“Lehan, he is wicked!” I fell to my knees beside her and considered my words carefully, to warn her without endangering her. “You must not trust him. He never wanted you. Father himself said that Iskan never uttered a word on the matter. He is wickedness incarnate, oh Lehan, we must run away. Both of us. Perhaps even tonight?” Hope lit up inside me. Run away, yes, why had I never thought of it? Far away, where Anji’s visions could not reveal us and Iskan could not reach us.
My sister went completely pale. She looked at me with disgust. “He never wanted me? Was it for your sake that he came, perchance? Is that what you have convinced yourself?”
“Yes, that is the truth, but not in the way you think, Lehan. He—”
She interrupted me. “I never thought you would sink so low, Kabira.” Her voice was ice-cold and she got up and started rubbing her hands over her arms, as though to brush away my words. “Father and Mother knew. Everybody knew, Iskan said so himself. He wanted to marry me. And now he wants to take care of both of us as best he can. Why should I run away from a man who intends to return me to my family home? I miss it so much I feel I may fall apart, Kabira. I want to walk the halls Mother walked and hold the objects Agin held. I want to be near them again. But you…” Her face was full of disgust. “You are struck with madness. You do not deserve such a good man. I am asking Auntie if I can sleep in Ekhe’s chamber. The bride-to-be needs solitude.”
Before I had time to say anything else she swept out of the room and left me alone.
* * *
Our wedding was performed according to the old rites, at the burial mound outside Areko where Iskan’s ancestors lay. There was a small altar for offerings to the spirits of the ancestors, and we stood before it and exchanged the traditional thrice-three gifts between his family and mine. From one of the gift baskets Lehan was holding I took the bottle of fig wine for happiness, the silk thread for constancy and the packet of bao for fertility, and handed them to Iskan. He accepted and passed them on to one of his cousins before turning to Lehan and bowing. She smiled at him, the dimples in her cheeks deepening, and handed him the other basket. Iskan picked out a silver coin for wealth, grapes for abundance, hannam-tree bark for health, vinegar for wisdom and an iron nail to build our life’s foundations, and gave them to me. I accepted them. Then Lehan gave us the final gift, a cake of nuts and honey that we divided in half and ate. Then we were married, though the marriage was not yet consummated. This happened after the wedding celebration that was held in what used to be my father’s house, now Iskan’s. There were a small number of guests eating the delicious food my aunt had prepared, listening to music from my father’s musicians, and dancing under lanterns hanging from the trees in the courtyard. Then, when the last song was sung and the last wine was drunk, Iskan led me up to my parents’ bedchamber, to our marriage bed. The bed was new—Iskan had had all the furniture and textiles in the house burnt, “to dispel the sickness which had claimed so many lives”—but it made no difference. To me it was the bed where my parents had died, where he had murdered them. I could not bring myself to go near it, and hesitated in the doorway.
Iskan looked around and nodded contentedly. “Look here, a genuine Liau ak Tiwe-chi as wedding gift from my father.” He pointed to a painted screen that hung by the bed. “It is worth five horses in full combat armour. I have filled the house with valuable art and tasteful furniture. It is truly a home fit for a vizier’s son.” He sat on the edge of the bed with one foot resting on his other knee. “However, I am thinking of making some improvements. A wall built around the burial mound, for example. And a door to protect the spring, with a lock.” He smiled. “That is just the beginning. I have seen magnificent things, Kabira. A glorious future. In a few years you will not recognize your father’s estate. I drink of Anji’s water every night when it is good, and see her visions every full moon. With each passing moon the pattern becomes clearer. I need only give things a push here, a tweak there, and my shining future will draw nearer and nearer.” He lowered his voice. “But drinking of her dark water, the oaki, that is another thing entirely. The force that fills you! Power over life and death. You know, Kabira. You have tasted it. Anji’s dark water is the weapon with which I will shape my future, little bird.” He smiled with pity and cocked his head to one side. “Though you shall never drink it again, dear wife. And now it is time that you become my wife in the flesh.”
