Naondel

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  It was not really my will—to sell my body, to come here—but at least I made the decision.

  “Yesterday night, my lady.” Estegi hesitated. “He did not come alone.”

  She and Garai exchanged glances. Was Estegi the one who would betray us? She was close to the wife and to Garai, but also to Sulani. They shared a different closeness.

  We went in and up to the great hall. The fountain was flowing. Women and children had gathered. Then a door was opened and in walked the wife and her daughter Esiko. They sat down on some cushions slightly away from the rest of us.

  We waited.

  He liked making us wait. Our time was his to waste. He never had to enter an empty room if he did not want to. We must always be available to him.

  The children ran around playing while the women drank tea and chattered. If any child came too close to me, with my deformed lip, their mother would call them anxiously back to her. Orseola sat beside me with an absent expression and said nothing. I saw Sulani, straight-backed as always, with Estegi not far behind. Garai greeted Kabira, but they didn’t speak.

  The golden doors were opened by a guard and in came the man. Behind him there followed a young girl. She was short, barely reaching his shoulders, and her hair, as black as the night sky, fell down to her ankles. She was dressed in an ankle-length dress of fiery red, straight and without embroidery. On one hip she had a large lump: was she deformed? No, the lump moved freely under the cloth, so it was an object. Her eyes were large in her pointed little face.

  She was very young.

  Younger than I was when my father told me to leave.

  The man stood in front of us and smiled. Shark teeth.

  “I have travelled long, but finally I have found what I sought.” He presented the girl, without touching her. “A second wife. She will provide me with many sons, and secure my position. I married her yesterday when we arrived at Ohaddin.”

  The girl looked at him with an expression I couldn’t interpret.

  I looked at Esiko. Her face was pale and her hands were shaking. Next to me Orseola made a strange noise. She was looking straight at the girl, her mouth half open and her upper lip shining with sweat. I laid a hand on hers, to stop her from speaking. From drawing attention to herself. The more the man forgot we existed, the better.

  “First Wife.”

  Kabira stood up and came to her husband, bowed deeply and awaited orders.

  “See to it that Iona has all she needs. Give some of your chambers over to her. A suitable wardrobe. Jewellery.” He waved his hand dismissively. “All such things.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the old woman replied and bowed deeply. I had never seen her so subservient towards the man before. It must have been on account of the daughter. Because he had let her live, and he had not punished his wife. Not yet.

  Perhaps this was a form of punishment.

  Without another word he turned and left the dairahesi. Flustered mutters spread at once among the concubines. A new wife! Nobody could have predicted that.

  “She is but a child!” said Orseola beside me. “But a child!”

  It was true. She looked barely old enough to have started bleeding.

  “When we flee… he will only fill our places with younger and younger girls.”

  I shushed her, but she took no notice. Nobody seemed to be listening to what she said; everybody was talking over each other.

  “He must be stopped!” Orseola was shaking so hard that I could feel her trembles. “He must be stopped!”

  “He holds death in his hand,” I said and followed Iona with my gaze. Kabira showed the girl to her residence. Forced to give up her own rooms and her own comfort: what a humiliation for a woman like her. “You have said so yourself. There is nothing the likes of us can do. Only save ourselves, if we can.”

  “He may hold death,” whispered Orseola, “but I hold dreams.”

  * * *

  Estegi brought up the problem of sails one night soon after.

  “We are going to need sails,” she said, when we had gathered down by the bathing pools again. We who would flee. Estegi had said little about our escape once we had succeeded in buying Naondel. The boat was awaiting us in an abandoned boathouse in Ameka. Estegi had even been there to make sure it was true. I was used to seeing her as a servant: the one who fetched us tea and sweets, emptied chamber pots or sold jewellery on our behalf at the bazaar. Not the one who came up with ideas.

  “Has Naondel no sails?”

  She shook her head. “No. My cousin had to borrow one from the fisherman to sail it upriver, but he needed them back.”

  “What does the fisherman know of the buyers of the boat?” asked Sulani, ever the strategist.

