I began to recover, finally. One day the headache and backache were mostly gone, and the next day I could drink without vomiting my tea back up. Then I could eat again, and my headache and backache were gone completely. I was terribly weak, and had lost a great deal of weight; I felt like a good stiff breeze would carry me right over the wall and away from the Koryphe. If the magia wanted me healthy enough to survive the winter, she needed to let me out of my room to walk around a bit. And someone would need to help me walk.
Kyros, it seemed, had the same thought. “The magia who sent you to the pit took to her bed again while you were ill,” he said when he came to visit later that day. “You are at liberty to walk around again. Andromeda—your mother, I mean—can assist you.” He beamed at my mother, who gave him an affectionate smile back.
“Thank you for bringing my mother here to nurse me,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” He rose. “She’ll help you walk down to the garden later today.”
I could not remember ever having been quite so ill. I was unsteady when I rose and tried to walk; I clung to my mother’s arm as we made our way down the stairs. But the nausea was completely gone and the headache did not return. My mother settled me outside, in the shade. The day was hot. “Let me get you something to drink,” she said, and went back inside.
No sooner was she gone than Xanthe stepped close to me. “If my mother ran away—if she’s free—then why didn’t she come back for me?” she hissed.
I’d asked Janiya that question, and remembered her response. “She’d been a slave for six years. You had not been accused of anything—you had your whole life ahead of you. She knew that you would have been told that she was a criminal, a traitor, disgraced.”
“Or maybe she really was a criminal and feared to come back.”
“Whether she committed her crime or not, the danger would have been the same,” I said. “What did they say that she’d done? She never told me.”
“None of your business,” Xanthe said, and stepped away as my mother came back through the doorway.
“Here we are,” my mother said, brightly. She had a silver tray with two cups and a pitcher; she sat down and poured a drink for me, then herself. The cup was earthenware and cool. The drink was sweet and a little tart, and it wasn’t until I saw the deep ruby color that I identified the taste as pomegranate, sweetened with honey.
“Thank you,” I said. When I finished my cup, my mother poured more.
“Do you think you’ll be up for a bath today?” she asked, her fingers plucking at my hair. My hand followed hers; it was stringy and rank. I nodded, not speaking. “It’s such a shame that you cut your hair.”
“Cut it? It’s almost grown out.” The Alashi had cut it, when I’d joined the sword sisterhood. All the unmarried women cut their hair at the beginning of summer, then went off to train.
“It barely comes past your shoulders.”
I shrugged. “Well, it will look better once it’s clean, you’re right about that.”
She fell silent, satisfied with that for the moment, and I began to think about how pleasant it was to sit with my mother. Then she said, “This all could have been avoided if only you’d listened to me.”
“What could have been avoided? If I’d listened to you about what?”
“There’s no need to take that tone with me.”
“What tone?”
“That ‘don’t you tell me what to do, you’re only my mother’ tone. If you’d settled down like I wanted you to, all this—unpleasantness—could have been avoided.”
There were a million possible retorts to that, but the sheer absurdity of the statment left me speechless. Finally I said, “Yeah, and if you’d had a pet bird instead of a daughter, you could have kept it in a cage. Much less trouble.”
“Are you saying that I kept you in a cage?” my mother said.
“No, I’m saying that you’d have been happier with a bird than a daughter.”
“I never kept you in a cage.”
“You couldn’t have even if you’d tried. I’d have climbed out the window. Broken down the door.” It occurred to me that someone might be listening to me, and I wanted to try to escape from here at some point—when I was stronger—so I shut my mouth and clenched my teeth.
“You could have chosen to stay where you belonged and behave yourself.” I refused to rise to that. She sighed, and added, “Cybela’s son Brasidas got married last year.”
“How lovely for him,” I said, sincerely, though I still found myself picturing Brasidas as the nose-picking little boy he’d been when we were six.
“Yes.” She sighed again. “All the young men in our neighborhood are married now; Brasidas was the last.”