He had taken me many times before that night, but this time was different. This time he enjoyed degrading me, inflicting pain on me. He took his time. In the morning, when his female relatives came to check our sheet for the red stain that proved my virginity, they did see fresh red blood. But it had come from more places than one.
He forbade me from going outside. He forbade me from talking to anyone other than himself and Lehan, and Lehan no longer spoke to me. I was not allowed to address the servants and I had nothing to say to Iskan. So my voice faded and I grew quiet. Through my quiet I could hear the din of the labourers building the wall around the hill, and the door in front of Anji. When everything was finished he showed me the key and laughed. “Now she is truly all mine! Not even the Sovereign Prince himself can get his hands on her secrets. She is like a beautiful woman who gives herself unto one man alone, her only lover. I am the one that she wants. She shows me willingly every pleat and fold of her secrets.”
He took me every night.
“Sons, Kabira,” he said one night as he sat wiping my blood from his hands. “A man’s influence can be gauged by his sons. No one else is as loyal. No one else can act in his name. Alliances made through the marriage of daughters are not to be trusted. I shall have you until I have planted a son in your womb.”
I ceased thinking, hoping, resisting. I do not know how much time passed; I no longer concerned myself with counting days and nights. I ceased caring for my hygiene and appearance, yet nothing would discourage him from my bed. It gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to see the disgust on his face as he mounted me; gone was his eternal smile. Still, he did not stop coming to my bedchamber. His superior self-confidence was replaced by furious stubbornness. Each time my moon blood came his perilous wrath grew.
“I haven’t the strength for a second woman,” he bellowed one night. “Do you think this is a pleasure for me? I must have a son, you damned arid desert of a woman!”
Eventually I fell pregnant. I was young, and my body did not obey my will. He immediately consulted Anji over the sex of the baby. It was a girl.
He drove her out of my body with Anji’s dark water.
I would never be able to keep a girl child.
When I finally conceived a son I had been Iskan’s wife for long over a year. Anji showed him that the child inside me was the son he had so yearned for, and he finally left me in peace. I did not see him again for several moons. He spent his time at the palace of the Sovereign Prince, where he did everything to ensure his indispensability. The child gave me terrible nausea but I was grateful for the peace that suddenly descended on the house. I would lie in bed all morning but manage to eat something around midday and then venture into the courtyard. I was still allowed there. I would sit and enjoy the scents of early spring, the dazzling flowers in pots under shady willows, and the birdsong. It was the first time in two years that I had found any pleasure at all. The child inside me had given life meaning again. It was of no importance that it was Iskan’s son. It was the dawn of new life, and atonement for all the deaths that plagued my conscience.
I rarely saw Lehan. She was busy taking care of the household that I had neglected, first out of apathy and now because nausea kept me exhausted and passive. Sitting in the courtyard, I heard her voice through open windows, instructing the servants to address various tasks. She moved from chamber to chamber, efficiently ordering all that required order to maintain an estate of this size. I became increasingly aware of how many duties she was taking upon herself. Early in the mornings I heard her instruct the labourers in the day’s orders befor
e they dispersed into the fields and groves. This was actually the duty of the head of the household, but Iskan continued to keep his distance. When had my little sister learnt how to act this way? Nobody seemed to question her authority and I saw signs of a smoothly run household everywhere: the chambers were kept sparkling-clean, the plants in the courtyard were flawlessly pruned and the food served to my bedchamber was varied and delicious with no signs of excess. I attempted conversation with the servants—I was not afraid to do so now that Iskan was away—but the maidservants who waited on me were strangers and unwilling to exchange more than the most superficial of pleasantries.
One afternoon when I was sitting outside with my hands on my belly, enjoying the feeling of the first little kicks, Lehan came scurrying through the courtyard with a roll of green silk in her arms. She stopped when she saw me, as though she wanted to turn around again.
