by Ginn Hale
John shrugged. “I suppose we just sit here and wait. If we can look like we lost track of time in conversation, there might be a chance that one of the servants will try to hurry us along and maybe give us some clue.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea.” Bill finished drying himself off and then wrapped the towel around his waist. The fluffy white cloth engulfed his emaciated pale body. “I was actually thinking more about what we were going to do in a broader sense. You know, how are we going to live with these people? I mean, we don’t even know the right way to wipe our asses—”
John cut him short with a raised hand. Out in the hall, he heard floorboards creak, as if someone was approaching or just stepping away from the door. They both sat in silence listening, though John could tell from Bill’s expression that he had no idea what he was listening for.
There was nothing. It might have just been one of those noises that old buildings made as they settled. Still, it made John instantly aware of how vulnerable they were. How careful they would need to be. They weren’t alone in a shelter anymore. A vast household of servants and guards surrounded them.
“We have to speak Basawar,” John said softly. “As long as the three of us are here, we’re going to have to remember to only speak in Basawar.”
“Even when it’s just us?” Bill asked.
“Always,” John whispered. He couldn’t shake the feeling that someone might be listening to them even now.
“But I sound like some kind of retard.” Bill scowled. “I mean, it takes me five minutes just to get a sentence out.”
“You’ll get better with practice,” John spoke the Basawar words carefully.
“Easy for you to say, Mr. Show-Off,” Bill whispered.
John refused to respond in English. “Behr, yura’ati vass’atdu Basawar hi.”
“Du, Jahn,” Bill agreed with all the enthusiasm of a sullen teen.
“It won’t be so bad after a while,” John told him in Basawar.
“Wahbai,” Bill responded.
John might have been offended at being called an asshole if he hadn’t known that it was one of the Basawar words that Bill knew and liked best.
From outside the door, John heard the creaking sound again, but this time it grew louder until it became the distinct sound of footsteps. A moment later, there came a light rap at the wooden door. John called for the person to enter and four men in sage green shirts, darker green vests, and black pants came in. The servant boy had been dressed in the same manner. Light yellow embroidered symbols of crossed arrows decorated the high straight collars of the men’s shirts.
Before John offered them more than a greeting, they split into pairs and began grooming Bill and him. The oldest of the servants picked up the tin of goo and began to froth it with one of the smallest of the brushes.
Meanwhile, two other men began working the fine combs through John’s and Bill’s hair. They weren’t rough, but they weren’t gentle either. John supposed that their manner was professional. Still, he would have been reassured by a little more tenderness. When one of the men jerked several hairs out from inside his nostril, John jerked back, barely suppressing a howl of pain.
Bill made a terrible choking noise as the same thing was done to him. The servants seemed unmoved. They had probably forced hundreds of other men to cry out under their ministrations. John briefly entertained the thought that their impassive professional expressions matched those that cold-blooded assassins always wore in movies.
One of the men picked up two of the viciously curved silver picks. John watched him in fascination and slight dread. The man fitted one pick over the other and then selected a small screw that John hadn’t noticed before. He screwed the picks together. In a moment, John realized that the man had just fitted together a pair of scissors.
He combed and trimmed John’s beard, then went after Bill’s.
The old man at last seemed to have worked the goo into a huge white frothy mass. It looked almost exactly like shaving cream. Then, still frothing with the brush, he spilled a little of the red powder into it and then the wood shavings. John frowned.
The old man stepped up next to him and smiled widely.
John smiled back and the old man shoved the now pink woodchip-infused foam into his mouth. A flavor like stale cinnamon seeped over John’s gums. The old man began scrubbing the foam against John’s teeth with another of the brushes.
While the old man brushed John’s teeth, another man went to work on his toenails and fingernails. Then the man began to trim away at the hair on John’s body. John remained as still as he could, listening the clink and click of sharp implements far too close to his most tender areas.
He glanced over to Bill to see how he was managing. Bill looked like a cat being given an enema. John almost laughed.
After everything else, the shaving was quick, painless, and simple. The last tin, the one full of white powder, was worked into a lather and the sharp silver blade was used. Then it was done. The four servants packed up their tools and left Bill and him sitting there gleaming, naked, and dazed. It reminded John of stories of how people were found after alien abductions.
John thought of telling this to Bill, but he couldn’t figure out how to say alien in Basawar. And Bill wouldn’t have understood him anyway.
Bill opened his mouth as if to say something but then didn’t.
A few moments later there was another knock. John called for the person to enter, though this time he was a little more hesitant. The servant boy who had brought them the towels poked his head in. He bowed slightly before fully entering the room. John closed the door behind the servant boy, since his arms looked too full to do it for himself.
“These are for you, sirs.” The boy laid the stack of clothes down on the bench beside Bill.
Every garment was a shade of muted green, ranging between olive and sage. Beyond the color they bore little resemblance to the stiff, formal clothes that the house servants wore. These rustic garments were simple: pullover shirts, long underwear, and heavy pants. None of them had holes but they felt soft and worn in. Probably donations or secondhand goods. Most of the clothes were slightly too short for John and too big for Bill, but they were all warm and clean.
