Naondel

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  No. I do not want to write any more about this.

  Iskan let me keep Korin for ten days. Ten short days I could hold him, and give him my milk, and breathe in his scent, and be his mother, his whole world. On the tenth day Iskan had his mother and a wet-nurse move into our house to take care of Korin. Iskan personally tore the boy from my arms, and I do not want to write any more about this either. I will never forget my first proper encounter with his mother, Izani, and how she held my son to her bosom as though he belonged to her, as though he had come out of her own body, and how proudly she told her son that she would raise her grandchild to be exactly like his father. She did not give me so much as a glance.

  Lehan was the only one who came to visit me, a few days after they had taken Korin away. I had not left my chamber; Iskan had locked the door behind Izani when she carried Korin away. The maidservants came in and emptied my chamber pot and brought me food that I did not touch. My sister stood in the doorway and looked at me a long while. I was sitting huddled up against the wall, where I had spent most of my time. That bed was the place where I had given birth to Korin. I could not lie in it again. I was barely conscious of Lehan’s presence until she started speaking.

  “He would let you meet Korin if you only composed yourself.” Her voice was a mixture of pity and scorn. I looked up but she avoided my gaze. She fingered a ring on her left hand, a large green stone set in gold, evidently a gift from Iskan. Until that moment I had felt nothing but despair and boundless sorrow, but suddenly a violent hatred blazed inside me. It was so powerful that I began to shake. I wanted to speak, but all these overwhelming sensations were crammed in my throat and I could not squeeze out a word.

  “You have been behaving like a mad woman, Kabira. Do you not understand that he is thinking only of what is best for his son? An unbalanced mother could hurt her child, or worse.” But she did not fully believe her own words. If she did she would have looked me in the eye.

  “Do you know who it is you lie with each night?” The words tore at my throat, raw from days and nights of screaming and raging. I did not take my eyes off Lehan as I clambered to my feet. The skin on my knuckles split open again and the wounds I had incurred from beating the walls with my fists started to bleed. “Do you know whose member is making you pant like a bitch on heat?” Lehan edged out of the door and tried to close it behind her, but I was too fast and darted like a snake to wedge my foot in front of the door before she could close it fully. At that moment I realized that she had come to see me without anybody knowing. No servants were waiting outside. I easily pushed open the door; I have always been stronger than Lehan. Delicate little Lehan with her shiny hair and shimmering skin. “Not only have you taken your sister’s husband into your bed, which is already oaki. You sleep with our mother’s murderer. You welcome our father’s killer into your bed. You spread your legs for the man who slew our brother and sister.”

  Lehan was staring at me, finally meeting my gaze, her eyes wide with horror. I grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her back into the chamber and closed the door behind us. I leant my face close in to hers. “Listen now, little Lehan, little harlot Lehan, listen carefully! Iskan made me reveal to him the secrets of Anji, and he found a new use for her forbidden water. It allows him to kill without leaving a trace.” I saw my saliva spray on her face, but she made no attempt to wipe it away.

  “You are crazy,” she whispered, but could not take her eyes off my face, like a vole transfixed by a venomous snake, unable to move.

  “Am I? Am I really? Tell me, little Lehan, Iskan’s little plaything, does the Vizier yet live? Or has Iskan implemented his plan to kill his own father as well? Perhaps the Vizier passed away in his sleep?”

  She went pale. “He… he received word yesterday that the Honourable Vizier had passed away in his sleep.” She tried to back away. “But he was old. You could have guessed.” I did not let go of her arm.

  “I could have. But tell me, did Iskan visit his father the day before he died? And was it perchance the day after the full moon?”

  Her silence was answer enough. I smiled and opened my eyes wide. I must have appeared out of my mind. “That’s right. That’s right, little Lehan. Think back. Was the moon waning when our family died? You know it was—I can see it in your eyes. When I lay sick in bed, Lehan, when Iskan forced our first child from my body. You think you are the only one with whom he slakes his lust, but he had me first, you little harlot, many times. And then he murdered our child, and my family, and all the baby girls I have carried before Korin. Why do you think I have been behaving this way?”

