“I heard voices,” she said sleepily. “Your voice. Who were you talking to?”
My blood ran cold. “Myself,” I said. “I was out here muttering to myself.”
Zhanna shrugged, not looking at all alarmed, and my heartbeat slowed down to something close to normal. I went back to my bed, but I didn’t sleep well, or dream, for the rest of the night.
I was woken from my doze by Erdene, who was stumbling rather frantically out of the tent. As I rolled over, I heard the sound of her retching, and sat up. So did some of the other women. “Do you feel ill?” I heard someone ask. “We didn’t eat meat last night . . .”
“She didn’t drink any kumiss,” someone else said.
Saken went out after her, to help her down to the stream to wash her face and drink some water. She ate breakfast with everyone else, but a few hours later, she was sick again.
“I know what’s wrong with her,” Tamar whispered to me as we scrubbed the pot and bowls after breakfast. “Remember how everyone was talking when the merchants came through? She’s pregnant. Meruert got sick right away, just like that.”
Sure enough, Janiya took Erdene into the yurt to talk to her alone, and came out looking utterly exasperated. “We’re going to have to wait on the raid,” she said. “We’ll have to escort Erdene up to the summer grazing pastures for her clan, first.”
“What is Arai going to say?” Jolay asked softly.
“I think Erdene’s right,” Gulim said. “If she’s carrying a child, he’ll be so happy about it, he wouldn’t care if it was born with two heads. He can claim the baby if he wants . . . it’s happened before. Do you suppose Rishad will let him out of the brotherhood for the rest of the summer, to be with Erdene?”
“If Arai claims the baby, won’t he have to? Even if he doesn’t, Rishad isn’t heartless. And it’s not like Amin and Gerhard and their caravan will be coming back this way anytime soon . . .”
We broke camp that morning and started heading east. Saken looked sad at the prospect of Erdene’s departure, and I remembered Zhanna’s comment, poor Saken, when she had told me about women who didn’t take summer friends. If Jolay had gotten pregnant, I wondered if Maydan would have gone with her back to their clan? Except Jolay wouldn’t have gotten pregnant; I remembered her slipping her arm around her friend, a little smugly. Well. I could ask Zhanna about it later, if I remembered.
Jolay had Tamar and me practice our riding skills as we traveled; she made us gallop and have our horses jump over rocks and other obstacles. Tamar fell off twice and I wondered if I should try to fake a fall, but I was afraid I’d rebreak a rib. Besides, they already knew I was a competent rider. And a competent swordswoman. If anyone was suspicious, falling off my horse wasn’t going to make her any less so. Tamar climbed back on her horse after each fall with a grim look, but no complaints. Maydan looked her over when we made camp that evening and pronounced her bruised but without serious injury.
Erdene looked miserable. She ate some dinner, then ran to throw up. Saken brewed her some tea with honey; that, at least, stayed down, and she ate a little bit of plain rice that stayed down. There were tears in her eyes as she went into the yurt to sleep.
We took the next day slower, because of Erdene—or rather, everyone else took the next day slower. Saken made Tamar and me, and our poor horses, work just as hard as we had the day before. At least today Tamar managed to stay on her horse. Her bow and a quiver of arrows were slung from her saddle; I saw her caress the edge of the bow with her fingers at one point, but of course practicing her shooting was not practical while we were moving camp.
When we neared the summer camp of Erdene’s clan, Janiya sent Saken on ahead to tell them we were coming. Most of the camp turned out to greet us. I could see some children, waist-high to their elders, and a man with snow-white hair and a stout stick to lean on, and thought how quickly I’d grown to think of young, short-haired, and female as the way the whole world looked. Gerhard and Amin and their men had been so foreign that their appearance had barely disrupted that.
Erdene shrieked as we rode up, and tumbled off her horse into the arms of a woman who must have been her mother; she looked like Erdene would look in twenty years or so, with gray hair and lines in her cheeks. Then she turned away from her mother and threw up, to her own distress and the amused disgust of the watching children. Her mother immediately began to fuss over her, leading her away to the cool interior of one of the yurts—no doubt she’d feed her sips of honeyed tea and rice mixed with milk and whatever else Erdene could keep down. I saw Janiya sigh with obvious relief: the problem of Erdene’s health, at least, was out of her hands.
