No doubt he’s anticipating the profit he’ll make on me, Ashinji thought.
After following the road for a short distance, Marcus drove the wagon through a set of tall stone gates. The words, “Grand Slave Market” written in High Soldaran script, decorated the plinth.
Ashinji watched in horrified fascination as they rolled past an auction in progress, one of several going on at once in various areas of the market. A young woman stood on a raised platform, naked except for the chains on her wrists and ankles, blank eyes staring through a curtain of tangled black hair. A crowd of men ringed the platform, all shouting and gesturing with their fingers. Another man, dressed in gold- trimmed robes, stood beside the girl, prodding her thighs with the butt of a leather whip. When the handler spun the girl around, bent her over and kicked her legs apart, Ashinji turned away in disgust.
The scene he had just witnessed, coupled with the noise and heat, left Ashinji shaking and nauseous. He leaned against the side of the wagon and struggled to breathe, a mere hairsbreadth from panic.
There’s no way I’ll let Marcus strip and parade me naked in front of a howling mob of humans. I’ll find a way to kill myself first!
The wagon stopped in front of a smaller, walled-off area. Marcus set the brake and jumped down from the driver’s seat. He scrambled onto the wagon bed and stood, hands on hips, looking down at Ashinji. “Your new life is about to begin, Ashinji,” he announced. “This is the exotics market. Mostly humans from faraway lands with different colored skins are sold here, but half-breeds and some non-humans end up here as well. You’ll be a special prize. Not too often a pureblooded elf ends up in your circumstances. The bidding should be spirited!” His eyebrows lifted in amusement.
Ashinji remained silent.
“First things first,” Marcus continued. “We’ve got to get you cleaned up.” He snapped his fingers and his assistants came to attention. “Take him to the wash yard. I’ll be along shortly,” he ordered.
Marcus’ assistants escorted Ashinji to an enclosed yard deep within the exotics market area. Stone troughs lined the walls on three sides. The cobble-paved yard sloped inward toward a large circular drain hole in the center. A crowd of people, some washing themselves, others being washed against their will with varying degrees of struggle, filled the space.
Asa grabbed a wooden bucket and filled it with water from one of the many small taps spouting from the walls over the troughs. “Don’t just stand there, Lacus you lazy dolt!” He glowered at Blond Bear. “Get his clothes off!”
Lacus stepped forward and Ashinji raised his hands. “I can undress and wash myself if you free my hands,” he said. Lacus looked at Asa, his broad face full of uncertainty.
Asa frowned, then said “Yeah, go ahead. Where can he run to, eh?”
Hands free, Ashinji peeled off his filthy clothes and dropped them into the trough. He looked at Asa. “Soap?” he asked, and the man went off to find some. While he waited, he unbraided his hair and raked his fingers through its greasy length, grimacing in disgust, acutely aware that others in the yard were beginning to take notice of him.
Asa returned and pressed an irregular yellow lump into Ashinji’s hand. Ashinji turned his back to the yard and began washing the two and a half weeks worth of accumulated grime from his hair and skin. When he had finished, his skin smarted from the harsh soap, but the sheer bliss of a clean body raised his spirits as much as they could be in this horrible place.
Lacus produced a clean tunic from the pack he carried slung over one broad shoulder. With a grateful sigh, Ashinji slipped the unbleached cotton over his still-wet body. He dunked his dusty sandals in the trough to rinse them and slipped them back on his feet, then fished the old tunic and breeches out of the murky water.
“Leave those,” Asa ordered, and Ashinji let the water-soaked garments slip out of his hand to land with a wet plop on the cobbles at his feet. “Hold out your hands,” Asa commanded and fastened the manacles back on Ashinji’s wrists.
As they left the wash yard, Ashinji glanced about and saw the many gazes turned on him.
Goddess, please! Help me get through this! he prayed. Help me survive and get home to Jelena and our baby!
He looked at the sky and caught sight of a pair of white birds winging their way across the roofs of the market. They swerved and alighted onto the wash yard wall. Their bead-like eyes seemed to follow Ashinji as he passed below their perch.
