by Lesley Smith
Inside the temple, it was oddly cool, as if the place was frozen in time. Incense was burning and Ishvei’s statue dominated the centre of the hallowed worship hall. She was larger than a Kashinai and carved from starstone; her skin pale white with gold and silver veins that sparkled in the flame light. Dressed in simple clothes, Ishvei’s tail curled around one leg and she had red hair and green eyes. The sculptor—who Sarivashi later learned had been Jadias himself—gave the Lady of Inspiration a kindly smile which seemed almost benevolent, as if she was also a goddess of mercy; but then, in a way, she was. Ishvei was their mother, their creator, and she loved them so much she gave them the gift of the pen and mastery of the written word.
Sarivashi had knelt in worship as the Temple Mother blessed them, seeing the dark ink in vials and the crisp paper. Each of them was presented with a bound but blank codex, a vial of ink, and a specially made wooden practice brush. They sat in long rows, learning the first letters of the Kashinai language, which make up one of Kaiene’s most famous sayings.
Afterwards, as they sang the memorisation songs and processed out of the temple, she saw a woman was talking to her mother on the terrace. Sarivashi never saw her face, but the woman was wearing a hakashari, the cloak favoured by the Sandborn, and was talking to her mother in a way which made her nervous. The woman had fine silver hair braided in a plain style. When she was older Sarivashi would realise it was the style worn by priestesses, but this woman, she was no maiden.
It was Jashri herself.
Her hood covered most of her face. Sarivashi remembered the woman’s blood red lips and the way her hair coiled delicately around her right collarbone. Her mother, leader of one of the larger clans, had been strangely deferential as the woman spoke of debt and repayment.
“Mother?”
“Ah, Adria.” Meresia enfolded her daughter almost protectively in her arms. “Your timing is perfect.”
She had been named in honour of her greatmother who had died during the hottest day while they’d been traveling through the Sea of Sand, when her mother had been a year or so younger than Vashi herself was then. Meresia seldom spoke of her, but there was a sadness in her eyes which showed itself each time she looked at her daughter. An unspoken grief not yet conquered by even time’s great healing.
Her mother indicated the hooded woman. “This high lady is a friend of our clan and she seeks a handmaid. She was impressed by your poise, by how you held yourself in the temple, and wants to offer you a place here.”
Sarivashi, not yet known by that name, had blinked. “Is this what you want, mother?”
The priestess had a benevolent appearance and seemed kind, but the little girl couldn’t help feeling that she was missing something vitally important. “Your daughter would have a good life of learning, she would be confidante to oracles, Meresia. And while the Edoi are welcomed in this city, you and yours have been seeking a physical tie to Aiaea for generations. This daughter of wanderers, she could be that tie.”
“If it is Adria’s wish, then I consent.”
The woman flinched at the name but regained her composure in a heartbeat. “And you, child? Would you learn your letters, do as you are bidden, and become a servant of the temple for all your days?”
Adria felt like she couldn’t refuse. “I will, if you will allow three days outside the temple walls to visit my mother each New Year.”
“Done.” The woman didn’t miss a beat and she cupped her hands, palms up and out. “I swear it in the names of the Disembodied Goddess and her beloved daughters.”
Meresia suddenly swallowed a soft cry and hugged her daughter for longer than was needed but as long as was necessary. “Daughter of my womb, be brave, be strong, be still and silent. Do me and the Edoi proud as you serve in Aia’s house.”
“Yes, mother.”
She never looked back as tears began to run down her mother’s face, and Meresia watched her daughter go through blurred vision. The priestess led her into the temple, walking meditatively through a cloistered walkway with a measured step that suggested she knew the place blindfolded. Away from the crowds, once the heavy wooden door leading to the inner courtyard had closed behind them, the woman pulled back her hakashari.
Sarivashi had only ever caught glimpses of the oracles, and few of Jashri the Misandrist. As the woman revealed her face and the scarred orbs of scar tissue where her eyes had once been, the girl fell to her knees in awe.