  “He believes it was for my cousin.”

  “And your cousin? What does he believe?”

  “He believes I have a lover.” Estegi blushed. “And that we are running away together.” She flashed a quick glance at Sulani.

  “We need sails,” I said. “Terasu is far. Rowing is too slow. Too difficult. For the likes of you, that is.”

  “Sails,” said Orseola. “We have a boat, but no sails.”

  Sulani looked at me. “What makes a good sail?”

  “Strong, light. Sail-makers are highly respected artisans. A difficult craft. I can fix a decent net, but I’m no sail-maker.”

  Estegi leant forward. “Do you know what makes a good sail, then? How it feels, how it moves?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. Then I can sew it.” She leant back and clasped her hands on her lap. Sulani looked at her for a long time, then smiled.

  “We have nothing to sew it with,” Orseola objected, and I laughed.

  “Cloth is about the only thing we do have in this golden cage! Don’t you see what surrounds us? Silk! Silk pillows, silk curtains, silk in our clothes. We have as much hard-wearing, feather-light silk as anyone could ever wish for.”

  “The pillows are too small,” said Estegi immediately, rubbing her fingers together, as though warming up to start sewing already. “But the curtains are good. And maybe we can request whole rolls of fabric, to sew new jackets with.”

  “We mustn’t ask anything of him now, you know that,” I said.

  “But we know someone who can,” Orseola put in. We looked at each other.

  “We can’t let her in on the plan,” I objected. “How can we make her request it without telling her the truth?”

  “If I may make a suggestion,” Estegi said. She had stood up and was standing next to Sulani, still with her head bowed respectfully, and yet as more than a mere servant. She was one of us now. “We can try simply asking. She is helpful and anxious to please.”

  “We need silk,” I said. “Without sails Naondel is a bird with clipped wings. I will go to her tomorrow.”

  I sent Estegi with a message: might I visit the new wife to pay my respects? The answer came quickly: enter. So I bathed and washed myself thoroughly, and used sweetscented oils to mask the smell of fish and seaweed that always clung to me. I stuck the comb in my clean hair, walked through the great hall and down the corridor to the private quarters, where I knocked on the door to what was now Iona’s residence.

  Estegi opened it and I stepped in. Then stopped. Her room was so unlike any other I had seen in the dairahesi. The stone floor was bare. There were no painted screens or great vases. The window shutters were open to the spring sun. There was a simple altar against the far wall, with a knife, a piece of bread and a stone placed upon it. Iona was sitting on a cushion holding something in her lap. Something yellowy-brown, with empty eye sockets: a skull. Opposite Iona sat Garai. She looked up and frowned.

  “Why do you disturb us, Clarás?”

  “She is my guest, priestess,” replied Iona. Garai was none too pleased but turned back to Iona, and to the skull.

  I came forward and sat next to Garai. With her there I could not make my request.

  “It is an unfathomably powerful object you have in your pos
session. With its help you could free yourself from your master.” Garai did not seem to be able to take her eyes off the skull.

  “He is not my master,” replied Iona seriously. “He is my monster and he possesses my death.”

  Garai remained silent. Then she bowed to Iona and left the room in haste.

  I waited for her to address me. She was a wife. I was a mere concubine. Newest and lowest in ranks.

  Iona was silent. She looked at me pleasantly but without interest.

  A cat came padding in from another room and stepped straight into my lap. It purred as I stroked its soft ears. The skull in Iona’s lap stared at me with its black holes.

  Life and death.

  “Was there something you wanted?” Finally she broke the silence. Finally I could speak.

  “You have the Vizier’s ear. Could you request fabric from him?” It was all I could say. Without wit or eloquence.

  “What sort of fabric?” Iona ran her fingertips across the jagged teeth of the skull. It was a very small skull. Maybe a child’s.

  “Silk. We don’t get any more of it. We who are not the Vizier’s favourite, like you.”