Seeing the birds, he didn’t feel quite so afraid anymore.
Perhaps these birds are a sign from the One, he thought. I am Ashinji Sakehera, son of Sen and Amara, Lord and Lady of Kerala. Jelena Onjara Sakehera is my wife, and I am son-in-law to Keizo Onjara, King of Alasiri.
I am no slave!
He would hold these truths in his heart, and survive.
Chapter 23
The Grieving Season
Winter tightened its grip on Alasiri. The trees had shed their leaves and stretched bare branches to the gray skies like bony hands grasping toward heaven. The flocks of migratory birds that had passed overhead in countless numbers throughout the late fall had vanished, fled south to their breeding grounds in the human lands. The summer-sleek hides of horses and cattle had grown rough and shaggy, and the sharp wind off the high Kesen Numai Mountains sang of the coming snow.
As the season deepened, so too, did Jelena’s grief. For a time, she withdrew completely from all life at court, sequestering herself in a small set of rooms near the Sakehera family quarters. Unable to bear Sadaiyo’s presence, Jelena had refused to return to the home of her in-laws, and so the king had given her a private flat of her own to live in, along with Eikko.
Keizo came to see her every day, as did Amara and Sen. She would sit with them for a time, but then beg them to leave her, so she could retreat to the haven of her bedroom to lie alone with her sorrow. Sonoe came as well, sometimes with Keizo, sometimes on her own. For reasons Jelena did not quite understand, only Sonoe seemed able to give her any comfort.
Sonoe had been there, standing with the king, when Sadaiyo delivered the news that ended life as Jelena had known it. During the few moments it had taken for Sadaiyo to speak, Jelena’s world had imploded, leaving her a widow and her unborn daughter fatherless. She could recall little of that terrible day, but one of the few memories that stood out had been the unexpected tenderness of Sonoe’s attentions.
Her father’s arms had cradled her in those first few hours of agony, but later, when she had begged to return to her room, his Companion had accompanied her and had stayed with her through the long, dark night. Jelena had found herself clinging to the older woman as she would to a sister, accepting the comfort Sonoe offered without question or hesitation. All the suspicions she had harbored against Sonoe vanished like dew at sunrise, and now, after so many weeks of closeness, she shared a bond with the flame-haired sorceress both deep and strong.
Sonoe now came to Jelena’s rooms each morning and saw to it that she got out of bed, went to the bath house, got dressed, and ate. If not for her friend’s persistence during those first few days, Jelena doubted if she would have had the strength to move at all.
With each passing day, the pain, though still intense, grew a little easier to bear. Slowly, Jelena learned to live with her grief.
This particular morning, Sonoe was late, and Eikko, perhaps not having the heart to disturb her, had left Jelena alone to linger awhile longer in bed. Thin, wintry sunshine spilled like ice water across the coverlets, and Jelena sighed in annoyance at herself for forgetting to remind Eikko to draw the curtains last night. The light made it impossible to sleep, as did the movements of her daughter.
Jelena tossed the covers aside and slid awkwardly out of bed. She drew a fur-lined robe over her nightgown, and with a hand pressed to her aching back, she shuffled over to the little water closet to relieve herself. That done, she settled into the window seat, pulling her robe close about her to ward off the chill that seeped through the glass. Her unborn daughter dealt her
another kick to her ribs.
“Easy, easy, little one,” she whispered in Soldaran. “Why must you be so hard on your poor mam?” Jelena almost never spoke in her native tongue anymore, and at times, she missed the sound of it.
Where is Sonoe?
Jelena felt a twinge of worry. She looked out the window, letting her gaze wander over the rooftops glazed with frost. A flutter of black against the blue tiles caught her eye. A large raven had dropped from the sky to land on a dragon-headed rain spout directly across from her window. The bird looked as though it watched something below its perch. Jelena craned her neck to try to get a look at what the bird saw.