The friendly, kind facade vanished and her face became hard as starstone, and when she spoke, Jashri’s words were edged with ice. “Your name is no longer Adria. From this moment onwards, your name is…Sarivashi and you are my personal handmaid. You answer to me and will do whatever I will command, and in return you will learn letters, be fed fine food and secure a life no Edoi can imagine.”
The girl now named Sarivashi wept into her pillows that night. She was given a small room adjacent to the High Oracle’s quarters with an oddly comfortable pallet and a low table. The small window was positioned so that Thaeos’ light would wake her as soon as his blinding face appeared over the horizon. It did so the following morning and, by the time Jashri woke, she was already bathed and dressed in her new servant’s clothing.
Jashri was not a cruel mistress but she wasn’t exactly kind either. She expected the Edoi girl to take her robes to the laundry, to prepare her breakfast, and read and write documents. For this, of course, Sarivashi had to attend lessons with the other children but she—unlike them—was dressed in plain blue robes and the silver collar that marked her out as the oracle’s handmaiden. She was not a common servant, but not a priestess either. She existed in neither world, and yet moved between the temple and the city with a grace possessed by few.
Sarivashi had made it a point to learn quickly, as Darus was quick to lose his temper. After the first time he had hit her for not learning the list of oracles by rote, she learned to be silent and attentive. He lectured her relentlessly on everything from temple history to the unspoken rules which would govern her life.
“Now then, Sarivashi, you must move so that you are both invisible and also obvious. Step on the singing wood of the floor so the Lady Oracles know you’ve heard their summons. Announce yourself simply with ‘I am here, Lady’ but otherwise, do not speak unless you are first spoken to.”
Sarivashi did not clean or wash sheets, but she tidied and brought food and drink. She did errands and collected codices, and, by the time of her first bleeding, Sarivashi could read better than most of her age. Even more importantly, she had knowledge and knew secrets even the other oracles didn’t know. Jashri had made her swear on Aia’s name that nothing heard would be repeated unless it was to the High Oracle herself. Sarivashi became the High Oracle’s unwilling eyes and ears, and she hated it.
One night, during the long summer storms, Jashri was dictating a letter and asked for some Ossoian wine. The humidity had made her drowsy, but Jashri was once again wracked by insomnia; something about midsummer made her mood plummet and when she dreamed, it was of nightmares that she would not share. Sarivashi had done as asked, bringing an iced pitcher of the amber liquid from the cold store.
Jashri had reclined on a couch, holding her pet forest cat in her arms. Raasha was not in the mood, the poor creature was hot and grumpy, her tail thrashing angrily and yet she allowed Jashri’s touch where she would have swiped at anyone else.
“Wine, Your Grace, as you requested.” Sarivashi filled a goblet two-thirds full and placed it on the small side table to the Oracle’s left. “Can I do anything more for you?”
“Yes, you can pour a goblet for yourself and take a seat.”
Sarivashi blinked. “I’m sorry, Your Grace?”
“Are you deaf, Sarivashi?”
“No.”
“Then do as you’re bidden.”
Confused, the servant girl retrieved a second goblet from the cupboard and poured herself a measured amount, less than was in the High Oracle’s cup, and took a seat in one of the high-
backed chairs by Jashri’s couch. She kept silent, and it didn’t take Jashri long to ask a question.
“You leave the temple each morning, how fares the city?”
“Busy and beautiful.” Sarivashi sipped the wine carefully. “I enjoy the crowds and the market as I go about my errands.”
“I’ve never seen the city.” Jashri said. “I was blind when I came here.”
Sarivashi wanted to ask why but instead she held her tongue. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, Your Grace.”
“No one does. All know me simply by this name that was chosen for me but I, like you, was born with another.”
The memory of that night drifted in her head all morning, and by the time the noon-bell rang out across the city, Vashi’s errands were done. She found the right street and ducked out of the way of the crowds of wandering people. This street was the one Kadian took on his way back from the Calligrapher’s studio where he was apprenticed. She had learned to bend her oath; after all he may take another route, he wouldn’t know she was there. If he came, it was chance and the will of the gods.
