Naondel

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  “Get that slave out of here,” hissed the wife, which helped Izani make up her mind.

  “Slave-sold, do not leave Kabira’s side. As soon as the child is born I want you to bring it to me. If it is a healthy boy.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Izani left the room.

  “Has she gone?” the wife managed to say between two contractions.

  “Yes,” the servant girl replied and then turned to me. “Do you need anything else?”

  I looked at her and realized that, despite her height, she was just a child. Thirteen years at most. But she was calm and collected and seemed unfazed.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Estegi.”

  “I need hot water and a drinking vessel, Estegi. And peace and quiet. This baby wants to come out, but it will need a little help along the way.”

  Estegi nodded and hurried out of the room. I neared the bed. The wife had glassy eyes and her breathing was irregular. I crouched down and looked her in the eye.

  “I know that you harbour no love for me. You know nothing about me, so trust is a lot to ask. But you have no one else who seems to know what they are doing. And I do. I have delivered dozens of babies in my clan. In the Meirem Desert.” It pained me to have the name on my lips. I had not uttered any of my home names out loud since I was taken as a slave. If only I had had my spear then! I bit my tongue to stop all the other names from flooding out. Names of my sisters, my mother, everybody in our clan, everybody in the other roaming clans.

  Her gaze sharpened and she furrowed her brow, untrusting.

  “I have not always been a slave. Do you want my help?” I spat in my palm and held out my hand. A contraction made her screw her eyes up in pain and scream. I waited, my hand extended. She kept her eyes shut even once the contraction had passed. Then, all of a sudden, she pulled a hand free from under the cover, licked it and offered it to me. I held it in mine.

  “Good. Now first you must sit up.”

  She did not have the strength left to protest. When I got her upright Estegi came into the room with a jug of hot water and several bowls. I told her to put them down on a table and then had her support the wife while I quickly mixed a large dose of bao and a pinch of thousandroot in one of the bowls and filled it with water.

  “Now you should walk,” I said and came to stand by the wife’s side. “Lean on me and Estegi. When my concoction has stood awhile drink it and it will help you.”

  “Poison,” she gasped. I scoffed.

  “Why should I poison you? I will drink it first, if you like.”

  I have since wondered about what she said. That perhaps it was not an accusation, rather a request.

  Once I had got the wife up on her feet and calmed her breathing with my herbal concoction the birth went much quicker. In the early evening, I laid a well-formed boy at her breast. She looked at him for a very long time. Then she turned away.

  “Fetch the wet-nurse,” was all she said. Never before have I seen such coldness in a new mother. When I did not react, she turned to look at me, her face contorted in pain. Not even in the worst moments of her labour had I seen such agony.

  “Do it now!” she ordered. Estegi hurried away without waiting for my say so. The wife’s whole body was shaking, with anger or exhaustion, I do not know which. All of a sudden she cradled her son’s hand in hers and kissed his thin eyelids. She whispered something in his ear. Then she looked up at me, and her eyes were enormous.

  “Iskan will name him. Please, take him now. Torture me no longer.”

  I realized at that moment that I had never seen her with her children, even though this was her third son. She did not have the countenance of a woman who had chosen her own lot. This life. This lovelessness.

  I reached down and picked up the baby. He was big and felt solid in my arms. He was completely calm, but smacked his lips slowly. He was hungry. I carried him out into the anteroom where the women all immediately exploded in cries of delight, tears of joy and yet more prayers. Izani took him resolutely from my arms and held him high, as proud as if she had just delivered him from her own womb. The boy whimpered as the old woman’s gem-studded sleeves scratched at his tender new skin. Estegi soon returned with the wet-nurse and my master’s mother reluctantly gave her grandson over to her care. I called Estegi over to me.

  “Fetch something fortifying for Kabira. A broth, perhaps. And a sage infusion to keep her milk at bay. Make sure she has plenty to drink. But above all, see that she is left in peace. For as long as she wants. Understood?”

  Estegi nodded. I knew that it was a lot to place on such a young girl’s shoulders, but I trusted that she could manage. Besides, there was nobody else I could ask.

  I pushed myself through the mass of chattering women and back to my room, where I slept for a night and a day. I am glad my master is not here at the moment, so I can rest and order my thoughts.

  I have been sure to take my dose of Goddess Tongue every day. I shall not bear the seed of a man who would not let me keep my own children—my own flesh and blood.

  * * *

  There is nothing for me to do here. My master uses me daily, but in the spaces between there are oceans of time. Time that just drains away. I pace from window to window in my little room and peer out onto the world. Pick up objects and put them down again. Never before have I been so idle. We used to always be on our way somewhere. Up in the mountains on a hunt. Through the desert to converge with another clan. South to collect plants. Around the Lake of Bodien, in the middle of the Meirem, which takes a roaming clan seven days to circle. By its western shore grows Sanuel, the ancient tree with roots deep in the heart of the earth. We would often trek to the sacred sites, like the Sanuel tree and Mount Omone and the bottomless Sea of Semai. We went there so that mother could perform her blood offerings. And after I had passed my eide, I began making offerings too. Sometimes I touch my scars to remind myself. That I am an initiate. That I have communed with the life force of Sanuel and gifted my blood to the tree.

