by Kate Elliott
“Come in out of the sun,” said the woman, who now appeared to be of middle years, with features similar to Eliar’s but no pronounced resemblance. A pair of young women stared at Mai with wide-eyed interest, but at a gesture from the woman they hurried past to fetch the gear left out in the alley.
They must leave their footgear at the step, she showed them, and once they stepped up onto the veranda wear cloth slippers, although the ones available did not quite fit. Indoors lay a suite of rooms furnished with pillows, low couches, a writing desk, brushes and ink, and innumerable cupboards, all immaculate. Finest silk covered those pillows, embroidered with birds and flowers in pleasing designs.
“Rest,” said the woman. “The girls will bring you something to drink. No one works at this hour. Dinner is eaten at dusk.”
The girls brought their belongings up onto the veranda and then brought cool drinks, and pitchers of cool water so they could wash their hands and faces in a copper basin. After this, they were left alone. Exhausted, Mai dozed, and she was glad of it afterward, thinking that to endure an afternoon of fretting would have been too much. After all, she was the one who had convinced Anji to make the gamble.
Later, toward dusk, the same girls brought trays of food, but this time both of the girls arranged the platters on the low table and sat down to eat with them.
Sheyshi tried to serve, but the older of the girls, a young woman a year or two older than Mai, waited even for the slaves to sit before she would portion out the meal. This task she undertook with an exactitude that Mai, accustomed to measuring out a cupful of almonds in the marketplace, could appreciate. Then she and the other girl bent their heads, closed their eyes, and touched fingers to foreheads, with palms turned inward. What words they said, if they said any, Mai could not hear. Afterward, they ate together, but no one spoke.
When Sheyshi made an effort to stand in order to clear the platters, the other girl stopped her and took everything away. Cupboards, opened, revealed mattresses and bedding to spread in the back room. Once this was settled, the young woman took her leave with the regretful smile of a friendly conspirator whose cunning plot has been thwarted. She left through the far gate, the one that did not lead into the alley. The guesthouse itself, it seemed, had no entrance except the veranda. They were, in fact, shut in, betwixt and between: not on the street and yet not truly within the compound either.
The previous night had been a long, restless one, and this night transpired no differently because of the heat and the constant spark of images that flew into her mind’s eye and took their time drifting away again. She had to believe Anji would succeed, that he could manage anything, but in the dark, in a strange room, that was sometimes difficult. She would doze, then start awake thinking she heard voices, or the clatter of hooves on stone, or anguished sobbing. The food sat uneasily in her stomach; often she woke burping, and this churning discomfort further disturbed her dreams.
Very late, Priya woke also and held her close. “Rest now, Mistress. Fretting will not change our course, nor will it alter what is to come.”
Sheyshi snored.
“Let the peace of the Merciful One embrace you, Mistress.”
“It is hard to find peace,” said Mai in her smallest voice. “I am afraid.”
Priya kissed her. Held tight in those arms, Mai was able to sleep.
NOT LONG AFTER dawn, the women of the family took their morning khaif in the shade of the veranda. A trio of girls came first, bearing trays, and after them a procession of stern women of various ages: young, mature, and aged. Mai looked in vain for the friendly young woman who had brought them dinner last night.
The aroma of paradom melded with the sharp spice of khaif and the scent of freshly baked buns. That combination of spicy khaif and sweetened bread with an even sweeter bean curd core made Mai’s heart race uncomfortably, but it was evident by the casual demeanor of the women that this was their accustomed morning feast, the appetizer to their day.
At length, the long silence was broken.
“I trust you rested well?” demanded the wrinkled grandmother over the rim of a very fine, thin ceramic cup.
“Yes, verea. Thank you.”
They had pulled around pillows and couches the better to examine her.
“And the meal brought last night was to your taste?”
“Yes, verea.”
“You didn’t eat all of it. You left half of the soup, all of the cabbage, and one dumpling.”
The cabbage had been the nastiest thing Mai had ever tasted, and the sour sting of the soup had made her mouth go numb. She smiled her market smile, and said, “Concern for my husband left me with little appetite, Mistress. I beg your pardon.”
“Few like the way we pickle our cabbage,” said the old grandmother, “but you’ve turned a pretty phrase by way of thanking us for our hospitality.” She had wispy hair, gone to silver and let loose to straggle over her shoulders. No horns peeped through, and there wasn’t enough hair to cover horns had they been there, so after all the Ri Amarah were ordinary people, not the children of demons. In a way, Mai was both disappointed and relieved. “What do you think of these sweet buns? Our baker is the best in the city.”
“I’ve never tasted anything like them before.”
Several of the women chuckled.
“A truthful statement!” agreed the old grandmother. “None make them but our own people. Do you cook?”
The question surprised her. “Even my husband did not ask me that before we wed.”
“He was obviously not looking for a cook,” said the old grandmother tartly. “As any person can see, looking upon you, a pretty girl, with a pretty smile, and pretty manners. Do you cook?”
“I learned to cook the specialties of our house, as do all the girls raised in the Mei clan. I can embroider a sleeve, although none of my work was considered elegant enough to be worn outside the house on festival days. I can mend. I have some small skill at carving, taught to me by my uncle.”
