Book of a Thousand Days

by Shannon Hale

  "Enough!" Tegus shouted. He turned to me. "Is it true, what she says she read?"

  "My name's Dashti," I said, as simply as I could. I knew it was all about to end and I didn't want to lie anymore. "I'm not Lady Saren. I'm a mucker maid, no more." I wouldn't point out the real Saren now, not with Lady Vachir there hoping for someone to chop up.

  He asked Lady Vachir for my book. She gripped it.

  "Lady Vachir," he said quietly, "stealing is also a crime."

  She placed it in his hands, her expression carefully casual. He pressed it back into mine.

  "Keep this close to you," he whispered.

  Then, at last, came the moment when his arm fell away from my waist. I shivered as he took a step back, suddenly as frozen inside as out. Perhaps it's irony that I'd met Khasar naked on the battlefield, but I felt colder now.

  After he let me go, warriors carried me here, locked me in. I stared at my one candle for hours. I couldn't bear to look away.

  This evening Shria brought some supper, and with it my horsehair blanket, some ink, and a brush. She didn't speak to me, but she touched my cheek before she left. I tore a blank page out of this book and thought to write Tegus an explanation. I crossed out the words again and again before I gave up. Every word I write to him sounds false. I can't speak the whole truth—that I wasn't only acting out of duty for my lady, how it was my own shirt I gave him. How parts of me wanted to be his lady, just for a moment even.

  Stop it, Dashti. None of that matters now. My whole, heavy world hangs by a thin rope. I remember a time when I comprehended Saren's plea to die, but not now. Now I want to live. Ancestors, please, I want to keep on living.

  It's cold down here.

  Day 170

  Khan Tegus came this morning. He asked me again if it was all true.

  "Yes," I said.

  He groaned and paced. I didn't explain. I guess I always knew it would come to this, and trying to change it now seemed like trying to stop the wind from blowing across the steppes. Besides, the excuse "my lady ordered me to" sounded so feeble in my head. She ordered me, but I chose to obey.

  "Lady Vachir is claiming blood rights," he said. "Protection of binding betrothals is as old as cities, since the days men would get brides by kidnapping. The law is severe on that point, and my chiefs say she's within the law, and . . . Dashti, I don't know what to do."

  "Have you spoken with Lady Saren?"

  He looked sharply at me. "Is she Lady Saren? She's been claiming such, and I told her to be quiet about it and stay hidden in the kitchens. No need to give Vachir another target."

  "If it comes to dying" —I sat on my hands so he couldn't see them shake — "if it comes to that, don't be anxious for me. I have a mama in the Ancestors' Realm. She'll sing me in. I'll be all right."

  I didn't want to say that. I wanted to throw myself on my knees and beg to keep breathing, but I can't have him breaking his heart for worrying about me. Even so, my words didn't seem to relieve him any. He put his face in his hands and breathed slowly for a long while. I think he might've cried, if he'd let himself. He might've cried for me. What a powerful thought.

  "You're our champion." He let his hands drop. "You went out alone, you took down Khasar. But now Lady Vachir has made certain there's not a soul in this city who doesn't also know that you lied, you claimed to be gentry, you . . . " He sat beside me and was quiet for a while. I kept my eyes on his hands until he spoke again.

  "Lady Saren's father visited Song for Evela when I was eight. I remember at a banquet, my father pulling me in close and saying, in almost a teasing way, 'He has a daughter named Saren. You might marry her one day, you know. What do you think about that?' When I was fourteen and received her first letter, it didn't seem strange because I'd had her in my mind all those years."

  "You were meant to marry her," I said.

  He shrugged. "The letters were a game. I was young, I felt as though I were playing at being in love. I read poetry to try to learn how one courts with words, and I failed at it miserably. But it was fun, anticipating a new letter, hiding it from my father and hers, and we kept it up for a few years. When my father died before declaring who he wanted me to marry, I realized I might actually wed Lady Saren. I looked over her letters again, and I save them anew—they were simple, little humor or life. To tell the truth, I was apprehensive at best. And then came news of the tower.