  When we were not roaming we would do things with our hands. Build fires. Mend garments or gear. When Mother was educating me and my sisters we always had something in our hands, even when we were listening. The old Garai was deft at carving. All I needed was a good knife and a decent piece of timber and I could carve anything: a spoon, a bowl, a flute, a button. A toy for my youngest sister when she was a girl.

  She is still not much older than a girl. If she is alive. I wonder where she was sold to.

  The new Garai does not think about it. She lets the questions and memories of the old Garai appear less and less often, almost only when I am writing. Yet I have so little to write about. The new Garai is good for nothing. All she does is wait—wait to be seen by her master. Her hands are nervous birds flapping here and there around the room with neither task nor purpose. She tries on different jackets to see which one suits her best. She combs her hair. She listens to the sounds of the palace. She follows the changing of the seasons from her window. Rain sounds different against a roof than it does out on the mountainside. Sometimes she thinks she wants to go out in the rain, feel it on her skin, feel the wind tear through her hair, let it believe it can lift her and carry her away. It is not the new Garai who thinks this, but the old. The new holds her down and turns away from the storm, in towards the pictures of painted storms and mountains and oceans.

  The new Garai is betraying everything I held sacred and significant. She is worthless, purposeless. She pleases her master, bows her head, she avoids eye contact with the guards. I hate her.

  But she is useful for one thing. She knows how to keep me alive.

  * * *

  To pass the time I have started gathering plants. I pick healing herbs from the garden and dry them for future use, but I have also started growing my own. I ask Kabira what the different plants here are called, and write their names down in my most beautiful handwriting. My writing has improved greatly since I began with my secret notes. It
soothes me, and gives me something to do. I sketch the plants, and then I press them. I showed some pages to my master, and he gave me a humouring smile. But some days later Estegi, the skinny servant girl, delivered gifts to my room. She laid them on my bed with care. The highest-quality leaves of paper. Ink in three different shades, several quills, brushes and paints.

  “Are these from my master?” I asked. Though who else would they be from?

  Estegi nodded. “Do you know how to paint?”

  “I am practising. Mostly flowers and plants,” I answered, touching the paper.

  She backed out of the room, but stopped at the door. Lingered a moment.

  “What is it?”

  “Could I… could I borrow some of the pictures later?”

  “For what?” I frowned.

  “Embroidery,” she whispered, embarrassed. “I should like to learn how to embroider truly beautiful flowers, but it is difficult. A picture would help.”

  I put down the paper. “You can do it here, in my room. I do not want you to take the pictures away.”

  Estegi nodded, taken aback and grateful, and closed the door behind her.

  I write less now. I pick and press and paint instead. Estegi sits in a corner, with a finished picture of a flower in front of her, and embroiders with silk thread on thin fabrics. I think she makes things for the wife. Kabira comes by sometimes and looks at us with her cold, superior gaze. Ever since the birth she has been paying me visits. The new Garai makes herself as submissive as possible when she comes, offers her the best sitting cushion, asks Estegi to fetch iced green tea. Kabira usually waves away our servitude and simply sits down. Often it is a long time before she says anything. I begin my painting again, and Estegi picks up her needle and thread. From out in the garden we can hear songbirds, and from the palace come voices and footsteps. I never address her first. The new Garai knows her place.

  After a while she speaks. Asks questions about my work, or tells me something about the plant I am working with. Then I can ask questions. About the name or application of the plant. But there are many plants she does not know. Then she turns abruptly to Estegi and asks if the embroidery will be ready soon.

  Yesterday, while we were working, she came into my room with her hands full.

  “It is not proper for a concubine to be so ignorant,” she said, and laid some scrolls down on a table. Estegi moved quickly to light a lamp and bring a sitting cushion to make Kabira comfortable. She let the servant girl potter about. Then she sat down and fixed her judgemental gaze on me.

  “You must learn about the great poets. And the history of Areko. The Vizier expects only the best from his household.”

  I think that my master is more interested in other attributes of mine, and would rather hear himself speak than listen to me. But I stayed quiet, as the new Garai has taught me.

  “You can paint while you listen,” the wife said graciously, and began to read.

  She has a pleasant voice, and I do enjoy poetry, but I have never heard anything of this sort before. The story bores me, because its subjects mean nothing to me. Rulers, men of power, wars and military campaigns, territories won and lost. Nothing about what really matters: the earth itself. Its life force. The lives of people in harmony with the life force. Still, I put her recitations to memory, and when she was finished I put down my brush and recounted the most important parts of the historical scrolls and poetic verses back to Estegi and Kabira. They seemed impressed, not even the wife could hide it. For me it was nothing noteworthy. Mother had taught all her daughters in this way: through narrating from her memory stores, then demanding that we retell everything back to her. It did not need to be word for word, as long as it was true. I realized that I had lost some of my skill. My memory was not as sharp or able to absorb knowledge. I have decided to work to improve this. Not for the sake of any other but myself.