In a little courtyard below Jelena’s bedchamber, Sonoe and Princess Taya stood face to face in what seemed to be a tense confrontation. Even from so great a distance, Jelena could sense the animosity that crackled between the two mages like a lightning strike. Sonoe spoke and Taya reacted as if she had been struck. Both women threw up their hands simultaneously and each took a step back and away from the other. Jelena cried out in alarm.
From the other side of the bedchamber door, she heard Eikko call out, “Princess! My lady, are you ill?”
“I’m fine,” Jelena answered, tearing her gaze away from the stand-off below. She pushed herself up from the window seat and moved to open the door, but before she reached it, Eikko had bustled in.
The hikui girl scanned Jelena with a practiced eye. “You cried out, my lady, and it frightened me!” She looked both relieved and accusatory all at once.
“I was startled, that’s all, Eikko. I just saw my aunt and Sonoe down in the courtyard and they seemed to be having a nasty argument,” Jelena explained. She moved past Eikko into her sitting room.
“I’m sure they’ll settle it, Highness, one way or another. You shouldn’t let it worry you,” Eikko said, as she followed her mistress out of the bedroom. Jelena sat on the couch before the fireplace, and Eikko quickly moved to throw a fresh chunk of wood onto the glowing embers of last night’s fire.
But it does worry me , Jelena thought, well aware of the bitter rivalry between her aunt and Sonoe, but still ignorant of its origins. Neither mage had offered an explanation, nor had either one asked her to make a choice between them.
One day, they might, and then what?
“Shall I bring you your tea, Highness?”
A soft rap upon the outer door interrupted Jelena’s reply. Eikko hurried over to admit a rather flustered Sonoe. The mage pulled off her green velvet cloak and dumped it into Eikko’s arms, then swept into the sitting room and dropped on the couch beside Jelena. She held herself stiffly upright, eyes closed, jaw locked tight. Her long, graceful fingers clinched into fists on her lap.
“Sonoe, I saw you with my aunt. What happened?” Jelena asked in a low voice. She stared at her friend’s profile and waited.
With an explosive sigh, Sonoe relaxed. She opened her eyes, turned toward Jelena and smiled. “It’s nothing that I haven’t had to deal with many times before, pet,” she answered. “The princess and I have…old grievances. Grievances which I have long since put aside, but she seems unable to move past. I try to live peacefully with her, for your father’s sake, but, well…” She shook her head and reached out to gather Jelena into her arms. “I am sorry if you were worried,” she whispered.
Jelena felt Sonoe’s warm, comforting energy envelop her like a soft blanket.
“I…I wasn’t worried, not really,” Jelena fibbed. Sonoe chuckled. The baby jumped and both Jelena and Sonoe gasped, then burst out laughing.
“That little one of yours… she grows stronger every day,” Sonoe said. “I can feel her Talent, Jelena. It blazes like the sun. She will be a great beauty and an even greater mage one day.”
Jelena looked down at her bulging belly and tried to imagine what her child would look like. “I pray every night, Sonoe,” she said, “to Hani, the Soldaran goddess of Beauty. I ask her to let Ashi’s face come again into the world when our daughter is born.”
“Eikko!” Sonoe called out.
“Yes, mistress?”
“The princess is ready to go to the bath house now.”
Eikko disappeared into Jelena’s bedroom and emerged a few moments later carrying a heavy cloak of fine, golden brown wool and fur-lined leather boots. She flung the cloak over the top of Jelena’s robe and bent to assist her mistress with the boots.
“Now you’re ready to go out into the cold,” the maid pronounced after she’d done up the last bootlace.
“I’ll wait here for you,” Sonoe stated. “Don’t dawdle. Your father is expecting us for breakfast.”
Jelena smiled. “I have an announcement to make that he’ll want to hear. I’ve decided on a name for my daughter.”
Sonoe beamed with delight. “I won’t ask you to tell me now, because I know you’ll want to tell your father first,” she said. Her emerald eyes shone with affection. Jelena wondered anew how she could have ever been afraid of her father’s Companion.
Jelena waited for Eikko to pull on her own cloak, and then the two young women descended to the courtyard and hurried toward the bath house, their breath swirling in gouts of steam about their heads. As they walked, Jelena glanced over her shoulder to see Sonoe standing in the sitting room window, looking upward, head cocked, as if listening to something.