  She was crying now, with deep sobs that made her body convulse, and mucus and tears were streaming down her perfect face and, oh, how I wished that Iskan could see her at that moment! I was so far removed from my mind and senses that I reached out a forefinger to catch a tear from her cheek, and licked it.

  “But… but why did you marry him?” she asked between sobs. “Nobody forced you! Kabira, why did you walk into his trap?” She clutched at my free arm with hers and grasped tight, heartbroken.

  I studied her contorted facial features, fascinated, because for once she did not look beautiful, but red and bloated and ugly—ugly!

  “It was your fault, do you not see?” I cocked my head to one side. “He was threatening your life. If I did as he said he would spare you. I did it for your sake, you little bitch. And as thanks I have to listen to him making you moan, night after night. As thanks you have turned your back on me, as thanks you have helped him take my child from me. Tell me, will you get as much pleasure when he enters you tonight? Will you enjoy him licking your tender young breasts as before? The spirits of the dead walk these halls. They are watching you. They have seen your every deed, heard every moan. Mother and Father, Agin and Tihe. Can you picture them before you? Good. Then think about how you are honouring their memory. I tried to warn you, so do not plead ignorance.” I shook her hand off my arm and pushed her away. Spat on the floor by her feet. “One thing you knew without doubt. That he was my husband. Nothing can change that.”

  I drove her out of the chamber. She offered no resistance. I slammed the door and fell to the floor. All of my energy drained away in an instant. I crept back into my corner and folded my arms over my head. I felt a brief sense of satisfaction from seeing Lehan’s whole world fall apart around her. Vengeance flowed through my body like sweetest honey. But soon I was left with a bitter burning in my mouth and throat, and the chamber was empty, and nothing, nothing could give me respite.

  Iskan found her that night. She had hanged herself with the belt from Agin’s old jacket. He immediately understood the cause, fetched me and forced me to take down her body, and wash and dress it for the burial. I will never forget the way she looked. I will never forget who is to blame for her death.

  “Do you not realize that you have only made things worse for yourself?” said Iskan, shaking his head. “Now you have nobody at all. Come Kabira, it is time to stop with this wilfulness. If you start behaving like the submissive wife I expected from the start, I will let you see Korin, and give you fine clothes and jewellery. You are the Vizier’s wife now. My great plan is about to be set in motion. I shall extend the house, there is so much to do. I will need several sons. If you do as I say you may meet with them frequently, and they shall call you mother.”

  There was nothing else left for me. There was nothing to fight for. So I became Kabira, First Wife of the Vizier, and that was my life for the forty years that followed.

  Garai

  HE OTHER SLAVES IN THE HARRERA NIGHT camp gave me one piece of advice: “Scream and scratch him and you’ll only make it worse for yourself. Pretend to enjoy it and you’ll become his favourite. Then you might get special privileges. It’s the best the likes of us can hope for now.”

  I am hoping for better. But I have followed their advice. It has already served me well.

  I was afraid, of course. I have been afraid ever since my capture. I have not dared o
ffer any resistance. Not even when the men came in the night to abduct me and my sisters while we were sleeping. They must have been tracking us for a long time. They struck when we had diverted our course from the clan for a few days, to gather healing herbs south of the Meirem Desert. No settler dares set foot in the desert itself. We would have been safe there. But we did not imagine any threat, and were not on our guard. I curse myself still. I am the eldest. I should have been more vigilant.

  The men feared us. They believed we were powerful priestesses who could kill them with an utterance. They are the sort of folk who fear anything they do not understand. So they gagged our mouths and bound our hands. We were driven southward in haste, unchangingly southward, often under cover of night. Slave-trading is illegal in the northern lands. We were sold in a village to southern slave merchants with long hair and big beards. We came to a place—Harrera, I heard it called—a terrible place, stinking and foul. I was separated from my sisters. We did not cry. We had no tears left.