“Welcome, sword sisters,” said the man with the white hair. The elder of the clan, no doubt. “You will join us for dinner, of course, and spend the night with us.”
“We are honored by your hospitality,” Janiya said.
We began to dismount our horses, and then froze in place as Janiya’s glare swept over all of us. “No one else had better need to leave before the summer is over,” she hissed. “Am I understood?”
She was. Amply.
Not that it mattered all that much; the young unmarried men, like the young unmarried women, were gone for the summer; the boys in the camp were boys, too young to interest anyone except Tamar (who was clearly not interested); and while there were young married men with a wandering eye, their wives were keeping a close watch on them tonight. The welcoming feast was lively; everyone wanted to hear how our summer was going, what adventures we’d had, how Tamar and I were settling in, and of course, how Erdene had managed to get herself pregnant. I ate roasted goat stewed with raisins and listened as Saken and Jolay proudly described my and Tamar’s progress in riding, shooting, and fighting; Tamar would have to give a demonstration of her shooting prowess the next morning, as everyone wanted to see whether she really was as gifted as was claimed. The visit from the merchants was described in detail, complete with loving descriptions of the Greek wine they’d passed around, and the exotic looks of the two men, one dark and one pale.
As the evening wore on and the kumiss was passed around, I caught Tamar’s eye and saw that she looked as tired and worn as I felt. There was something about being in a large crowd of people who were catching up with beloved relatives and old friends that made me feel like much more of an outsider. We made some quiet, polite noises and withdrew to the sisterhood’s yurt. Ruan was already there, snoring. “And she complains about your nightmares,” Tamar muttered, snuggling down under a blanket. “She should hear herself.”
That made me start worrying that I would have a nightmare that night, and I lay awake for a while, listening to the sound of conversation from the campfire. It wasn’t close enough that I could make out more than voices, and that was just as well. If they were talking about me, I didn’t really want to know what they had to say when I wasn’t there. At least they’d been kind enough in our presence, talking about my skill with the horse and the sword, Tamar’s skill with a bow, and both of our courage in battle.
I dropped off, finally, and dreamed of my mother.
I knew I was dreaming, this time; I stood in the room and knew that I could see my mother, but she couldn’t see me. My mother wore white linen, and when she looked up, her face was much younger than the face I knew, and when she shifted suddenly at the noise outside her door, I realized that this was the harem she’d been in before she was freed.
The door swung open, and my mother swiftly stood up. “Good morning, Kyros,” she said.
Kyros, like my mother, looked many years younger. “What do you think of your new quarters?” he asked.
“I am . . .” she hesitated, and a smile rose to her lips but not her eyes, “unaccustomed to the luxury of such privacy.”
He swung her suddenly into his arms, and she melted in his embrace, then pulled away slightly. “Your wife.”
“I’ve told her to stay away from this entire wing.”
“You don’t know how much she fri
ghtens me.”
“She’s harmless. She’ll obey me, at least.”
“Didn’t you tell me once that she apprenticed with the Sisterhood of Weavers?”
“Yes, but they sent her away because she had no talent. Don’t worry!”
My mother raised her chin stubbornly and Kyros sighed.
“You know how I love to spend time with you,” my mother said, melting into his arms again briefly and stroking the stubble on his chin. “I just wish I weren’t always so afraid.”
“I’ll think on this,” Kyros promised, and drew her close to him again.
The room tilted suddenly, like a leaf in a flooded river, allowing me to see that while she pressed her body to his and stood on tiptoe to nibble his ear, she had a satisfied, faintly calculating look on her face.