That’s odd, Jelena thought as she followed Sonoe’s line of sight to the peak of the roof directly opposite the window. The enormous raven she had seen earlier still clung to the frost-slick tile. The bird opened its beak and uttered a harsh cry.
The sound sent an icy finger of dread trailing down her spine, and she shivered. Why the caw of a raven should affect her so, she couldn’t fathom. She looked back toward the window, but Sonoe had disappeared.
“Princess! Do come along, you’ll catch your death out here!” Eikko pleaded through chattering teeth.
“Coming,” Jelena replied. She glanced once more at the roof. The raven remained motionless, a black form silhouetted against the blue sky.
Many Soldarans believed that ravens harbored the souls of executed criminals, bent on mischief and mayhem. Claudia had always discouraged such thinking, believing it to be nonsense; nevertheless, ravens had always made Jelena uneasy.
Pulling her cloak tighter around herself, Jelena turned her back on the bird and followed Eikko’s retreating form. From behind, she heard the flap of wings and a heartbeat later, the raven swooped by, low and fast, then angled up over the roof tops and disappeared. A single, blue-black feather floated down to touch the ground at Jelena’s feet. She sidestepped to avoid treading on it, her gut twisting in irrational fear.
Ashinji would think her silly, and in her mind, she could hear the sound of his good-natured laughter, sweet and mellow. A sharp pang of sorrow opened the ever present wound in her heart as fresh tears wet her cheeks.
I’ve got to stop crying every time I think of you, Ashi. I know you’d want me to get past the pain and move on, for our child’s sake!
By the time she reached the bath house, she had stopped crying, but she felt like the hurt would never truly end.
Chapter 24
The Power Of A Name
"Keizo, Jelena has something important to tell you,” Sonoe said as she slipped into her accustomed place at the dining table, to the right of the king. Almost without conscious thought, she arranged her robes to artful effect and settled into the attitude of seductive attentiveness she always adopted when in the presence of her royal lover.
Jelena came to her father and accepted his paternal kiss, then took her place across from Sonoe. The two of them had Keizo all to themselves this morning, for which Sonoe felt greatly relieved. The thought of having to face Taya again, after their run-in earlier…
The old bitch is getting suspicious, she thought. I must tread carefully, very carefully, indeed. Things are at a crucial stage, now. I can’t afford any mistakes!
“What is it you want to tell me, Daughter?” Keizo asked. His voice, as usual, wa
s calm and measured, but the sparkle in his eyes betrayed his eagerness to hear Jelena’s news. Before she could speak, however, the servants arrived with the meal.
Sonoe watched Jelena surreptitiously as the servants laid out the food. The magic of the Key within Keizo’s daughter bled through every pore of her skin, as beautiful and bright as the sun. Sonoe felt intoxicated by its energy. How could any serious mage not wish to possess such power?
The Nameless One thinks he controls me, and that I will meekly assist him in obtaining the Key! I’ll let him believe he has the upper hand, for now. But when I turn the tables on him…then we’ll see who controls whom!
“Shall I pour you some tea, my dear?”
“Uh… yes, please,” Sonoe answered, turning her attention back to Keizo and smiling as he filled her cup. He always seemed to derive pleasure from serving her with his own hand, and she derived enormous satisfaction from letting him do so.
“Now, Daughter… Tell me your news,” Keizo commanded after he had poured tea for them all.
“I’ve decided on a name for your granddaughter,” Jelena said, smiling. “Ashinji and I didn’t have much time to discuss names before he… left for Kerala. I’ve picked one that would please him as well as me.”
She lowered her head for a heartbeat, and when she looked up, her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Ashinji’s grandmother, Lord Sen’s mother, was named Hatora. I’ve decided Hatora will be our daughter’s name.”
Keizo nodded in agreement. “Hatora is a fine name. I’m sure my old friend will be well pleased with your choice. It is fitting that you should honor the memory of your husband in this way.”
“Thank you, Father,” Jelena said.
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