“Mother. I don’t want to get married!”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, her tone implying the opposite. “Because they’re all gone. All taken. All the young men…”
“Mother, I’m not even a virgin anymore,” I snapped. “That’s the sort of thing that’s important to the sort of men I grew up around. They want their wives to be pure and untouched. So look, just drop it. Stop thinking about it. I don’t want to get married and even if I did, the men you have in mind wouldn’t want me.”
“Not a—” My mother was a step behind me, trying to wrap her thoughts around what I’d said.
“I was raped by Sophos.” It was Kyros’s fault. I bit back the words. I wanted to lull them, to convince them that I trusted him, that he could trust me.
“Oh.” My mother was speechless, for once.
“So let’s talk about something else.”
There was a long silence. I sipped my pomegranate drink. My mother drained hers, then refilled the cup. I noticed that her hand was shaking slightly.
“Kyros sent you there,” she said, her voice soft.
“Yes. Mother—”
“Did he know?”
I glanced around; Xanthe, of course, was nearby, and no doubt listening. “Maybe you should ask him.” I swallowed hard and lowered my voice further. “Look. I think Sophos had orders from the Weavers to do whatever it took to make it work—to convince the Alashi that I really was an escaping slave. Kyros might have known that. Maybe.”
“Maybe? Of course he knew. If they didn’t tell him, he should have guessed.” My mother’s whisper was furious. I didn’t dare meet her eyes.
“Well, I told him, afterward. I told him I wanted Sophos’s head.”
“And did you get it?” My mother’s hand gripped my arm.
“What do you think? I did, actually, a few months ago, courtesy of Jaran, one of Sophos’s former slaves. I had it delivered to Kyros’s desk. Now you know why.” Shut up, Lauria, shut up! Just stop talking! The novelty of having my mother on my side for once had overwhelmed my sense.
“That misbegotten, malformed bastard,” she said, and let go of my arm. I wondered if she meant Sophos, or Kyros; then she added, “I hope he’s rotting in Zeus’s lost hell.”
“Did you ever meet Sophos?” I asked.
“Did I ever…”
“I know you used to be Kyros’s concubine.”
She let out her breath in a long sigh. “You know what? It’s not your business.”
“Don’t tell me, then.”
“No, why not? You asked. Yes, I met Sophos, and yes, he took me back to his room—that’s what you were wondering. I was hardly a virgin by then. I was Kyros’s favorite, and Sophos knew it. They were friends, but also rivals, in a way—and technically equals, though Kyros usually had the upper hand. Sophos had someone’s favor, that week, and to rub Kyros’s nose in it he took a privilege that would not normally have been granted to him. So I went with Sophos. I was very good at what I did—all of it. I told him I’d rub his shoulders, and then I poured him more wine, and still more wine—he drank so much he made himself impotent, which was what I’d hoped for. He was furious, and unfortunately realized I’d been pouring him generous cups of wine on purpose. He raised his hand—and checked
it, just in time. He didn’t dare beat me, knowing that I was Kyros’s favorite—he knew that if he did, Kyros would have his revenge, somehow, sometime. Maybe not that week, but eventually. So he laughed it off, swore me to secrecy, and let me go.”
“Did you keep his secret? Until now, I mean?”
“No. I told Kyros the next morning. He had a good laugh over it and gave me a bracelet as a reward. Lovely work, Andromeda—I knew I could trust your cleverness.”
She looked into the distance, remembering, a faint malicious smile on her lips.
“I would not have been a good concubine,” I said.
“I am not that clever.”
“Clearly not.”
I got raped, after all. That’s what she meant.
“There was a moment,” I said. “Sophos’s knife was where I could reach it. I wanted to stab him through the heart…But he was Kyros’s friend. I couldn’t believe what was happening.”
“If you’d done it, they’d have killed you,” my mother said. “A slave who raises a hand to her master is food for the dogs. A slave who kills her master—you don’t want to think about it. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I wasn’t a slave, though.”
