The three of them talked long into the night.
Chapter Sixteen
WHEN Tsorreh woke, she was in the laboratory, curled on the pallet that had been made up for her. Softness cushioned her body, and the stuffed pad gave off the faint scent of dried lavender. The coverlet was finely woven wool, dyed in a pattern of bright stripes. The degree of comfort had surprised her, for she had expected something thin and hard, a servant’s meager bed.
A hush filled the spacious chamber. Radiance sifted from the open door of the rooftop observatory and through the windows. By the angle and tint of the light, Tsorreh judged that it was morning. The enclosed space, filled with strange but curiously reassuring objects and the familiar smell of books and ink, created the sense of a place set apart. It was a place not utterly alien to the things and values she had always known, a place enclosed by walls visible and invisible.
From the rooms and corridors beyond the grounds of the estate came the sounds of everyday life. Footsteps, voices calling to one another—servants about their morning chores, she supposed. Once or twice, she caught a trill of birdsong from the garden courtyard. Within these walls, stillness held sway. Stillness and a blessed, fleeting solitude.
Since her arrival yesterday, Tsorreh had left the laboratory only a few times. It occupied one corner of the second floor, down the hall from a small toilet chamber. A bucket of water, kept filled, served to rinse the porcelain facility. Where the soiled water went then, Tsorreh did not know. Gelonian sanitation was efficient, judging by the absence of smell.
She could not hide here, she knew. She must learn the layout of the compound, the house with its courtyards and garden, the grounds. She must get to know the servants and determine which ones might help her and which she must avoid. If possible, she must build the alliances that would gain her access to the city beyond.
And then what? If she escaped Jaxar’s custody, where would she go? Nowhere in Gelon would be safe. Could she evade being caught, as well as the many hazards of a woman traveling alone in unknown lands, long enough to make her way back to Isarre? To Meklavar? The prospect of such a journey, undertaken in secrecy and attended at every turn by fear of discovery and in the absence of allies and resources, was daunting.
Tsorreh got to her feet and stretched. Her spine popped and her muscles ached in relief. She’d been too long abed, she thought, and needed something active to sharpen her wits. She went to the nearest bookshelf, noting with dismay the thickness of the dust. The scrolls had been placed neatly in slots, but without a system of identification. She suspected they were in as great disorder as the bound volumes. She drew in her breath for a sigh of exasperation, then quickly swallowed it, rather than risk sending billows of dust everywhere. She could easily tell which books Jaxar consulted frequently, for the bindings were relatively clean and little avenues of bare wood amid the grayish dust marked where the books had slid in and out. Dust coated her fingertips from brushing against only a few.
She glanced around the room. There must be a rag somewhere, perhaps buried in one of the piles of odd objects, bits of wood and metal wire, and unspun wool.
The door opened with a faint click of the latch. Tsorreh flinched at the sound. A girl, not much older than Danar, slid through the opening. Her nose was short and snubbed, and her black brows almost met in the center of her forehead in a single straight line. She would have been homely, except for the sweetness of her expression and the beauty of her hazel eyes. Her hair, a darker shade of chestnut than the usual Gelon red, had been tied in a single, severe braid, and she wore a knee-length white tunic, belted with a braid of brightly colored ribbons and pinned at the shoulders with little copper ornaments. Embroidered flowers brightened the neckline and sleeve hems. She carried a tray with a bowl of boiled millet, a pitcher, and a napkin.
A napkin! Perfect! Tsorreh stopped herself before she could snatch up the scrap of cloth and begin cleaning.
The girl came to a halt and inclined her head shyly.
“Is that for me? Thank you. It smells good.” Mixed with the faintly nutty aroma of the millet, Tsorreh inhaled the subtle scents of apricots and honey.
The girl looked startled, as if she had not expected to be addressed in understandable Gelone. She handed over the tray and began to scurry back through the doorway.
“Wait!” Tsorreh cried. “I don’t know your name.”
“Astreya, lady.”
The name certainly did not sound Gelon. Remembering Jaxar’s emphatic statement about not keeping slaves, Tsorreh asked, “Are you a servant?”
“Yes, indeed! My mother is the cook here.”