  I could sense Estegi squirm behind me, embarrassed by my clumsy manner. But Iona looked at me with a friendly and steady gaze. Then she turned her head, as though listening to something. She nodded slightly.

  “I was given a great deal of silk cloth to decorate my rooms, but I prefer to keep them simple. Estegi, fetch the rolls from my bedchamber.”

  Estegi bowed and disappeared through a door. I could not take my eyes off the skull.

  “Who is that?”

  Iona smiled, a shy smile that lit up her face.

  “Mizra. My friend and predecessor. She sacrificed her life to the monster. I am awaiting my turn.”

  “You wish to die?” I laid a hand on my belly. Felt the fish inside me flapping and kicking.

  “To maintain The Eternal Cycle. Of life and death.” She rested one hand on Mizra, like a bonnet. “It is my purpose. I have no other.”

  “All of us must die,” I said. “Why die before the spirits of your ancestors summon you?”

  “I do not recognize the spirits of the dead,” Iona replied. “The Eternal Cycle demands the sacrifice of few to bestow well-being on the many.”

  “My purpose is to take care of this child,” I said and showed my belly. Iona nodded.

  “It is good to have a purpose. Then you know that all decisions that help to fulfil it are the right ones.”

  Estegi came in holding several rolls of silk cloth in shimmering colours, some thin gauze and others coarse raw silk. More than enough for our sails. I thanked Iona with the finest words I could think of and bowed again and again. She lifted the skull to her cheek.

  “Mizra tells me it is important that you obtain these cloths. Choose the grey-green, it is the least visible against the ocean.”

  I stumbled out with Estegi following after. We looked at one another. She shook her head.

  “I have not said a word!” she whispered. “You must believe me!”

  The ocean. Naondel. She knew something, but what? And was she the one who would betray us? She seemed to be on the man’s side. She was not afraid of him.

  And he was a man to be feared.

  He still came to me sometimes. Iona was clearly not enough to satisfy his lust. Or perhaps he chose not to defile her with the things he did to me. He visited Sulani also. I saw the marks on her face and body. She never complained. Estegi nursed her wounds and swellings with light, tender hands.

  Sometimes I looked at them and wished that someone would touch me in that way. Sometimes, after the man had used me, I wished that nobody would touch me at all.

  We had everything we needed for our escape. Estegi was quick with the needle and thread and the sail was soon completed. The days approaching the night of our escape ran together like grains of sand.

  I had decided that we would flee five days after the last full moon of spring. That is when the wind begins to blow from the south, but it is not yet too hot. The sail was waiting, ready, under my bed. Everything was ready. Our small but sufficient supplies were waiting in the forgotten store room. My belly was round and I was slow, but when I felt the child’s strong kicks they inspired strength in me, too. It was the night before the full moon.

  It was the night when everything went wrong.

  I was woken by the need to relieve my bladder. This was happening more and more often since the child had grown big. Once I had finished using the chamber pot I heard steps coming from the great hall. I opened the door and followed the sound.

  Orseola was standing there looking down into the fountain. She was often brought back to the dairahesi at night, after weaving dreams for the Sovereign Prince. Through the lattice doors I saw the silhouette of a guard in the darkness. Only one that night.

  I walked over to her. She did not look up at me. She was staring down into the water.

  “One must never harm a dreamer,” she said, so quietly I had to lean forward to hear. “Mother said so, and often. Never harm.” She fell to her knees before the fountain and leant her forehead against the cool marble font. “He wanted to fly,” she whispered. “So I let him fly. I took all the memories I could find of high places, wind on his face and stormy seas. I wove better than ever, little stickleback. His eyes watered in the wind. Thick clouds wetted his skin. He did not know he was not awake. I ruffled his eagle feathers in the wind, it whistled in his ears, strong gusts tossed him here and there until he did not know what was up and what was down.” She gripped my shoulder. “She is so young! She is a child! He must be stopped, little stickleback, somebody must stop him! Else he will bring younger and younger girls here once we have left!”

  “Who are you talking about? And which girl?”