“Did anyone other than Sophos know that? Would they have said anything? You could’ve claimed that you were freeborn, that Kyros had sent you, whatever, but they wouldn’t have sent an aeriko down to Kyros to ask. They’d have cut your throat and sent their apologies, perhaps, if you seemed halfway credible.”
“Huh.” She was right, I supposed. I fell silent.
“But,” she added, “if you had gotten married at a decent age—sixteen, perhaps—you’d have had your pick of the boys in our neighborhood. And none of this would have happened.”
After my mother had finally taken herself off to bed that evening, Xanthe came in, furtively, and closed the door behind her. “Why are you so sure my mother was telling you the truth when she said she didn’t commit the theft? For all you know she was justly punished, but escaped anyway. It’s not as if a bunch of bandits would care if someone was a thief.”
Xanthe’s face was furious. She stared at the floor as I tried to meet her eyes. “I’m sure because I know her,” I said. “She was a woman of integrity.”
“People change.”
“True enough.” I should know. “Does it matter?” Clearly the answer was yes. I cleared my throat. “Would you like me to tell you a little bit about her?”
“I don’t care if she dropped dead while you were puking up your innards,” Xanthe said, but made no move to leave.
“She’s quiet. Nothing like my mother, who never shuts up.” Xanthe suppressed a grimace at that. “The Alashi send out their young men and women in the summer as sword brotherhoods and sisterhoods. Janiya isn’t young, but she’s unmarried. She leads one of the sword sisterhoods. Tamar and I were sent out with her last summer; that’s how I got to know her.”
Xanthe was staring at the wall, not speaking. Listening, though. I kept talking.
“I was terrified of Janiya when we were first sent out with her. And those first weeks only made things worse. When a slave joins the Alashi they’re tested, and taught how to live as a free person. I failed the first test and that made me furious. The tests are tricks—at least some of them are. As the summer went on, though, I grew to respect her. I learned what made her laugh. She’s kind, even when she’s angry.” I glanced at Xanthe, swallowed hard, and added, “She spoke of you once. She thinks of you often.”
Xanthe straightened and flashed me a furious look. “I hope she rots,” she said, and stalked out, slamming the door behind her so hard a tapestry fell off the wall. A moment later the door swung open again; the servant had arrived with my nightly cup of tea. Giving Xanthe a look of terror, the servant tiptoed in, put down the tray and the tea, and fled.
I didn’t really feel like tea—even the nights were warm now—but picked it up anyway and took a sip. I wished I could see Janiya again—I wished I could speak to her, at least, and tell her that I’d found her daughter. That Xanthe was alive and well, if not exactly friendly or eager to see her. If I could find the borderland…I probably wouldn’t be able to find her, any more than I could find Prax. But I could talk to Tamar, and Tamar could talk to Janiya.
Why couldn’t I find the borderland anymore? Except for that one night when I was sick. I wasn’t a shaman, but I’d been a shaman’s apprentice and a sorceress’s apprentice. I ought to be able to get there. I had tried to meditate during the day; it didn’t surprise me that this hadn’t worked, as that was harder. But at night—especially if Tamar is trying to find me, and I know she is…
Why would being horribly sick have made me able to go?
And then, suddenly, I knew. They’re drugging my food.
Last year, I’d seen my mother in a dream, and had said that I was afraid that Kyros would come. What had she said? He has a remedy he takes for his headaches, and they make him sleep very soundly. Too soundly to dream. Whatever the remedy was, they were putting it in my food. That’s why they’d fed me every day when I was in the pit; that might have been why the water tasted funny; that was why I’d made it to the borderland once while I was sick. But only once. Because even when I was almost dying, when my mother had to give me broth and water a sip at a time, that was in the food.
Did she know?
No. Surely not.
But Kyros. He knew, without a doubt.
They chain your mind, the djinn had said. Now I knew what it meant.