“Lehan.” I stretched out a beseeching hand to her. “Come and sit with me awhile.” She did not move. I lowered my hand. “Can we not be friends again? I beg your forgiveness for everything I said.”
I was so terribly lonely. My pregnancy was a joy but also frightened me greatly. I had nobody to share it with. No mother to ask for advice. Lehan was the only person I had left.
Slowly she approached the bench where I was sitting and perched on the farthest edge. She laid the silk fabric on her lap.
“What do you have there?” I asked amiably. “Sewing yourself a new jacket?”
Lehan ran her fingers over the cloth. At first I thought she would refuse to speak to me at all. Then she took a breath.
“Brother Iskan sent it from Areko this morning. He wants me to sew new chair cushions for the sunroom.”
I sat silently a moment, stung by the news.
“It is very beautiful fabric,” I finally managed to say. “Unusual colour.”
Lehan nodded and smiled down at the cloth. “It will go nicely with the green-glazed vases we chose. Iskan had them imported from the Maiko Desert. They are fired from desert sand.”
“Have you… have you helped him choose many things for the house?”
She did not meet my gaze. “Yes. We have the same taste,” she said defensively. “And he spares no expense. He says I am to decorate precisely as I wish.”
I did not know what to say. Iskan was treating Lehan like his wife. And she had adopted the roles of a wife. I was a mere necessary evil: heiress and breeding mare. Yet I could not blame Lehan. It was what she had been raised for: to be a wife and lady of the house, and to run the home and household. We were all trained for it from childhood. Yet I had not assumed the role.
Lehan interpreted my silence as judgement. She stood up suddenly and turned to me, her face blazing crimson.
“Just look at yourself! When did you last bathe? When did you last change your garments? The stench coming from you is revolting. You are a stain on our family! It is no wonder Iskan avoids you now that you are finally expecting his child. He could barely bring himself to see you the last few times. He had to come to me to prepare. I helped him.”
She smacked her hand over her mouth, in disbelief of what she had just admitted out loud. Her eyes were wide with horror.
“Be careful, dear sister,” I said slowly. “You know not what you play with.” I was not angry, only filled with unspeakable sorrow. I did not know how to save Lehan from Iskan’s clutches.
She turned and ran into the house. I sat still for a long time, watching the open door as if I could will her back with my gaze. It was I who had led her here to Iskan’s house. It was my fault she was in danger. Anji’s oaki clung to me, ran through my veins. During my childhood I had often felt fortified after drinking water from the spring, even many moons later. Now it was as though I could not rid myself of the impurity; the filth pulsing in my very blood. I would drag everybody down with me into the mire. Even my unborn child.
I felt very little joy over my imminent son. Equally, my fears about the pregnancy and delivery subsided. If I died I could be free from all this guilt and suffering. The birth was creeping ever nearer and no ill befell either me or the child. Iskan returned home late one full moon night. He could not keep away from Anji any longer, I guessed. He needed the spring’s powers and visions. I heard Iskan’s voice move through the house, checking that all was as it should be. He was accompanied everywhere by Lehan’s sweet voice as she explained everything she had done in his absence. Then the tones of the cinna and tilan drifted through the open window and into my chamber. They were dining and drinking in the shaderoom. I could go down to join them. Nothing was stopping me. They were surely eating tasty morsels Iskan had brought back from Areko.
I lay in my bed, stroking my taut belly with one hand and humming along with the music. It was an old melody, a favourite of my mother’s. I did not wish to dine with her murderer.
I was woken after midnight by Iskan coming into my chamber. He held a lamp in his hand which he set down on the table by my bed. I propped myself up among the pillows but he paid me no attention.
“What a sight.” He wrinkled his nose. “And a smell. Just as Lehan said. Do you no longer take care of yourself? Remember that you are the mother of my soon-to-be son.”
“He does not care how I look,” I said. Iskan sneered and approached the bed. He looked at me with those intense dark eyes.
“Is all well with the child?”
I nodded reluctantly.