The back-street was a high twisting mix of old buildings and even older cobbles lining the road. The smell of roasting meat and steaming buns made her stomach growl and she wondered how much of the petty cash she had borrowed from the oracles’ coffers she would need to spend to eat her fill. Then she realised the smell was getting stronger; Kadian was carrying a parcel of food in one hand and a skin of water in the other.
“You brought food!” She was overjoyed, flinging her arms around his neck. “I missed you.”
“Finally! Buying this every day in the hope you would be here has cost me a small fortune.” He twirled her in his arms. “I had hoped it would be today.”
Kadian was tall and gangly, his hair was long but too short to plait, so it hung around his collarbone in layers of brown, blonde, and bronze. He was wearing an artisan’s robes that were covered in spatters and smudges and covered the remains of his tail, docked in an accident many years before. The accident had taken his tail, but had also made him a lot more cautious. He kept to himself, so his apprenticeship had taken most of the clan by surprise. Few of them knew the true reason why, and Vashi was glad; the secret was that much sweeter when it was just between the two of them.
“I’m sorry. Jashri has kept me close. The temple is in turmoil while we wait.”
“Still nothing?” He asked, and kissed her in that shy way of his, with his breath against her skin and genuinely pleased to see her. “Do they not feed you at the temple?”
She took the parcel eagerly, unwrapping it quickly as they ducked into a small alley with a wall on which they could sit. “I get whatever the oracles don’t eat. Some days that’s not as much as you’d might think.”
Vashi delicately pulled off a strip of baelish meat, a slow roasted loin with crisp skin. In a small container, the cook had fried diced squares of the animal’s fat until it was salty and crunchy; Kadian knew this was her favourite lunch and a rare treat.
“So how goes the apprenticeship?”
He broke the steamed bun in half and munched for a moment. “The High Chamberlain came into the calligraphers to seek inks and parchment for a sacred proclamation.” Then came the inevitable question. “Do you think it concerns the new oracle?”
She shrugged. “None of the oracles will speak of the matter.”
“People keep talking,” he said, sounding worried. “Many are unhappy, and there are those who feel divinely required to support Saiara.”
Sarivashi sighed. “Jashri should stand down, but she won’t. She’s been High Oracle for too many seasons and has grown…too comfortable with her power and position.”
“And you’ve been with her for what? Thirty? Thirty-five?”
“Yes. It feels hard to think like that, but it’s been half my lifetime since we came to get our first calligraphy brushes.” She remembered the look of horror in his eyes as she submitted, as she left him and her mother on the street.
Kadian asked, “Do you regret it, Adria?”
Sarivashi opened her mouth to answer, then closed it when she realised there wasn’t one. A moment later her reply came out harsher than she’d intended. “Don’t call me that, please. I’m not her, I haven’t been since I entered the temple as Jashri’s servant.”
“Your mother and the others, they still call you by that name each time you send a letter, or some piece of news travels with one of the caravans.”
“I don’t care.”
Vashi had spent nights imagining some alternate life where she had become a full priestess, where she had become a healer or just stayed with the Edoi, roaming the countryside and dancing in the azure grass as Thaeos set. In some dreams she had been mated, in others she bore a daughter or just fell in love with a brother or sister of the clan and died as a crone in her pallet surrounded by a family who felt more real to her than even Kadian. Reality, when she awoke, always seemed so harsh and cold compared to these glimpses of a thousand unlived lives. No matter how many nights of prayer she used up, sitting in the smallest shrine in the temple, Arvan never relieved her of the dreams and Sarivashi was glad.
Kadian cocked his head, seeing the wistful look on her face. “Do you want to leave?”
“I want to be with you,” she said. “But the oracles need me, and Jashri will never release me from my vow.”
“But surely she has a lover?” Kadian asked softly. “The Lord Chamberlain…?”