  "I felt responsible, but I was dreading the meeting, too. It was you, wasn't it, Dashti? You were the one who spoke to me."

  I nodded. I was wrapped up in the weave of his story and didn't want to speak.

  "Of course it was you. I never should've left you in there. I should've risked war with Titor's Garden and Thoughts of Under. We met war anyway. When I spoke with Lady Saren in the tower, with you, it was a wonder. It felt right." He smiled. "Then I met you as Dashti, but when you told me you were Lady Saren, that felt right, too. And all has seemed right until . . . Ancestors, it's all wrong. You weren't Lady Saren in the tower, you weren't when you faced Khasar, you're not now and you won't ever be, and for that the chief of order says you must hang."

  I thought I'd prepared myself for that end, but hearing him say it made my heart sting.

  He rubbed his face again. "Dashti, I don't know what to do. I don't know. Can you, will you sing for me?"

  So I sang him the song for clear thoughts, and after a time he leaned back against the wall with me and rested his head against mine, humming along. It was strange, as I think back on it now, that I'm the one scheduled to die but I was comforting him. At the time, it felt just right. It was a moment of peace, and it gave me space to think. We were betrothed once. I always knew it was ill-fated, but he truly believed I would be his bride. I guess I'd never realized that before. He had taken my mucker hand and looked at my mottled face and believed we would wed. And he hadn't seemed sorry. In fact, he'd swooped me up in the corridor and kissed me.

  That set me to crying. He sat up and took my hand, the one mottled, holding it to his lips.

  "Dashti, oh Dashti, I'm sorry." He smoothed my hair against the back of my head, he held my forehead to his. "Please, I'm so sorry. Listen, nothing's settled yet. The chiefs may vote to preserve your life. A lesser sentence might be banishment from Song for Evela."

  Ancestors know that I never would've said aloud what I thought then — that living didn't matter to me if it meant I'd be alone, that I'd have to leave Tegus behind. Is that silly? And yet I really feel it. Here's what I wished I could say—Tegus, I'll not find a better man than you, not on the steppes, not in any city or in all the wilds of the Eight Realms. You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.

  But I couldn't tell him that, and since I had to hold back words, I wanted to give him something. "Take my book of thought keeping," I said. "It's all I have that I care about."

  "Haven't you destroyed it yet? I gave it back to you so you could. It's the best evidence against you." He put it back in my hands and stood at once. Before he passed through my door, he turned and said, "I'm sorry, Dashti."

  And I guess that's the last time I'll ever see him.

  After he left, I sat on the ground and stared at the door for a long time. A very long time. I didn't want to move ever again. Eventually I got myself up so I could write what Tegus said. To keep telling my story seems like the last bit of living I can still do. I feel like a dragonfly clinging to a grass blade in a windstorm, but I can't just let go. I can't. I stare at the candle, how the flame shivers and bends when the wick is too long. The light is small and unsteady, but unless it's snuffed out, it'll keep burning for as long as the wick runs.

  There's a stinging, cold sensation that shivers through my blood. I look at my hands, stare at how they're shaking, and wonder if this is how Osol felt the night before he died. I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to
stop.

  Day 171

  What a long, cold night it was. I guess I can admit that I wept instead of sleeping. Odd how much that made my throat hurt. With no window, no way to track the time, I felt as though I spent days here alone. When Shria came with breakfast, she assured me that it was just barely morning out in the world. Along with cheese and bread, she brought news.

  "There's quite a tumult in your kitchens," she said. "The family of one of the girls made it out of Goda's Second Gift and came here. Seems it veas pretty rough going, traveling into winter, but they didn't stop until they found their daughter."

  "Gal," I said. A grin took over my face and felt like an old friend come home.

  The news changed me, and I've been thinking and buzzing for hours. Though the only light I have is a candle and even wrapped up in my blanket my bones are cold like stones, I'm filled with a kind of wonder, I guess. A wonder that burns. If Gal's family is alive and found her, if her impossible wish came true, what else can happen? It makes me almost believe that everything works out somehow, and even if the best possible ending for all this is for me to speedily join my mama in the Realm of the Ancestors, then so be it. That is an ending to be proud of.