Cooks often knew more about the doings of their households than did their masters. “I wonder,” Tsorreh ventured, “could you take me to your mother? And to a place where I might wash, as well?”
Astreya inclined her head again. “Eat the food while it’s hot. I’ll be back for the tray.” With a sideways smile, she slipped through the door.
Tsorreh set the tray down beside her pallet. A spoon of carved horn had been tucked beneath the edge of the bowl. She dipped it into the porridge and found the millet was still warm. The sweetness of the fruit and honey filled her mouth. Her stomach rumbled, and she felt suddenly ravenous.
The girl came back just as Tsorreh was finishing the last tiny grains. She picked up the tray. “Come on, then.”
Astreya walked along at a business-like pace, indicating the direction of the family apartments in the wing that stretched to the south. The main building had been constructed as an open rectangle, with the central courtyard garden open to the sky. Apparently, Lycian had her own separate suite, with a balcony view overlooking the city. Lycian’s rooms, Tsorreh noticed, occupied the opposite end of the house from the laboratory. Tsorreh glimpsed the garden below, then followed Astreya down gloomy stairs and along a brief stretch of the shaded colonnade that ran around the courtyard.
The kitchen and bakery stood apart from the house itself, down a path of fine-grained gravel. A well and a large freestanding oven, rounded like a beehive, flanked the kitchen building. As they traversed the outdoor compound, Astreya pointed out servants’ quarters, gardening sheds, a little stable for Lady Lycian’s onager and Lord Danar’s horse, vegetable and herb gardens, and an orchard, the apple and pear trees pruned and espaliered for easy picking. The smell of sun-warmed herbs filled the air. Beyond the orchard, Tsorreh glimpsed the high stone walls she remembered from her arrival.
Astreya led the way through the wide open doorway and into the kitchen itself. The kitchen comprised a series of adjoining rooms, with areas for storage, preparation, and cooking. Piles of dishes, mostly metal pounded thin, were stacked in the washing area. Shelves held an array of pottery canisters, wooden boxes, and other containers. Braids of onions and garlic hung from the beams in one corner, as well as strings of sausages and what looked like wax-dipped cheeses.
A ruddy-faced woman bent over the iron pot that hung over a wide cooking hearth, stirring the contents with a long-handled wooden spoon. One girl chopped leeks and carrots on the table, while another scrubbed pots at the massive stone sink. A half-grown boy maneuvered a yoke with two buckets of water through the back door.
The woman at the hearth looked up from tasting the pot’s contents. Beneath the flush, presumably from her nearness to the banked fire, her complexion resembled Astreya’s, and the line of her dark brows and curve of her lips left no doubt in Tsorreh’s mind that this was indeed the girl’s mother. Like her daughter, the woman wore a simple, loose fitting dress, but hers fell to her ankles, and the shoulder clasps were fashioned from black wood, polished to a high sheen, and carved like entwined snakes. A bibbed apron strained across her ample breasts. Clearly, she enjoyed her own cooking.
“Ah, you must be our new guest, the foreign lady,” she said, without setting down her spoon. “I’m Breneya, cook here, and I see my girl’s got you fed.”
“Yes, thank you,” Tsorreh replied. She found herself liking both mother a
nd daughter. “The food was very good.”
“A sight better than you’d find in uncivilized parts.” Breneya looked pleased. “We’ll put some meat on your bones.”
Tsorreh glanced down at her body. She had always been slender, and the long, desperate flight through the Sand Lands and Isarre had pared her even further. The unbelted dress hung on her like a shapeless sack.
“Mamma,” Astreya said, “might I show this lady to the bathhouse?”
A bathhouse? Despite the awkwardness of the moment, Tsorreh’s muscles went weak with longing. Hot water, soap that did not leave her skin scoured raw, a soft towel, and the leisure to enjoy them—the prospect was marvelous beyond words.
“So you shall.” Breneya put down the spoon, wiped her hands on her apron, and bustled Astreya and Tsorreh toward the door. As they left, Tsorreh heard the older woman muttering, “That dress! Not fit for a decent woman to wear!”
Heat rose to Tsorreh’s face. Clearly, Cinath had sent her forth in nothing more than a slave’s robe. These women, free women, showed their status by adding personal adornments. Jaxar had said nothing. Perhaps he had not even noticed. But Lycian had.