“Can you brew a cordial or bind a lotion?”
“I was not taught such things. But I know which herbs to blend as teas and simples for remedies for common complaints.”
“Distill and mix perfumes?
“No.”
“Prepare silk for dyeing?”
“I’ve scoured wool, and applied the mordant, and thereafter dyed those skeins. We did that commonly. Our clan raised sheep.”
“Can you read?”
“No.”
“Paint figures and images?”
“No.”
“Can you sing?”
“I have been told I have a passable voice.”
“Can you dance the lines?”
“I don’t know what that is. The festival dances, certainly. Everyone learns those.”
“Can you reel and spin?”
“I have spun thread, and carded wool.”
“Silk?”
“Silk is not grown where we come from. We buy silk at the market, but only for bedroom clothes and festival garments.”
The women smiled, and one coughed behind a raised hand.
Grandmother was not done. “Can you weave?”
“Not well. Others in my household showed greater skill, so I was sent to other pursuits. Anyway, most of the weaving was done by our—ah—” Recalling Eliar’s impassioned speech against slavery, she chose another word. “By our hirelings.”
“What did you do?”
“I sold produce in the market.”
“With your face uncovered?”
“I beg your pardon?’
“With your face uncovered? It is not the custom of my people for women to walk about in the streets exposed to the world’s staring eye.”
“I beg your pardon, verea, but it was not the custom in my country for women to conceal their faces.”
“No need,” said the old grandmother with a pointed smile, “to bite me, young one. It seems to me that those who set you in the marketplace hoped to gain by displaying you
r pretty face, as much as their produce. Can you keep an accounts book?”
This was too much! “Of course I can!”
“I’m finished,” said the grandmother. A woman rose from a bench and took the old woman’s cup. Another rose from a padded couch and helped the old grandmother to rise, then led her across the courtyard. None here wore slave bracelets. Mai could not distinguish between servants and family members. They moved off, some gathering up trays and cups and a few moving among the troughs to inspect the dusty soil and the spiky paradom. A pair found brooms and began sweeping the veranda.
A woman of middling years, similar in age to Mai’s own mother, knelt beside Mai.
“We’ve much to do, as you can imagine, verea,” she said with a kind smile. “There’s a great deal of serious business in these preparations, and all must work if we wish Olossi to be ready to withstand what will come. You’ll have to remain here. However, now that Grandmother has approved you, my daughter can keep spoken company with you.”
“I thank you,” said Mai. “I am called Mai, of the Mei clan. I never had a chance to say so.”
Mai saw a resemblance to Eliar in the way the woman narrowed her eyes as she smiled. “It’s not our way to exchange names as one might trade goods or coin in the marketplace. I am the mother of Eliar, who brought you here. Ah! Here she is.”
The young woman who had smiled so sweetly at Mai last night appeared at the inner gate. She hurried across the courtyard. Her nose was red and her cheeks blushed as from steam, and the skin of her arms was damp to the elbows, pink with heat. Like her brother, she had a handsome face, rather square, with heavy eyebrows, a small nose, and eyes as black as ink and sharp as a brushstroke. Her hair was pulled back away from her face and bound atop her head under a beaded net.
She offered a courtesy to her mother, a dip of the knees, a crossing of the arms before her breast. Then she slid out of the outdoor slippers she was wearing and found a pair of indoor slippers from those lined up along the edge of the veranda. Eliar’s mother left together with the other women. They left a single tray with a ceramic pot of khaif and six sticky buns, together with saucers, cups, and serving utensils.
Sheyshi rifled through their belongings and, finding a hem to repair, set to work. Priya sat quietly on a pillow at the edge of the veranda, watching the shadows change as the sun rose above the eastern wall. She had her eyes half closed as she did when she fell into the trance through which one rises to the heart of the Merciful One. Mai did not want to disturb her, so she walked out into the courtyard and sat on a bench in the shade of the grape arbor.
Eliar’s sister settled beside Mai and, in a bold show of complicity, tucked her hand into Mai’s elbow and pulled her close. “That can’t have been fun. Did Grandmother pluck you, one feather at a time?”
“Something like that.”
“Grandmother is nothing but an accounts book, figuring up the worth of everyone and every thing she encounters. You mustn’t think she has taken a dislike to you. You’re our guest, and she will treat you as such.”
“Your mother said she had approved me.”
“Yes! So she did. It was the cabbage.”
From over the walls Mai heard the shouts and laughter of children, as bright and constant as a waterfall. A faint clacking serenaded them, which she identified as folk working at looms. She heard horses, and smelled their ordure. It seemed the stables lay close by. There rose also a tangy scent as of a sharp brew or cordial, and a whiff of a metallic vapor, like skeins of wool being set in alum.
“You can call me Miravia, by the way.”
“My name is Mai.”
There followed an awkward silence, and tremulous smiles.
“I was up at dawn cooking up a cordial,” said Miravia, by way of making conversation. She displayed her arms. That moist sheen of water was evaporating swiftly in the waxing heat. “Hot work, I’ll tell you! Steam boiling up! But I’ve been released from my duties for the day to act as your host.”