  So our days and evenings pass. It is most often Estegi who waits on us. She is quick, quiet, and has great skill in anticipating Kabira’s wishes before she is even aware of them herself. The sun treks across the floor and shows the passing of the day. Darkness falls, Estegi lights our lamps. The cinna players are dismissed. The night birds begin their song, first tentatively, then with more and more surety and force. I speak little. Kabira talks, recounts things. Purposeless things: art; poetry. Some people she calls the old master teachers. I listen and try to understand. But I cannot. How can words describe truth? Everything I bind to paper withers and dies. Even if I wrote a poem about a lizard in the desert, how could I capture the reality of the lizard? And what can a poem tell us of the sun, or the coolness of the night?

  Nought.

  Yet Kabira talks. And I listen. And the sun glides on and night comes, and then day again, and all we can do is wait.

  My master has been away travelling a lot of late. He is overseeing the construction of the palace in Ohaddin and travels around the provinces buying in timber, marble and stone. He is obsessed with construction in a way that is difficult for me to understand. Sometimes, when he returns from Ohaddin, he is altered. There is a darkness in him then, one which masks a profound power. There is a difference in the way he takes me. There is a difference in the way he looks at me. His gaze touches something inside, something of myself I do not want to share. It is as if he can see the old Garai, but she does not frighten him. He can see the new Garai as well, and the one to come. After spending time with him I feel completely exposed, inside and out. I want to hide, but there is nowhere to hide from his gaze. I wish I could call forth the old Garai at those times. She was strong. She was fearless. The power of the very earth rushed through her veins; she had spoken with the Sanuel tree, her soles knew every stone of the Meirem Desert, her hands knew how to create and shape. Her scars bore witness—

  My scars. They have faded. I tried to count them just now, and I could not find them all.

  * * *

  A long time has passed. Years. I have not written, because there has been nothing to write.

  Soon the palace in Ohaddin will be completed. The build has lasted eight years.

  My master called on me today. When he had had his way with me he stood by the window and watched the first luggage carts roll out from Areko on their way to Ohaddin. He stretched. His body is still as smooth and firm as the first time I saw it several years ago. He has hardly aged at all. The same cannot be said about me. I have no opportunity to move around as I want to. I eat too many sweet cakes, honey-soaked chilled fruit and fried weja rolled in sugar. My belly has become bulged and my cheeks round.

  My master rubbed his hands against his thighs in delight.

  “At last. How I have worked for this! I shall move the Sovereign Prince and his court in at the end of this moon, to coincide with the new moon. Then I will have him where I want him. His obstinate sons are to remain in Areko. They do not understand that they are playing entirely into my hands.”

  “How is that, Master?” I knew that he wanted my questions.

  “When they are not in their father’s presence they have no influence over him. And when he does not see them, it is much easier for me to dispatch them on missions that appear important, but which serve only to keep them out of the way. Then I and I alone can steer the Sovereign Prince precisely as I wish. Each and every decision he makes, big and small, shall come from me. I will begin by sending his first-born into battle against Herak. They have refused to submit their tribute payments for three consecutive years now. They shall bow to the power of Ohaddin and Areko. And that power, my little savage, is mine now. All of Karenokoi shall kneel before the Sovereign, and to me.”

  He turned to me. I was lying naked on the animal hide on his bed and he wrinkled his nose. “You are getting fat. And you are not as young as you once were.”

  I felt ashamed. Who even am I if I have no worth in the eyes of my master? I pulled the hide over me and lowered my gaze. My master cast a last contented look out of the window and then called in a servant to help him dress. I
stayed lying where I was until they left the room. Then I got dressed and walked through the secret passage to the great hall of the dairahesi. It was deserted. I rang a bell, and Estegi appeared without a sound and bowed submissively. She has grown over the last few years and is now a head taller than me. Her nose is even larger than before; she is certainly not a beautiful woman. Even if she is thinner than me.

  “Fetch my things. I am going to bathe. I want oil of arremin and my own blend of almond oil and rose water. At once.”

  I lay in the bath for a long time. Massaged my scalp with sweet-scented soap, scrubbed away all the hardened skin with a pumice stone. Shaved in the places I knew my master wanted me to be smooth. Plucked my eyebrows and the moustache that had begun to grow on my upper lip. Rubbed myself down with almond oil until I was smooth as a new-born baby.

  What will happen if my master takes a new concubine? Will he leave my bed completely, as he left his wife’s when I arrived? My days would become even emptier. I have no worth other than what he bestows on me. His gaze gives caresses, judgement, value. His hands give my body the contours it otherwise lacks. Sometimes he even gives me pleasure. I hate that. But usually he gives me a different sort of gratification: that for a short time I am worth something. If that is taken from me, what will I then have to wait for?

  Kabira came in as I was writing that last part. My door was not locked—it has no lock. I did not even make an attempt to conceal my papers. Kabira has seen them before and never given me away.

  She sat down on some cushions and waited. After a while Estegi came in carrying a tray of hot tea, which smelt of rose and mint, and a little heap of sugar-dusted cakes. Estegi served the tea, first to the wife, then to me. I picked up several cakes and stuffed them in my mouth. The sweetness filled me with an immediate sense of pleasure. Estegi withdrew towards the door, where she sat down and awaited further orders.