Paying no heed to her mother’s comments, Astreya led Tsorreh back toward the main house, then down a branching, rock-lined path. The bathhouse itself was a compact stone structure with high-set, unglassed windows and a roof of glazed blue tiles that curved up at the edges, giving the appearance of frozen dancing waves. Willowy trees lined the path. White, intensely fragrant blossoms covered their branches, but could not entirely disguise the faint sulphuric tinge to the air. Tsorreh sniffed, recognizing the reek characteristic of natural hot springs. No wonder the baths were situated some distance from the main house.
They went around to the entrance, a series of broad steps leading downward to a landing. Passages opened to either side, presumably separating bathers either by sex or class.
A statue of a woman occupied a niche in the wall; she held a jug on one shoulder, one leg bent as if paused in mid-step and the other hip forming a graceful curve. Fresh flowers, both the white ones from the trees and a scattering of brighter petals, had been mounded around the statue’s feet.
Tsorreh paused before the statue. A gentle, benign presence radiated from the sculpted face, and something in the softly lowered gaze of the marble eyes suggested compassion, or so Tsorreh thought. How she sensed this, she did not know. Perhaps some force, kindly and welcoming, inhabited the statue.
With a rustle of silk, a pattering of sandaled feet, and a flurry of attending servants, Lycian burst from one of the bathhouse entrances into the lowered courtyard. Rosy color suffused her face, and her bright hair fell in damp curls over the nape of her neck. Her gown followed the same basic pattern of women’s dress in Gelon, but the iridescent rose-and-yellow silk was gathered at each shoulder into tiny jewel-studded pleats and held by golden clasps in the shape of flowering vines. Matching bands coiled around her upper arms and wrists. More gems winked along the hem of the scarf that fluttered about her shoulders. One of her attendants carried the little white lap-terrier, which began to yip as soon as it spied Tsorreh.
Lycian’s gaze lit upon Tsorreh, and she paused in mid-sentence, her lips parted. Frowning, she swept up the stairs.
Astreya backed up against the wall while attempting a deep obeisance. Tsorreh, unsure of the proper salutation in such circumstances, inclined her head. “Lady, your pardon.”
Lycian’s perfectly arched brows drew together. “Explain your presence here!”
“I was just going to—” Tsorreh began. Were servants not permitted access to the bathhouse? If that were true, why had Astreya brought her here? Why had Breneya, who had seemed so friendly, suggested it?
Have I stumbled into a nest of household plots and subterfuge?
She glanced at Astreya. Keeping her eyes lowered, the girl stammered, “Gracious lady, Lord Jaxar gave orders that this guest be made comfortable. I beg forgiveness if—”
“We’ll see about that!” Lycian cut her off. “It seems to me a scandalous indulgence to bathe in the middle of the day, when there is work to be done. If she has nothing better to do than idle around, splashing about in hot water, she can just as well be of use. She will go with you to the washery. See to it, girl, or you will soon find that slaves are not the only ones who can be whipped!”
Round-eyed, Astreya bowed again. “Lady—”
“Now!” Lycian drew back one hand. “Or have you forgotten where the dirty linens are kept?”
Acting more by instinct than rational thought, Tsorreh stepped between Lycian and the cowering girl. Lycian’s open palm, aimed with surprising force, caught Tsorreh flat on the cheek.
Tsorreh’s head snapped back with the force of the blow. Her face stung where Lycian’s long fingernails raked her skin. She staggered and caught herself against Astreya.
Tsorreh’s temper flared, fueled by pent-up anxiety and frustration, the days of fear and confusion, grief and horror. To have survived the siege and fall of a great city, the deaths of so many loved ones, flight and capture and the hideous mind-touch of the Qr priest in Gatacinne, only to be slapped about by this silly, pampered woman!
She took a step toward Lycian, only dimly aware of the fierce expression on her face and the menace in her posture. One of Lycian’s attendants yelped.
A hand touched Tsorreh’s shoulder. She spun around, a heartbeat away from striking out. Astreya stared at her, eyes white-rimmed and desperate. She took one of Tsorreh’s hands between her own and pulled her back up the steps. The girl’s grasp was surprisingly soft, entreating rather than compelling.