I woke with everyone else at dawn and thought about the dream as I helped to take down the yurt and pack up the horses and camels. My mother had been a harem slave, and at some point, somehow had talked her way into freedom—she was still the mistress of her old owner, but the more I thought about it, the more I’m so frightened of your wife seemed like a plausible line for a harem “favorite” to use to gain her own freedom. I could imagine it working for Aislan, at least; Tamar, well, if she’d tried it on Sophos, I imagined that he’d just consider her fear an extra bonus. Why Kyros had appeared in the dream, well, that was just strange. Perhaps because I preferred to imagine my mother with a kind owner, rather than a brutal owner like Sophos, and Kyros was the Greek man I knew the best.
Just pebbles spilling from my weighted heart, I thought, but I had to admit that it seemed distinctly like an djinn-sent dream, the way Zhanna had described them. Vivid. And not a nightmare. Were the djinn trying to tell me that Kyros was my mother’s old owner, the one who had freed her? Does it even matter? I shrugged off the dream and tried to focus on the coming raid.
Janiya apparently struck an agreement with the eldress to leave the bulk of our flocks behind with the clan during our raid; we’d bring the horses and enough camels to carry our yurt and other necessary gear, but leave behind the sheep, goats, and dogs. Some careful sorting and repacking was done—most of our extra food would also stay behind until we came back. Then the clan, including Erdene, turned out to say good-bye. Saken gave her a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, and she was clearly upset as we rode away. Ruan kept trying to offer words of comfort, though it was fairly clear that Saken didn’t want her company. Around midmorning, Zhanna picked a fight with Ruan; I was pretty sure she was mostly trying to distract her. All conversation had to be conducted at a yell, during the periods when we were letting our horses walk, which made the fight embarrassingly public. At least neither ended up with a bloody nose.
Everyone was in a surly mood by the time we stopped for the evening. We put up the yurt and took care of the animals and had dinner, Ruan and Zhanna still periodically muttering insults at each other. Saken hardly even seemed to be aware of it; big tears dripped into her bowl as she ate. Though Ruan was clearly in a foul, vicious mood, none of her usual arrows were aimed in my direction, or Tamar’s—nor did she “accidentally” spill our food, step on our hands, or engage in any of the other harassment she’d found so amusing only a few weeks ago. Despite everything, I had to hide a smile when I realized this. Take that, you petty bully, I thought as I finished the last of my food.
There was no drumming, dancing, or drinking that night; Janiya went to bed early, probably hoping that the evil mood would evaporate with the night dew, and everyone else followed.
In the darkness, I heard someone come into my room. “Who’s there?” I muttered sleepily.
Light gleamed suddenly from a lantern, blinding me momentarily; I blinked and saw that it was Kyros. “This is important,” Kyros said. “I have a gift for you.”
“Now?” I asked, trying to remember how I’d gotten back to my own room, my own bed. I was in the desert . . .
“Here.” Kyros held out a glittering spell-chain, then swiftly pulled it back as I reached for it. “I need to know that I can count on you.”
“You always know that you can count on me,” I said. “That’s what you’ve always said.”
“I need for you to say it,” Kyros said. “Kyros, you can count on me. I am your most trustworthy servant.”
“Kyros, you can . . .” I glanced at the spell-chain; glittering in the light, it reminded me of something. “That one’s not yours,” I said.
“It will be yours.” He held it out to me again. “Say it.” I blinked in the light. “Say it.”
I opened my mouth to repeat the words, but what spilled out was different: “Tell me what you did about Sophos.”
There was a howl of frustration and the dream dissolved into the familiar darkness of the yurt. At least I hadn’t woken up screaming; after the rising tension of the afternoon, I had half expected to. That really would have improved everyone’s mood for the next day.
It occurred to me that if I wanted to know what Kyros had done about Sophos—if anything—I could simply step out of the yurt and slip out of camp. He’d almost certainly sent the djinn back to try to speak to me again.
I bit my lip, stroking the edge of the embroidery on my vest. Right, Kyros, I thought. I’ll make you a deal. If you’ve actually done something with the information about what Sophos did to me, I’ll tell you about the raid we’re planning. If you haven’t, then you can whistle to the wind for the information. You’ll hear about the raid when you get the report on it. I pushed my blanket aside and slipped out.