“I beg your pardon. I do not mean to offend. Am I to stay here?”
“With us? Yes, of course. Eliar offered you guest rights. We are beholden now to meet the obligation.”
“I meant, here.” She indicated the courtyard and the veranda, meaning as well the chambers beyond.
“In the guest court? Yes, certainly. This is where we entertain all of our friends and guests.” Miravia looked around. “It’s nicer after the rains come, when there are flowers. It’s rather dusty now. Is there anything else you need? The one thing we can’t offer you is a bath beyond washing out of a tub of heated water. But I might be able to ask if you can be given an escort down to one of the bathhouses. There are several that my friends have mentioned as being of special quality. You would be safe there, and your escort would remain close by until you are returned to us here.”
At some command Mai could not hear, the children quieted. Their silence, compared with the raucous activity that had come before it, was unnerving.
She lowered her voice in deference to the hushed children beyond the wall. “This is a lovely house and courtyard. I am so appreciative. It’s just that I’m so restless, wondering what has happened.”
“With your husband and his company? Eliar told me. He’s quite wild that he wasn’t allowed to ride out with them. I’m sorry for it, that you must wait while the men ride out. I feel the same frustration, although I beg you never to tell anyone and especially Grandmother that I ever said so.”
“I won’t. But don’t you—your brother said—” Again, she found herself hesitant to speak, not knowing what was permitted and what might, and might not, be known. “Your brother Eliar mentioned that you visit the prison.”
Miravia laughed. “Yes, I have managed that much. Because of the obligation. I bring food to those who are so destitute their families cannot feed them.” Her tone had a bittersweet edge. Her smile seemed touched with anger. “Eliar told me that you and I were meant to rescue that reeve, but now even that small task has been taken away.”
This passionate speech put Mai at ease. She began to feel that she might say anything, and not fear a sharp rejoinder. “I was surprised, too. It seems the council freed him.”
“Someone did, but I don’t think it was the council,” said Miravia with a frown. “I’m glad for his sake, poor man. It’s just . . . I had hoped for my own adventure. I’ll have none of those once I am married.”
“Is it already arranged?”
“Oh, it was arranged long ago,” she said dismissively.
“Do you know him?”
“His clan lives in the north, in Toskala. I’ve never met him, but we correspond.” She sighed. “He’s a scholar. Everyone speaks highly of him. I’m sure he’s very nice.”
“You’ve never met?”
“Why should we? Our families arranged everything. Anyway, the roads are very dangerous these days. No one dares risk the journey. I ought to have been married last year, but they had to put it off. I’m glad of it. Is that bad?”
Mai could not resist a gaze that shared in equal parts a glimpse of disillusionment and the presence of an ability to be amused at one’s own selfish, lost hopes. Like her brother, Miravia had charm and also a core of passion that, it seemed, she had learned to disguise.
“I was meant to marry a youth from another clan,” Mai said, “but it came to nothing after the Qin officer decided he wanted to marry me. Of course my father could not refuse him.”
“Well! That could be a disaster. Or a triumph.”
Mai blushed.
“Just like the Tale of Patience! Love’s hopes fulfilled!” Hearing her own voice ring out so clearly, Miravia pressed a hand over her lips and said, through her fingers, “Don’t tell Grandmother I said so. I’m not supposed to know such stories. But I do.”
“I don’t know the Tale of Patience,” said Mai. “Will you tell it to me?”
“You don’t know it? Everyone knows it!”
“Not where I come from.”
&nb
sp; “If I tell you the Tale of Patience, you must tell me your story, your life in the faraway land, your marriage, your travels. Your adventures.” Like her brother, she had a way of grinning that lit her as with fire from within. “How I want to hear it all!”
“I’ll tell you, gladly. Will you have some khaif? I can get a cup.”
“Oh, I must not.” Seeing Mai’s confusion, she added, “I’m not allowed, of course. Only adults can drink khaif.”
“Surely you’re as old as I am. I’m an Ox. When were you born?”
Miravia bent close, lips almost touching Mai’s ear. The intimate gesture made Mai shudder with pleasure. “I was born in the Year of the Deer. But we’re not supposed to know about that. The elders call it an ungodly custom, a superstitious way of naming the years instead of numbering them properly. Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
Mai grasped her hand between hers. “Of course I won’t! But I still don’t understand. If you’re two years older than I am, then how am I allowed to drink khaif, while you are not? Is it because I’m a guest?”
“No, because you’re an adult.”
Mai shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re married. And pregnant.”
“He-ya! Tay ah en sai!”
The children’s voices thundered out in a unison chant, echoed by three unison claps. A woman’s powerful voice called a singsong phrase, and the children replied in a penetrating chorus, punctuating each phrase with unison claps. This call and response went on while Mai stared at Miravia and felt as though she had just been overtaken by a sandstorm.
From the veranda, Priya opened her eyes and turned to look toward Mai, a smile blooming on her round, dark face. Sheyshi’s head remained bent over her sewing. At length, Mai discovered she still possessed a voice, although it had little enough strength to pierce the roar of the schoolroom chorus beyond the wall.