When the servant boy stepped out of the room to retrieve their boots, Bill leaned close to John and whispered, “We look like the Jolly Green Giant and his little buddy Sprout in these getups.”
“Vass’hi Basawar, Behr,” John whispered back.
“Du, du.” Bill scowled at the reminder.
Once they had their boots on, the servant boy led them out of the bath and through the house. Aside from his own bed, John had seen very little of the place earlier.
The tapestry-insulated walls and stone archways seemed medieval and out-of-date when compared with the piping and mirrors in the bathroom. John noticed that there were sconces on the walls for torches. Iron chandeliers filled with unlit candles hung from the ceilings of the larger rooms. The strong smell of burning wood pervaded the building, and with it came the scent of animals, oil, tallow, and lard.
They ascended a narrow stone staircase, which brought them into a surprisingly small room. John had been half expecting some large feast hall full of rough-hewn tables, rush mats, and tankards of beer. He guessed the image had come to him from some half-remembered Robin Hood movie.
Aside from the drab tapestries on the walls and floor, the chamber was nothing like what he had expected. A small fire flickered and snapped behind a decorated screen. At the far end of the room, sharp morning light poured in through tall windows. A highly-polished, rectangular wooden table dominated the chamber. Dark wood chairs circled it. Silver trays of steaming meat and plates of bread and other foods covered the table.
Laurie, dressed in a simple olive shift and a dark green sweater, was already seated. She, like Bill, looked tiny in her loose-fitting clothes. Her long light hair shone white in the hard light.
The three other women seated opposite La
urie looked like plump dolls in comparison. Where Laurie’s skin was red and chapped, theirs was creamy and smooth. Their breasts were full, as were the curves of their hips, unlike Laurie’s body, which seemed as flat and sharp as an assembly of wooden planks. She resembled the table more than the women sipping from delicate bowls across from her.
The woman opposite Laurie was older, perhaps forty-five or fifty years old, while the two girls beside her looked barely out of their teens. All three of them had dark hair and wore it up in ornate, twisting braids. Little strings of silver beads hung from their hair and dripped down the pale green folds of their long flowing dresses. John didn’t know what material their clothes were made from, but it caught the light and shimmered like silk.
“Tumah,” John greeted the women and bowed the same way the servant boy had bowed to him in the bathroom. Bill followed his lead. Laurie twisted around in her seat and smiled at them. Her expression was one of both joy and desperation. John wondered how long she’d been waiting and how well she’d managed to field questions.
All three women stood. The one in the middle beckoned John and Bill into the room. Her hands were small with long white fingernails. Tiny silver chains hung like delicate manacles between the silver rings on each of her fingers. John guessed that she was the noblewoman whom the convoy had been escorting along with her son.
“Gentlemen, we are so glad that you have arrived. Please, won’t you be kind enough to join us in our morning repast?” The lady spoke in the most formal form of Basawar, adding soft whispered honorifics and drawing each word out into the next so that she was almost humming.
John froze, momentarily overwhelmed by the lady’s formality and poise.
Bill immediately deferred to John dropping back slightly.
All through the morning John had been silently preparing himself for another conversation like the ones he had easily managed with Pivan and other soldiers. Direct and to the point, more interrogations than conversations, really.
He’d guessed most of his responses would be limited to yes or no answers. The majority of his effort would have been channeled into listening closely to the questions, so that he made the right choice. He hadn’t thought to expect formality, civility, or niceties. He wasn’t sure that he was up to that level of language yet.
He felt one of Bill’s bony fingers jabbing into his side, and realized that he had to respond to the lady’s question.
“Thank you.” John could hear the roughness of his words. “It would be our honor to join you.”
He seated himself to Laurie’s right. Bill took the chair on her left. John noticed the little movement as Laurie squeezed Bill’s hand under the table.
“Rashan Pivan’ro’Bousim has told me that you are called Jahn,” the lady said.
It took a moment for John to recognize Pivan’s name in its full form. His rank of rashan, cavalryman, sounded a little like Ravishan and for an instant John had been deeply confused. He tried not to let it show.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m called Jahn. This is my sister Loshai and her husband, Behr.”
“Sky and Honeybee. What lovely names.” The lady turned to the younger woman on her right. “They go together, don’t you think?”
“Yes, they certainly do. Perhaps it was fated that they should be wed.” The young woman smiled, showing a little gap between her front teeth.
The lady nodded and then returned her attention to John.
“Your sister is so very proper. She wouldn’t speak a single word in her husband’s absence. She put all our gossiping to shame.” The lady didn’t look or sound entirely pleased.
John wasn’t sure how to respond. He couldn’t say that it was good, but he didn’t think he should say that Laurie’s silence was wrong either, since it was apparently proper. He decided to try and just sidestep it entirely.
“I’m sorry for having to ask this, but I’m not sure how you would like best to be addressed.” John bowed his head slightly.
“That is difficult, isn’t it?” the lady said. “If we were to hold ourselves to the holiest codes, you would not be here in my presence at all. But Rashan Pivan’ro’Bousim says that you may have saved my son’s life, and also that you fought the Fai’daum demoness, Ji Shir’korud, for the very life and soul of Rashan Alidas’ro’Bousim. So it would seem that I am most deeply in your debt. I certainly could not bar you from my table. But what shall you call me?”