  At the slave market I was tethered tight to a stake on a platform alongside other similarly young women. We all came from different lands, which was evident from our differing skin and hair. I was the only one with white hair and grey eyes. The men around the platform spoke to each other and pointed at me. From their gestures and glances I understood that I was valuable: their finest ware.

  The auction began. I was saved until last. They wanted all eyes on me. The sun was merciless in Harrera—I had never experienced such heat before. My lips were dried and cracked. My kirtle clung to my body with sweat.

  A man approached the platform. He was clothed in blue and white. Tall and slim, but with broad shoulders and thick, dark hair. His lips were very red. He was the only one who looked me in the eye. He did so for a long time. Then he called over one of my sellers.

  “Is this how you take care of your treasures? You are ravaging her beauty with your damned sun.” He took out a purse. “Name your price. I will pay.” When the men stammered something about the auction he scoffed impatiently. “Name your price, I said, so that I may remove my property from the blazing heat before it is ruined.” He filled his hands with silver and gold, more than I knew existed in all the world. That was my price. That was how valuable I was. Then he gave orders, and a man hastened up to the platform and severed my bondage. I fell to my knees. The beautiful man extended a pitcher of cold water. I did not have the strength to raise it to my lips, so he held it to my mouth as I drank. Then he personally carried me away from the market. To shade. A stable, a stall. He let me rest there, and drink water, and somebody brought balm for my burnt skin. The next day he came to see me.

  “You already look much better. Now I must find out whether I made a wise investment.” He untied his trousers. I immediately spread my legs.

  He was careful not to hurt me, and I remembered the other slave girls’ advice. I had been with men before, clan men, who had done as much for my pleasure as for their own. This man did not do so. Why should he? I was not his equal: he owned me. It was soon over. Afterwards he seemed very pleased.

  “A woman who knows her place, who does not fight back, or mutely grimace in disgust. And the most beautiful woman I have seen, besides. You will be a sensation in Areko. Yes, I should say that I made a good investment.” He wiped himself off on the hem of my kirtle. “I would have you bathe now, but we must leave this place. I have made a number of business arrangements here and it is wisest not to linger.”

  “Yes, Master,” was my only response. I, Garai of the roaming folk, called him master. We who serve no master. We obey only the earth herself and her decrees. And so we roam, and honour our sacred sites, and keep our distance from the settlers. The ones who keep to their coins and houses, lords and laws. No human laws apply to us. The energy lines in the earth, her veins, lead us true on our treks. The ground bestows upon us the food and shelter we need. We carry our history with us in story and myth. Our cunning guards our spirits and bodies, and guides us through the storm. But now a new me is emerging. And this new self, this new Garai, has a master whom she bows to and spreads her legs for and obeys in all ways.

  We left Harrera that same day. I was put farthest back in the caravan, on a pack mule with the rest of my master’s purchases. He had brought me shawls and hoods to shelter me from the hot sun, and I had plenty of water to drink, and was given a meal in the morning and another when we stopped for the night. I slept with my master in his personal tent. He never restrained me—because where could I run in this vast desert? I would be dead before I left their sight.

  My master had his way with me every night. I continued to be compliant, gentle and placid. Unlike I had ever been before. But I knew I must push my old self down into the innermost recesses of my memory. My old ways must never re-emerge. Because though my master treated me well, and better and better the more I complied, I knew the truth. I saw the same thing in him as I had seen in the eyes of the men who stole me and my sisters that night, and in the eyes of the men who had sold me for silver and gold: to them I am a thing. Not a person with feelings or needs of her own. Just something for them to fear, or profit from, or use. The moment I become a burden they will do away with me. And I want to live. That is what the old Garai wants. She wants to return to the Meirem Desert, and hear her mother sing at sundown, and hold hands with her sisters. The new Garai does not believe any of this is possible. But the old Garai refuses to surrender.