As I’d expected, I saw the shimmer of the djinn as soon as I was out of the camp. A cold wind was blowing. “Kyros sends this message,” the djinn said without preamble. “Lauria, you must trust me on the question of Sophos. To bring a charge of rape, you need to return from your mission and give testimony for the Sisterhood of Weavers to consider. They will take it very seriously, I’m sure, but right now, you have to trust me. Have I ever failed in your trust in the past? The aeriko tells me that your band is moving; where are you going? I need your report. I know I can count on you.”
Anger churned in my stomach. “Tell him that I have an answer to his question ‘Have I ever failed in your trust in the past’: You handed me over to Sophos. And you might add, I don’t want to wait for Penelopeian justice. You have a sword, you have a horse, I want you to deal with him now.”
“My orders are to wait for your full report,” the djinn said.
I almost said that this was my full report, but felt a flash of caution. There was no need to make it clear to Kyros that I was withholding information on purpose. “As I’ve told Kyros repeatedly, I’m not trusted yet. I don’t know where we’re going.” Which was true, as far as it went. “That’s my report.”
The djinn shimmered in the air for another moment or two, then winked out. The flush of my anger had faded and left me shivering; I hurried back toward the warmth of the yurt.
I ran into Zhanna on the way. “Is someone else out here?” she asked. “I heard you talking again . . .”
“Muttering to myself again,” I said.
She gave me a penetrating look. “Lauria, are you trying to talk to the djinn?”
I decided to give her a noncommittal shrug. She smiled and squeezed my arm. “We can work some more on your training once we’re back from the raid—it’s hard when we’re riding all day.”
“It’s all right,” I said, since she sounded apologetic.
“And in the meantime—well, feel free to try to talk to the djinn however you want. Every now and then you’ll see one, if you’re watching. If you talk to them, sometimes they’ll talk back.”
I gave her a hesitant nod. To my surprise, she kissed me on the cheek. “Go get some sleep,” she whispered.
It felt as if I’d just fallen asleep when Tamar shook me awake. Around me, the camp was getting up. I stood up groggily and packed with everyone else.
“Is the raid going to be today?” I asked Saken. “Or soon?”
<
br /> She shook her head. “We’ll ride today for about half the day and make a camp. That camp will be about an hour out from the Greek outpost. We’ll make camp, spend the night, and strike tomorrow at dawn.”
At least Saken, and everyone else, was in a better mood that day. No arguments broke out; we made camp in early afternoon by a well marked with a cairn of rocks. We took turns drawing water up for the horses and camels. People were tense, but it was tension over the planned raid rather than over conflicts with each other.
Janiya called us together as soon as the camp was set. “We’re going to raid the garrison guarding a mine,” she said. “It’s in the southern hills, so they won’t be able to see us until we’re pretty close.” She glanced at Zhanna, who jumped up and went into one of the yurts for a moment; she returned with a wood box that was bound shut with leather straps. Zhanna unlaced the straps and set the open box at Janiya’s feet. Very carefully, almost as if she were handling a living creature that might turn around and bite her, Janiya removed a small metal vial with a cork in the top.
“When we go to battle against the sorcerers who bound our rivers, we bring the gifts and weapons of Prometheus and Arachne. As a sign of Prometheus, we bring fire. As a sign of Arachne, we bring venom.” She passed the vial to Ruan, who slipped a belt through a metal ring at the top and buckled it carefully to her waist. Tamar watched, her eyes wide and eager. I realized that my hands were shaking. Would they expect me to do this? To use poison against the Greeks? I remembered how much the prospect had terrified me before I set out on this mission. I hadn’t even warned Kyros that we were coming—my treason compounded.
Janiya passed out vials to each of the other sisters, then stopped. “Tamar and Lauria, you’re recruits, not full Alashi yet. You will have to go into battle with clean arrows.”
Tamar’s face fell. Zhanna gave her an apologetic look. “We’ll give you some of the fire arrows if you want,” she said. “But no venom until you’re truly Alashi.”
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