  And I've decided a second thing — I don't care if this book is evidence against me. I've thought and thought and folded myself toward the Sacred Mountain and prayed to all the Ancestors, and what I know is that I'm tired of deception and lies. I want Tegus to know all. Even if it be my end. Endings aren't so bad. After the night I endured, any ending sounds like peace.

  When Shria returns, I'll send this book with her to the khan. The thought of him reading these silly thoughts of mine makes me want to pull the horsehair blanket over my head. But so be it. I am done. Besides, if I'm being truly honest, I must admit that ever since I first heard his voice outside the tower, I've been writing this book for him. To him. It's his more than mine.

  And whoever reads this, be it Tegus or Shria or anyone, I've kept my wages in the far left corner of the sugar closet beneath the pile of empty sacks. I wish you'd give them to Gal's family to get them started. I hate to think of those coins lying idle and doing no good.

  Day 174

  This book of thought keeping must have the soul of a good mare who always returns to her master, for here it is, in my hands again. I have much to tell and little time, so here I go.

  After I last wrote, Shria came again to my locked room, bringing supper, and I sent her away with this book in hand and a request to give it to Khan Tegus. I waited two more days, knowing nothing. No one came but a kitchen boy whose name I never learned, bringing raisin rice, carrot salad, and milk to drink. No meat for prisoners. That's the lave.

  Those two days felt as long as a tower year. I've grown accustomed to easing loneliness and worry by writing my thoughts here or making a sketch of what I see. Being alone, without even this book to write in—well, I guess that's about as lonely as I've ever felt. I began to imagine that the world had swallowed me and I was lost and trapped deep in its belly with . . . never mind, I don't want to think about it anymore.

  After two days Shria returned. Her mouth was wrinkled like a winter carrot as she frowned at me —she wasn't angry, more sorry.

  "Say prayers if you wish, Dashti," she said. "You won't be coming back here. Whatever fate they decide for you, they'll enact it today."

  I said prayers. I didn't know what to pray for, so instead I just folded myself toward the north and, closing my eyes, tried to fill myself with memories of the Eternal Blue Sky. How can a body be too sad or frightened or lonely when she's filled up her soul with the highest sky blue? I left my horsehair blanket behind but told Shria that if they were to hang me, I wouldn't mind my body being covered in that brown blanket. It's been a good comfort to me. She nodded. I think she was too teary to speak. Ancestors bless her.

  Then upstairs to the large feasting hall. Lady Vachir was there, the seven chiefs of Song for Evela and one empty chair, four shaman, my lady, and Khan Tegus. I hadn't realized that he'd be there. Everyone was frowning at me.

  The city chief, a squat woman with black eyes, led the tribunal. "We're here to decide the fate of Dashti, a lady's maid, who claimed nobility and betrothal to our khan."

  It was the chief of order's responsibility to lay out my crimes, and she did a very good job. While she spoke, she held this book in her hand, and I guessed that before Shria was able to deliver it to the khan, the chief of order had taken a look.

  "Dashti," she said. She had a very tiny mouth. It unnerved me. "Dashti, why did you claim to be Lady Saren?"

  "My lady asked me to," I said. "She ordered me on the sacred nine, and I had sworn to obey her."

  "Hmm," said the chief. Then she opened this book and began to read parts aloud, parts that made me wish I could bury myself alive. How I gave Tegus my own shirt, when I said my lady smelled like hot dung, when I said I hated her, when I described the smell of Tegus's neck . . . Ancestors, it was horrible to hear. Every word made me hate myself more, and I decided that they'd be right to hang me.

  "Do you have any defense for yourself, Dashti?" asked the chief of order.

  I didn't. I couldn't think of anything, and I couldn't bear to look at Tegus. At that moment, my one wish was for a rope around my neck as fast as possible.