  She laughed, loud and shrill, and it echoed in the empty hall. The guard turned around.

  “Back to your chambers,” he said in his half-man’s voice. “Now.”

  “I was summoned by the Sovereign,” whispered Orseola, her face close to mine. “I cannot get to him, our enemy, but I can harm him through the Sovereign! If he has no one whose strings to pull, who is he then? Where is his power?”

  “Orseola, what have you done?” I whispered. Her grip on my shoulder was strong.

  “He fell, little stickleback,” she hissed. I heard the guard rattling the keys and I started shaking Orseola, trying to shake the madness out of her.

  “What have you done?”

  “I found all his fears, little starfish. Every one, and I tied them into his dream, and finally I tied in the memory of his mother dying in terrible agony when he was a boy. With my most beautiful knot I tied it. His dream-self faltered, once, twice, the third time it did not righten again. I blasted him with his own fear of death. He fell like a stone!” She was breathing in violent gasps. I heard rattling at the doors, the guard unlocked them and came in. His steps echoed on the stone floor. Had I been prepared we could have taken him by surprise there and then—the perfect opportunity! But it was too early. I needed Sulani with me. I had nothing to strike with. But at least I knew that our plan would work. Especially if we were lucky and there was only one guard on the night of our escape.

  Orseola whimpered, loudly now. “He will wake no more, little fish! Never, never more.”

  I jumped to my feet. The guard was in front of us. “Her mind is darkened. I’m trying to get her to her bed.”

  Without a word I took Orseola by the hand and together we dragged her to her own bed. She offered no resistance. The guard reluctantly left us, with orders to go to bed as soon as she had calmed down. Even then my eyes were searching for something heavy, something to strike him on the head with. But no, it was the wrong night. I would see to it that we were prepared for the next time.

  “The greatest taboo,” mumbled Orseola. “Banishment is too good for one such as me. No, no. My birth tree must be cut down. Burnt. No shoots left to sprout. I have violated everything. Mothe
r, Mother, forgive me MOTHER!”

  She screamed and raged until finally I had to leave her alone, filled with a profound horror.

  If what she said was true, if the Sovereign was dead, what would the man do then?

  * * *

  Orseola had killed the Sovereign Prince. But she had done it so skilfully that nobody suspected her. She had been his dreamweaver for several years, and few even knew what it was that she did. They believed she was his concubine, a favourite the Vizier loaned out. If their passionate embrace had been more than an old man’s heart could handle, whose fault was that? No one’s. He had fallen asleep peacefully in his own bed. He had already outlived all of his contemporaries. No one in Karenokoi had ever reached such old age. He had joined the ranks of his ancestors, belatedly.

  But the Vizier had held the Sovereign’s death in his hand. He must have known that somebody had taken it from him. I didn’t fully understand this, but it was how Estegi explained it to me. She had been there since she was a little girl and knew more about Ohaddin and the intrigues of the palace than any of the rest of us oath-sworn.

  He had been suspicious of everybody since his sons had died. When Esiko turned out to be a girl his persecution mania was further fuelled. Now that the Sovereign had died without his consent, without his knowledge, he seemed to lose his mind. He raised the number of guards all over. They were no longer eunuchs, as we were used to. They were soldiers, heavily armed with hard faces and scarred hands. They guarded all the doors and windows in the various buildings of the palace. It was entirely impossible for us to put our plan into action. Our escape route was blocked.

  We had Naondel. We had food and sails. But we no longer had the possibility of escape.

  Kabira

  Y SONS WERE DEAD.

  Following the death of the Sovereign Prince, Iskan had all of his male relatives executed, convinced that there were some who coveted the throne. Including the children. And those still suckling at their mothers’ breasts. And any woman who might be suspected of carrying the Sovereign’s child. There were no public executions. But we, the residents of Ohaddin, heard the screams on that horrific day when the slaughter occurred. The screams of children, cut off abruptly. The screams of mothers, never-ending. I felt nothing when I heard them.