunts. There is nothing wrong or unusual for the women to seek comfort with each other. I care for you a great deal, Kareen.”
The woman next to her did not reply, and Thelena mentally kicked herself for having said anything. Kareen certainly was aware of what she had told her, but that did not mean she would ever accept it. She came from a very different culture.
“I’m sorry, Kareen. I should not have said that.” She started to move away, but Kareen seized her hand.
“Don’t go. It…it’s all right. I care for you, too, Thelena… but I don’t think I’m ready for anything else just yet. Of course, you could always command me…”
“I would never do that!”
“I know. But for now just hold me.” Thelena snuggled closer and hugged Kareen tight and closed her eyes.
“Just hold me.”
* * * * *
Atark went out into the courtyard. The icy night air felt refreshing after the heat of the ballroom. He was looking for Thelena. He had intended to spend time with her at the festival, but there had been an endless stream of people insisting that they talk with him. By the time he had managed to deal with all of them (or most of them, there were still others waiting) Thelena had gone. Friends had told him of how the other people had snubbed her and his heart ached for his daughter. The swine! Hadn’t she suffered enough? He wanted to find her. He would ask her to dance with him. They would go out on the floor together and they would dance. The others could sneer all they liked, but he would say to the whole world that he loved his daughter! The rest could all be damned!
As he neared the tent, he immediately noticed that the guards were gone, although their fire still burned brightly. That was strange, but it was very cold. Perhaps they went in the palace for a while. He silently pulled aside the tent flap and stepped inside. He looked to the spot where Thelena usually slept, but the blankets and furs there were empty. His heart sank in disappointment. Where could she be? He hoped she had not run off somewhere because of the snubbing.
He glanced over to where the slave woman was sleeping. He considered asking her if she had seen Thelena. Then he noticed that the lump in the furs was strangely large. He took a
careful step closer and realized that there were two people there. Thelena and the slave? He froze in place, locked in complete indecision. They might just be trying to stay warm. It was very cold and this was a common and effective way to keep warm. Even if they were doing more than keeping warm, there was nothing whatsoever wrong with it. He told himself that, and he believed it. Or part of him did. Part of him said that it was an accepted practice among his people. He’d never encountered it personally, since he and his father and grandfather had all only had a single wife, but he knew it was common in other tents. And that same part of him said that Thelena had so little chance of finding contentment in the arms of a man, why should she be denied even this?
But there was another part of him that did not want to believe it at all. That part was intensely jealous and angry. And guilty, too. His daughter should not have to turn to a Berssian slave to find comfort for her hurts! He should have been there for her when she needed him. He might not be able to give her the physical love she might want, but for everything else… It felt as though he had failed her again. The immediate impulse to pull off the furs and blankets and drag the two apart faded. Whatever was going on there, he would not pain his daughter further by visibly disapproving. But the slave definitely had to go…
He stood there for a few moments longer and then silently made his way out of the tent. The guards were still missing and that was odd. Probably inside warming themselves. He did not especially mind, but Gettain would have a fit if he found out. Atark walked back toward the doors leading to the ballroom. He still had other people he must meet and talk to and he was not in the mood.
Fires of Memory Page 41