I stared at the tea. It’s in the tea. Was it in everything else, too? Had I drunk my tea every night? I could stop drinking my bedtime tea—that would be easy enough. I couldn’t very well stop eating, though; I needed to regain my strength. Besides, a fast would attract attention. If they knew I’d figured it out…They brought me out of the pit when I stopped eating and drinking, I remembered now. That was why.
I had already started drinking the tea; I might as well finish my cup. My throat clenched, though, and I put my cup down. To bed, and darkness.
My mother joined me in the morning with a tray of food—breakfast. Fresh bread and a pot of honey to share, some sheep’s milk cheese, and tea. Where is it? Do they bother putting it in my breakfast? Can I eat freely? They couldn’t have put it in the bread, surely, but the honey…the tea…I picked at my food. My mother looked at me, concerned. “Do you feel well?” she asked. She reached out and touched my forehead to feel for fever. “I thought you were better…”
It would be a good excuse not to eat, but they’d just have her spoon-feed me again, so I forced a smile and said, “No, I’m fine.” I would eat breakfast and the midday meal, I decided, then claim illness at dinnertime if I needed an excuse to avoid eating. If I couldn’t get to the borderland tonight, I would fast all day tomorrow.
It was another hot day. My mother brought pomegranate juice to the garden again to sip. I eyed it with distrust, but there was nothing else to drink; I held off as long as I could but by mid-morning I was too thirsty not to drink. I sipped, trying to identify the foul taste of medicine under the sweet taste of the juice. Tamar and I walked for a whole day once without drinking, didn’t we? And it was hot, too. I should be able to go without drinking for a day, if I have to. But when we’d crossed the desert I hadn’t been recovering from an illness. Still. If I have to…
Midday came, and slaves brought out a low table for us to eat at, in the shade, and our meal—bread, hummus, cold meat, and plums. I could easily imagine drugs in the hummus. The bread, meat, and fruit initially seemed safe, but as I reached for the meat, I started thinking of ways it could be concealed in each. Though perhaps it wasn’t in any of the food. The sweet-tart drink would readily hide pretty much anything they slipped into it. And doubtless they expect I’ll drink it.
And it was a hot day. I sipped a little more, spilled the rest of my cup so that my mother wouldn’t realize how little I was taking, and poured more. I ate all the plums, as much for
their juice as for their sweet taste.
My head ached in the afternoon heat. “I think I’m going to go lie down for a while,” I said, and my mother helped me back up to my room. It was even hotter inside, though, and I lay on my bed, miserable, exhausted, and thirsty. I dozed, then jerked myself awake. Even if I somehow reached the borderland right now, I would never find Tamar; she was undoubtedly awake. As far west as I had traveled, it seemed likely that the sun rose over the steppe before it rose over Penelopeia, but the sun traveled more quickly than a palanquin; it might be later in the day where she was, but it would not be night. And if I napped in the afternoon I might find myself lying awake tonight. I need to stay awake now. I got up and sat in a chair, willing the afternoon to pass quickly, which of course was as useless as willing the moon not to wax and wane.
Finally, the sun was low in the sky and my mother appeared, servants in her wake with yet another tray. “Ugh,” I said, turning up my nose at the curried lamb, yogurt, and rice, ignoring the tempting smell of the gravy even as it made my mouth water. “Do you know what really sounds good to me right now? More of those plums. I think I could make an entire dinner of plums.” It would be difficult to slip drugs into the plums.
“I’ll see what I can do,” my mother said, and returned a short while later with a plate piled high. “There are orchards right outside the city.”
“Lovely,” I said, taking a bite and glorying in the sweet, untainted liquid. “Back home they’re just not this sweet…”
I was still hungry when all the plums were gone, but I didn’t quite dare send my mother looking for more. One hungry evening won’t kill me. The plums might try, though. “Oh, no,” I said, when my mother tried to persuade me to take some lamb. “I just wanted plums.”
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