  "Then I demand her blood!" Lady Vachir arose and began to shout for my death, and not by hanging but my head on the chopping block so my blood would be spilled. That bit seemed to go on forever, and I thought, I really am going to die today. And the end is just and everything will be fine.

  While they shouted, I concentrated on sitting up straight. My thoughts kept returning to the idea of silver on blue, silver on blue. Oddly enough, that image of the sword against the sky was comforting to me. Maybe because the sword never fell?

  And then the khan stood, calming Lady Vachir back into her seat.

  "Since Dashti doesn't give her own defense, chiefs, I ask for the right to do so for her."

  The chiefs nodded. The khan approached my chair, and I kept my eyes on his boots.

  "First, allow me to examine other entries." He opened the book and read some from times in the tower, when I didn't want to speak for Saren, when I worried and prayed, when I begged her not to order me to. He read the entire entry from the day I gave My Lord the cat to Saren. He read my encounter with Khasar. There were murmurs of approval from some of the chiefs then.

  "There was another part that caught my interest as well," said the khan. "The day you arrived in Song for Evela. First, Dashti, you are a mucker, is that correct?"

  "Yes, my lord."

  "Forgive our ignorance of mucker ways, but as more folk from the steppes come here, we're beginning to learn. I understand that, according to the law of the steppes, if a mucker offers her last animal to another family or clan, accepting that gift means recognizing the mucker as a member of the family. Is that so?"

  I guess I just gaped at him then, I was so confused. What in all the realms was he saying? And when was he going to condemn me to death?

  "Shria, please relate your first encounter with Dashti."

  The white-haired woman stood. "She arrived at the gates with Lady Saren and a brown yak. She said she wanted to give the yak to Khan Tegus, that it was a gift for him."

  "Did she ask payment?"

  "No, in fact the gatekeeper stated no payment would be given, and she offered it anyway."

  "Did she trade the animal in return for employment?"

  "No, she gave the animal freely. I offered her scrubber work after the gift had been given."

  The khan nodded, satisfied. "I submit to you, chiefs, that Dashti presented me with her last animal, her only means of livelihood, and as such has the right to expect family status. I formally accept her gift of . . .," he turned to me, "a yak, was it?"

  "Yes, a very fine yak," I said. For he is—the finest yak I've ever known.

  The khan nodded. "Of a very fine yak. Here's where two laws collide, chiefs. Do we honor
Lady Vachir's claim of blood against any who threaten her betrothal? Or do we protect Dashti as a member of my own family?"

  Lady Vachir stood. "Chiefs, I demand — "

  "Wait, please, my lady, wait a little longer before getting back to the demands. I recognize that this argument isn't enough to stay your claim to blood right, but there is more. Lady Saren?"

  He took Saren's hand to help her rise from her seat, and I thought, That's how they'll hold hands when they're wed.

  "This is the true Lady Saren of Titor's Garden. I have her letters here," he placed parchments on the table before the chiefs, "accepting my offer of betrothal."

  "My lord," said the chief of order, "we've already ruled that your betrothal to Lady Saren precedes that to Lady Vachir. You have every right to marry the true Lady Saren, but this doesn't excuse Dashti's crimes."

  "Lady Saren," asked the khan, all business. "Why did Dashti claim she was you?"

  "I ordered her to. I told her to act in my name." She turned to Lady Vachir and said, "It was my right," offering along with the words a very convincing glare.

  The chief of animals shook her head. "Acting for her lady is the duty of a lady's maid, but professing to be her? Claiming her name? No. We're hearing reasons for the behavior but nothing that pardons the maid. Pretending nobility is the grossest crime imaginable."

  "Grosser than trading the soul's freedom to the desert shamans?" Batu said in a grumble that didn't carry far beyond the chief's table. "Grosser than razing Titor's Garden?"

  All were quiet for a moment. Then the chief of animals spoke again.

  "Nevertheless, the lave is paramount. If we don't obey the lave, then we create as much chaos as Khasar and his army. If I had to vote now — "

  "A moment, chief, please, I beg you. Don't cast your vote just yet." Khan Tegus turned back to Saren. "My lady, tell me what you told me this morning."