“Is it time soon?”
“I believe so. Of course you do not allow me to speak with any woman from whom I can ask advice, but it cannot be long now.”
“You need a doula. Of course. It shall be arranged.” He said it with disinterest, as though it were yet another irksome necessity to ensure the safety of his heir. He stretched out, languid as a house cat. “Anji’s strength flows through my veins. How I have missed the spring water! How I have missed her power and visions. So much has needed building in Areko and the palace. Anji had to wait. But now the time is ripe, Kabira.” He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. Did he want to take me? I laid my hands protectively over my belly.
“I have many allies now. And it is in their interest that I come to power. It is time for me to become Vizier.”
“And your father?” I said, bringing to mind the friendly old white-haired man who had attended the wedding.
“He is old.” Iskan grinned. “I imagine that his death is close at hand. You might even say that I have seen it.” He chuckled at his joke but I gasped. He spoke of the greatest oaki of all. Patricide. He saw that I understood and nodded as if we shared an amusing secret. “I only have to wait until Anji’s oaki is at its strongest. Then I will drink, and visit my father, and when he is found dead the next day nobody will suspect anything other than that it was an old man’s time to depart.” He scoffed. “I have seen his real death, of course. You cannot imagine how far in the future it is! What a tenacious tortoise of a man he is. I will have to heave and haul his death closer.” He leant back idly against the bedposts and clasped his hands behind his head. The lamp light flickered on his shiny hair and well-polished buttons. He was the very picture of a carefree young man, used to getting what he wanted. “When I am Vizier my real work shall begin. I shall be the most powerful man in all of Karenokoi. More powerful than anyone can imagine. Greater than the Sovereign Prince himself.”
Only then did he catch sight of my hands pressed against my belly and my defensive posture. He grimaced in disgust.
“Do not flatter yourself. Why would I befoul myself with you now that you have fulfilled the task required of you?” He jumped down from the bed and stomped out of the room as hastily as he had entered. He left the lamp behind him, and the scent of leather and wine. I extinguished the lamp immediately. I did not even want to see the place where he had sat on the bed: the impression, the wrinkled covers. I sank down in the pile of pillows and my heartbeat gradually began to slow. I no longer cared what he did, nor whether I lived or died. Yet I feared him still. Moreove
r, a small part of me was ashamed. Ashamed that he now looked upon me with disgust, he whose gaze had once made me feel like the most beautiful woman in all the realm.
Through my open window I could hear the horses’ whinnies from the stable. Frogs croaked in the velvety night. A cricket was chirping. I let the sounds of the night caress and soothe me.
Then I heard another sound, one I recognized all too well. It came from him. In the chamber beside mine. Lehan’s bedchamber. I sat up to listen, and there it was again, a deep moan of lust. He was taking her! My sister, he had forced himself upon her, it could not be true, it must not be true, I had to do something, I had to save her! I looked around for a weapon but found nothing and so rushed into the hall, empty-handed and heavy with the child in my belly. There must be something I could do! If nothing else I could scream, call the servants. It was oaki to lie with one’s sister-in-law; it was considered incest.
Outside Lehan’s door I heard another sound. A whimper. Heavy breathing. Sounds from her. Not of struggle or fear, but of lasciviousness. Sounds he never got from me. She was enjoying it. She wanted it.
I pressed a clenched fist to my mouth to stop a scream from surging forth. I slowly backed up to my door, with Lehan’s pleasure ringing in my ears.
I heard Lehan and Iskan nearly every night after that. Even the night I gave birth to my first son. It was as though they were trying to drown out my screams with their own. It was morning, after many hours of agony, when Iskan finally called for the doula. The ordeal continued until the following night. When Korin finally lay at my breast, through my exhaustion I felt the first seed of happiness. He was totally and utterly mine, this beautiful little boy with his long, dark eyelashes and determined little furrowed brow. Despite the long and arduous birth, he was strong and healthy. His soft little hands, his eyes…
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