She sighed and lifted the small bowl in front of her to her mouth. The chains on her fingers clicked against the porcelain bowl.
As she drank, John became acutely aware of the smell of the food wafting over him. He hadn’t eaten since the night before and then it had only been broth. Succulent slices of what looked like pork steamed in heaps on a silver platter in front of him. The distinct scent of fresh bread drifted up from golden rolls and there even seemed to be something like the smell of coffee in the air.
His stomach groaned.
The lady glanced up at him in obvious amusement. The two young women on either side of her put their hands over their mouths to hide their grins.
“I should decide before you are starved to death, shouldn’t I?” The lady laughed but without making a sound. Her lips parted and the small tremors of laughter shook her chest but all that came out was breath.
John stole a glance to Laurie and Bill but the two of them looked as bewildered as he felt. John could only guess that noblewomen of Basawar trained themselves to laugh mutely. He had seen groups of common women out in their fields cackling with laughter. It seemed to follow what the lady had mentioned earlier about Laurie’s silence being proper.
“You may call me Gaunvur Bousim. Since I am the only one of Gaunsho Mosh’sira’in’Bousim’s wives residing in this city, there shouldn’t be any confusion,” the lady decided.
John nodded. Ravishan had told him that wealthy men often took several wives, and that in aristocratic gaun’im households, each wife held a formal title according to the number and quality of sons she bore her husband. John didn’t even try to remember the husband’s full title and name; he just concentrated on the lady’s: Gaunvur Bousim, Lady Bousim.
“It’s an honor,” John said.
“The honor is mine as well.” Lady Bousim swept her hand out over the trays of food. “Please, eat all that you like. I only regret that I have such poor dishes to offer you. If we were in Nurjima, I would give you fruit and flowers from my husband’s garden. Here, at the edge of the shattered world, I can only offer you this.”
“This is more than enough,” John assured her. “Thank you.”
John took one of the empty plates and filled it with food. He wasn’t sure if Laurie or Bill had followed much of the conversation, so he simply passed the plate down to Laurie. She passed it to Bill while John filled a second plate for her. Last, he served himself. The three women also ate, but much more slowly than any of the three of them.
At first John was so hungry and ate so quickly that he hardly noticed anything about the food that he devoured. But as the sharp pangs of hunger abated he began to realize how little flavor there was to the dinner fare.
Though it had obviously been roasted, the pale cutlets of meat were as tasteless as if they had been boiled for days. The bread was as bland as a communion wafer and the cheese tasted like thick slabs of unsalted butter.
Once his stomach no longer hurt, John didn’t really feel the desire to eat more. Laurie and Bill seemed to be having the same problem. Bill chewed on a piece of bread with kind of expression that he normally reserved for tricky math problems. Laurie’s plate was only half empty, but she was already cutting pieces of her meal into smaller and smaller bits as if she hoped to reach the atomic level and render them invisible free-floating particles.
Lady Bousim idly sipped from her bowl. Then she turned to the young woman on her right.
“Inholima, my dear, I have just realized that we have no more daru’sira to offer to our guests. Won’t you go to my chambers and find
my jars of tea so that we can make a little more?”
There was a momentary pause before the girl responded and John thought that she might refuse. Then she nodded and stood.
“Do be quick, my dear.” Lady Bousim smiled at her as she left the room. The moment the girl closed the door behind her, the smile evaporated from the lady’s face.
“Ohbi.” She looked to the girl on her left but said nothing more. Instantly, the girl sprang to her feet and crept across the room to the door. She knelt down and, muting the slight creak of the doorknob with her hands, opened the door and peeked out.
John, Laurie, and Bill all watched her in silence.
She closed the door and rushed back to her seat beside Lady Bousim.
“She’s out of hearing,” Ohbi whispered.
“Very good,” the lady said. “You hid the teas?”
“Yes, Gaunvur.” The girl beamed.
The lady looked straight at John.
“The girl, Inholima, is my husband’s spy. You must never trust her.”
“All right.” John didn’t know what else to say. Whatever was going on in this household was already beyond him.
“Tell your companions this,” the lady said to him.
“What do you mean?”
The lady leaned forward over the table, her dark eyes fixed upon John’s face.
“I know what you are. I know that you speak the Hell-Tongue of the Eastern Kingdom. I had my servant boy, Bati’kohl, listen to you when you thought that you were alone in the bath. Tell them in your own language that they must trust none of my servants but Ohbi and Bati’kohl. Any of the rest will see them burned at the hands of the Payshmura.” She all but spat the name of the priesthood.
John hesitated, suspicious that this might be some kind of trick to uncover them. But he couldn’t see how he could make it worse since she already knew that they didn’t speak Basawar. The genuine intensity in Lady Bousim’s expression made him want to believe her.
He turned to Bill and Laurie and explained what the lady had said.
“We don’t have much time to talk,” Lady Bousim continued the moment John had finished, “but you must know that I am your friend.”