“Gracious lady,” Astreya bowed to Lycian, “she’s confused, she didn’t mean anything. She doesn’t know our laws or customs! Please, if you must punish anyone, it was my fault—”
“Get out of my sight! Immediately!”
“Yes, of course, gracious lady. Thank you, gracious lady.” Astreya whirled Tsorreh around and shoved her bodily up the path. Tsorreh started to speak, but Astreya hurried her away even faster.
By the time they were beyond Lycian’s hearing, Tsorreh had regained a measure of calm. If she had hoped Jaxar’s patronage would protect her within the compound, she now knew that to be an illusion. She did not know what power Lycian might have over non-slaves, but Astreya’s reaction suggested it was considerable. She did not know the customs here, whether Breneya and her daughter had any rights, if they were free to leave if they were mistreated, or what hold Lycian might have over them. Grimly, she thought that she would soon find out.
“I’m sorry to have brought trouble upon you,” she said to Astreya.
“You took the blow meant for me,” Astreya breathed.
“She had no right to strike you.”
“You don’t know what she’s like, what she can do! How she never forgets.” Astreya glanced back toward the bathhouse entrance. She bit her lower lip, clearly thinking she had already said too much.
“But you are not slaves! Surely you have the freedom to leave, to refuse her orders.”
“Once that was true. My mother has told me how it was when she was a child.” Astreya shook her head. “Now the laws are different. It is said that obedience is ordained by the gods for the greater glory of the Ar-King, may-his-splendor-never-grow-dim, and the Golden Land. If you or I dared, dared to—and Lady Lycian made a complaint against us for disruption of social order, it would become a matter for the public court. She could have us whipped. Or worse,” she added in a whisper.
“I don’t suppose the washery is that bad.” Tsorreh shrugged, resigned. “It’s useful work, after all. Someone has to clean the clothes.”
Astreya gave her another astonished look. “Oh, we don’t do that here! We take them to the best establishment in the cloth-groomers’ district. It’s on the other side of the city.”
Excitement tingled along the edges of Tsorreh’s mind. An image tantalized her—eluding the fragile custody of this young girl, bolting down a crowde
d street, hiding herself in a warren of alleys…
“Why so far?” she asked to cover her reaction. “Don’t you have a laundry for a household this size?”
“What do you think we are? Only poor people wash their own garments. Besides, the smell is terrible! You wouldn’t want to live anywhere near, if you could help it.” Astreya frowned. “It’s not the usual day for laundry, so Issios won’t be pleased.”
“Issios?”
“Steward here. He likes everything in its place, you know.”
“Oh yes, I’ve met him.”
“Don’t mistake me. He’s strict, but he’s fair. It’s just that he never smiles. Never. Not even at the Festival of The Bounteous Giver of Wine!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”
Astreya rolled her eyes, looking very much like an adolescent, but said nothing. They’d reached the house. A side entrance, one of many, led to a separate wing where the steward and other household managers had their quarters and offices.
The steward frowned when Astreya explained to him what she and Tsorreh were to do. He shook his head. “I cannot authorize her,” meaning Tsorreh, “to leave this compound, not when she has been given into the custody of my Lord Jaxar.”
And certainly not on the word of a mere servant girl, his tone indicated as well.
Astreya’s voice shook as she answered Issios, but she stood her ground. “Shall I send for Lady Lycian, then, so that she can repeat her words to you? Whose orders must I obey—yours or hers?”
For a moment, Issios looked as if he might strike Astreya. Then his angry expression vanished into a mask of tight control. “It is not your fault that you have been placed in such a position. I see that you are a dutiful child and have no wish to make mischief. A household runs best when there is one set of clear orders and a hierarchy that everyone understands.”
He suppressed a sigh, pressing his thin lips together. “If Lady Lycian has commanded you both to perform such an unusual duty, it is not for any of us to question her right to do so. I warn you that any deviation from the most proper behavior will place you beyond my protection. You will not be able to say in truth that I authorized this errand, only that I did not forbid it.”
The Seven-Petaled Shield Page 21