“Oh they’re not lovers.” Sarivashi bit her lip, realising she’d spoken what she should not. “She doesn’t let him near her in that way.”
“Kadi!?” a voice ricocheted through the alleyway and both of them froze.
“Oh Arvan’s knowledge!” Kadian cursed.
Sarivashi stared as a young boy, a miniature version of Kadian with pudgy limbs and cheeks flushed from running, barrel rolled into them. The boy, in Edoi clothes, his tail following behind him, stared back at her.
“Jio?” She asked.
She hadn’t realised Kadian’s little brother had come with him but, of course, where better for the boy to learn his letters, his calligraphy, than at Ishvei’s table?
Vashi went white. “If he speaks…if word reaches Jashri…”
“He won’t.” Kadian tried to sound reassuring. “Brother, what in Aia’s name are you doing here?”
“Meresia sent me, she asked me to come get you both.”
“I can’t. Jashri forbade me. She will have Darus beat me if she finds out I was dallying with an Edoi boy as it is.” She glanced at Kadian. “Sorry.”
He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and his touch calmed her. “It’s okay. No one will see if you put my hakashari on and cover your face and robes.”
“What reason did my mother give?”
“Something about the new oracle,” Jio said, and lowered his voice. “Something about the clans leaving, quitting the city, never to return. Mother Mere, she doesn’t want to leave without you.”
“Quit the city? What? Why?”
“There’s a woman, they say she’s indwelt by the Lady of the River. She speaks of doom coming to us. Rumour has it that Saiara had a vision which confirmed it.”
“Jashri will kill me if I’m caught.” Vashi hoped he would see the fear in her eyes and realise what he was asking of her. She remembered the screams of that poor girl as Darus beat her; the noise haunted her down the years. “Kadi…”
“But if the Edoi are leaving…” Kadian said. “I can’t leave you behind, not if something is going to happen. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“But they’ll see my bond-collar, someone will see and word will fly faster than I can run.”
Kadian stopped, pulling off his hakashari. “Put this on. We will be quick. Brother, run ahead and tell them we are coming.”
“Done,” Jio said, and ran ahead through the back streets, moving like the summer wind.
Jashri sat in the temple’s great library, listening as Darus re
ad through the codex in which Kaiene had recorded the very oldest of half-forgotten fairy tales told to her by the kinder priestesses who knew she had missed her own childhood.
She preferred it here, there were librarians and the space offered security, but also privacy. She didn’t like to be alone with Darus, much less so in her chambers. Here the rigidity of their hierarchy was plain; Beren brought her tea and spoke with the respect she deserved, and she could send Darus into the stacks which would give her ten minutes of precious time to focus.
She made him do it, even though Beren offered. The old Codexmaster knew her reasons, he had been the one who came Test her, and was one of the few who had known her before she became Jashri the Found. He, along with Eirian and the Feium Asun Clanfather, had been so kind to her, and yet he never once mentioned that brief encounter.
She often found herself meditating on Kaiene’s life while he was seeking texts. It must have been hard for her, Jashri thought. From her own training, she knew how hard it was for the neophytes. They had to clean, to strip their beds each morning, to attend lessons and services, and memorise the scriptures and rituals. Except, of course, Kaiene the Blessed; she hadn’t been a priestess. She had been a bondservant, the lowest of the lowly without whom the temple simply couldn’t function.
While neophytes and priestesses had an hour or two of freedom, the servants—particularly those who were adopted by the temple and worked for their bed and board—had much harder lives. They were the first to rise and the last to fall into their pallets, they ran errands, cleaned and cooked, they collected ink and incense, wine and sacred loaves, walking miles in the heat of summer and the torrential rain of winter. They did everything and anything no one else wished or wanted to do and got no thanks for it.
Kaiene had been a foundling child. No one knew where she came from and most assumed her mother had died in the birthing chair. One of the midwives had carried her to the temple, asking for their charity, but it was only later that the temple elders realised their charge was blind.