  Now we are in Areko, the capital city of the district of Renka, the land of my master. We arrived yesterday night, after a journey of many moons. I have bathed and been directed to a small room in my master’s residence. He told me that he only intends to stay here until his new palace in Ohaddin is ready. Then he will transfer the Sovereign Prince and his entire royal court to Ohaddin too. The Sovereign knows nothing of this yet. Tomorrow my master intends to present me for everybody to admire and adore. New clothes have been brought to my room, strange garments made of silk with brightly coloured embroidery. Ornamental combs to hold my hair up, bands for my arms and fingers—beautiful objects to show off my value. Everybody in this place is obsessed with objects. In the clan we had only what was needed, and that could be carried on our backs. Knives, rope, herbs, flint, food. Can a ring keep you warm at night? Can you eat an ornamental comb? Does an embroidered jacket heal a festering wound?

  I have stolen paper and writing implements from my master’s purchases. Mother knows letters and the art of writing. It was one of the things she taught me as she was training me to become her successor and skillswoman of the clan. I have not often had reason to practise. There was never much reason to write anything down. All Mother’s knowledge is stored in her head, like seeds in a seed pod. Whatever I was curious about, she could pluck the necessary information from her memory and answer my questions. What need was there for writing? But she taught me the art simply because it was one of the skills she had acquired, and she wanted me to learn everything she knew.

  Now for the first time in my life I have reason to write something down. My progress is slow. My hand lacks the facility that comes with practice. But I must struggle on. I find myself in a foreign land. Everybody around me speaks a foreign tongue. I understand some. In our clan we spoke Siddhi, the language of the roaming folk, but I know many others as well. One does when one is constantly on the move and encountering different peoples. I do not know how many languages Mother knows, certainly more than she has fingers. The language here in Areko is the same as one I learnt when we visited the sacred Mount Omone. It is much farther south than we usually roam and the language spoken in the provinces around the mountain was unlike anything I had heard before. Hard and angry, I thought it sounded, not at all like the many upland tongues. Here in Areko they speak a dialect with a slightly different accent, but most words are the same. I am relieved. It makes it easier for the new Garai. She cannot yet express much, but it is not expected of her. It is enough to understand.

  There is comfort in having a language o
f my own to write in. I know that nobody can read what I have written. Through writing I can keep my native tongue alive. But the words seem lifeless on paper, as though their life seeps away when I bind them with my brush pen. There is so much more to a language than the letters. Melody, tone, rhythm, pauses—everything I have no way of capturing. Perhaps everything dies when captured. Like the jalapo, the rare bird found only on the slopes of Omone. It is said that its song can heal sickened spirits, those trapped in grief or fear. The jalapo draws its power from Omone itself, and if ever a bird is captured and taken from the mountain it will die before long. Perhaps the same is true for the soul of a language. I do not know—I have never written an extended account before. But now I must try, because I am afraid that otherwise I will forget who I am. And in this golden cage I will wither and die, like jalapo.

  I write at night, and hide my writings in my room. Everything that I, Garai of the Blood, truly am must be concealed and hidden.

  I am the sweet meat of the salamander

  I am the sunset over the golden rocks of the Meirem

  I am the evensong of the life force

  I am bare feet on the awakening earth in spring

  I am the pointed leaves of the bloodtongue

  I am red scars on white skin

  * * *

  I met my master’s wife today. I was viewed by many, including the Sovereign Prince himself. His sons had covetous eyes. But the only person I met, the only person who spoke to me, was the wife of my master. She came to my little room after my master had presented me. She is tall and awkward and lacking all softness and charm. She is with child, around halfway I should think. She looks old, much older than my master. She must have some great secret that enabled her to ensnare such a man. Perhaps her father was very rich.