by Shannon Hale
That sounded like a very nice plan to me.
There was a knock on the flap, and we took a step back.
"Go away," I said. "My lady doesn't want you. Leave us be!"
There was some clanking and scraping, the noises seeming to come from all around us. We stood in the center of the room, I holding my lady's hands. Then with a shriek of metal, the flap tore right out of the bricks. My lady screamed and jumped back against the far wall.
"If you don't open up when I knock, I'll have to tear down the door," said Lord Khasar. His voice echoed up in our tower, loud as thoughts. "Come give me your hand, mucker maid."
"Stay, Dashti," said my lady, the Ancestors bless her.
Lord Khasar laughed in his way, low and loud. "Is it time to come home yet, Lady Saren? Are you well pickled in this barrel? Shall I break you out?"
"Tell him no," I whispered. My lady wouldn't speak.
"Nothing to say? Then perhaps I should burn you out," he said.
Something flicked up the hole. I didn't see where it landed till the smoke started. My mattress was on fire. I leaped at it, stomping on the burning straw. Then another fiery chip shot into the room, and another. More and more rained down with near-silent ticks. Some fizzled on dry stone, but others found cloth, wood, and straw, and set in to smoke or burn. My lady ran with me, stamping at anything bright. If fire took hold, we'd cook in this stove of a tower long before a wall could be knocked down.
All I could think was out, out, out, as I ran and stomped and slapped. My lady began to scream hysterics and pound at the bricks, and I was left to fight the little fires alone. My breath was scraping hard in my throat and the smoke made me want to vomit.
"Behind you!" she shouted, pointing. A washcloth was burning hard right by the stack of wood, and if the wood caught fire, we'd be rabbits in the pot, no question. I flung myself at the rag, rolling over it to squash the flames.
I was aching and sweating when the fire chips stopped coming. My lady collapsed on my partly charred mattress, her eyes staring at the ceiling. I don't know if we'd fought the smoke and flames for minutes or hours, but I guess I never felt so scared in all my life.
"I wish I could have witnessed that dance!" said Lord Khasar. What a horrid sound his voice is, how greasy black his every word. "But you will dance for me yet, my willow flower. Will it be tonight? Tell me now, Lady Saren, because I won't come again until your seven years are over. Will you choose six more years in this dungeon or the rest of your life in my house? My house where you will have ten lady's maids and ten times that many deels, fresh food, warm baths, a large room with five windows and a door to the garden. A garden, my lady, rimmed with flowers in the summer that will bow to your beauty. And the only cost is," here his voice went very dry, "you will share that house with me."
His voice had become both softer and louder. I guessed his face was right up under the hole where the flap used to be.
My lady's chamber pot stood by my feet, waiting for disposal. Well, my lady stood up, tore off the cover, and dumped it down the hole with a slosh and a splash. All her waste, both the liquid and the muddy kind, must've spilled onto his face, right into his open, shouting mouth.
He hollered, and rightly so. We held so still it hurt, but we haven't heard Lord Khasar's voice since. Never have I felt prouder to be maid to Lady Saren.
After a few moments, I giggled. My lady giggled. Then we lay back together and laughed in a tight way, as though we actually cried.
Later
There's howling outside.
My lady is curled up in the center of the room. She won't speak to me. I lay beside her and sang the lulling song for comfort, the one that goes, "Trails of poppy, poppy, poppy," but a song of healing can't help if the person won't will it. Right now, I guess, she needs to be terrified. I don't want to be. I hoped writing would help.
There's another howl. Why does that sound dance like fingernails down my back? I've heard wolves call out before. When my family kept sheep, a howl was a useful noise, a reminder to gather in any of the herd we didn't want to lose that night. And if a wolf got too near, my brothers would sing the song of the wolf, a baying tune that made the wolves want to howl back but also invited them to leave us be. And they always did. There are far worse things than wolves.
My Lord the cat is sitting on my lap. The hair on his neck is up straight as trees, and he mews hard at each howl. The sound is getting closer. With the metal flap torn off, I can see it is black night outside. I should put some kind of cover there, but I don't dare get closer.
Something's happening. There's no more howling, only snarls. The guards' dogs were barking fit to burst, but now they've gone quiet. I hear our guards shouting one at another, I hear one of them scream. There's another. Ancestors, there's another scream. What's happening? It doesn't sound like battle. It sounds like nightmares.
My lady still trembles. My Lord the cat is hissing. I stroke him and sing. I wish someone would sing to me. There's a scream again, just outside the—
I write from awful silence now. I was interrupted before by a cry for help, so close, right at the mouth of the hole, so I crept closer to see if I could give aid. Of a sudden, the jaws of a wild animal shot up, groveling and snapping at me. A wolf, I think, but enormous, and its mouth was smeared with blood. Did it come from the woods? Or is it possible Lord Khasar breeds wolves to be blood hungry for battle?
I fell back on the floor and tried to scoot away. It couldn't get in, it was much too large, but its mouth drooled and snapped at me, the nose sniffed the air as if hunting.
Then, too late, I save My Lord crouched, preparing to pounce.
"No!" I shouted and leaped forward, trying to hold him back, but I missed. My Lord jumped at the thing, snarling and shrieking. Both animals disappeared down the hole. I heard horrible grovels from the beast, and a yelp from the cat. But not a cry of pain, I think. I hope. Oh, my cat, my sleek gray cat.
All was quiet again. My lady didn't weep, she just stayed in her ball, shaking. I ran back and forth, trying to comfort my lady and returning to look for My Lord at the hole. Nothing in the world seemed alive but me, and I didn't much want to be.
Many aching minutes later, I dared to get close to the hole. I feared those snapping wolf jaws or that black-gloved hand, but I placed myself near enough to call out.
"Is anyone there? Hello? Please answer."
I heard nothing from the guards. They don't always answer, perhaps they ran off or are hiding. Perhaps.
Please, Titor, god of animals, please keep My Lord the cat. Please keep him safe.
Day 224
No sign of My Lord the cat. No sound from the guards.
Day 225
My Lord hasn't returned. I wait by the hole and I call. Still no sound from our guards.
Day 231
My Lord the cat used to make a little hiccup sound in his throat whenever he jumped onto the table. His favorite treat was cheese. When he attacked a rat, he was deadly fast, going straight for a fatal bite on the back of the neck. When he ate the rat, he was meticulous, finding his favorite bits first, spending hours to consume the whole. When he was deep asleep, he sometimes meowed, a sound of total contentment. I didn't mind waking up to that noise, not a bit.
Day 236
My lady says My Lord is gone, killed by Khasar.
"Why would Lord Khasar kill a cat?" I asked.
"I know things," she said. "People think I'm not smart, but some things I know."
She wouldn't tell me what she knows. Sometimes I feel lonely with her sitting right beside me.
And where are the guards? They haven't brought milk since Khasar was here. Maybe they're all right and just ran home to the city to report to my lady's father. I hope they come back soon. Without fresh milk, I've had to mix dried yogurt into my lady's water. It's clumpy and tastes sour, but at least she won't have to drink plain water.
And worse news — the rats are back. Just a few days without a cat and already they return. I
hear them scratching and yipping and rustling down there. I set up more traps, but they avoid them. The washing isn't done and we had a cold lunch because I stay hours in the cellar, trying to smack rats with a broom.
I think My Lord the cat must be fine. He'll come back soon.
Day 240
My lady offered to sit a spell down belove combating rats so I could warm my hands and make dinner. It seemed a task not fit for gentry, and when I protested, she insisted she'd do it. I supposed if she was willing, then it would be all right.
When the meal was laid out on our little table, I called her up from the cellar. My lady climbed the ladder and made straight for the upper chamber.
"I don't feel well," she said. "I'm going to bed early."
"Let me come sing to you," I offered. But she refused.
When I returned to the cellar for more rat swatting, I found the culprit of her illness — my lady had eaten half a bag of sugar.
Day 245
Every day, my lady says she will take a turn whacking rats, but really she's down there eating. Rats squeal and skitter around her, and I hear her lips smack, smack, smack.
Day 268
She's devoured our dried fruit, every crumb, and all the sugar's gone but dust. Now she's demanding I soak more meat overnight, cook larger meals and more bread. I tried to argue once, but she raised her hand and commanded me to obey on the sacred nine. So I do. Though I grumble enough to put any piglet to shame.
Six more years, and not a grain of sugar. Six more years and no fruit, fresh or dry.
Later
It appears she also ate the last wheel of cheese. The rats will be heartbroken.
Day 281
Last night or morning or whatever time it was, I sat by the fire taking out the seams in my lady's clothing and stitching them back up broad. Since she's taken to eating, she's rounder than before.
I told her, "My lady, our food supply's in peril. We have to be careful."
"It doesn't matter," she said. "We won't last seven years anyway."
That made us both quiet. She stared at the fire for so long, I wondered what thoughts rode the flames in her vision. Then she asked me, "Dashti, would you have married Lord Khasar?"
"No! I'm a mucker, I couldn't marry a member of the gentry."
"But imagine if you were me, would you?"
I tried to imagine. Even how he slaps hands and flicks burning chips into our tower, even though his voice makes my stomach spin, would I marry him to escape this coffin? After falling in love with her khan, would the thought of being with any other man make me weep and tangle my hair? Would I have chosen to lock myself up for seven years and even die from darkness? I tried to imagine, but it made me dizzy, and I couldn't keep my eyes on the stitching. Stop. Just thinking of a commoner marrying gentry is a gross sin of the kind that could get me noosed on the city's south wall and never welcomed into the eternal Realm of the Ancestors. She's wrong to make me think it.
My only reply was, "You do what you thinks best, my lady. If you'd rather wed Lord Khasar than be in this tower another day, I'll stay with you all the same."
I didn't want to say that, but I did, and I meant it. I'm her lady's maid, I swore an oath, and I'll serve her till I die.
She smiled, and I save her cheeks dimple for the first time since we met. What a sad little bird she usually is, how she droops and moans when she could be as brilliant as the sun. Sometimes I forget that she's gentry, that her blood is divine. But when she smiled, I remembered — she is as beautiful as light on water.
She looked back at the fire. "I know I should have married Lord Khasar. I was born to marry. That's my only purpose."
"That can't be, my lady."
"My father told me so when I was small enough to sit on his knee. My older sister, Altan, she'll be the lady of the realm after my father. I have an older brother, Erdene, who will rule if Altan were to die. I'm the third child. I used to dream I'd be chief of animals one day. I like animals. But my father said I'm too dull-witted. And besides, I'm gentry—any commoner can be raised up to be a chief. But the third child of a ruling lord is only fit for marrying off to other gentry."
I could tell by the way my lady stared at the fire that she was done talking, so I sat by her, quiet, and thought about what she'd said. Her sister's name, Altan, means golden in the naming language. Gold is the color of the gentry, and it seems a right name for the lady of a realm. Erdene means jewel, another noble name. Saren means moonlight. I wonder what her mother thought when she named her moonlight, the dim light that keeps the night sky company until the blue sky can return.
It's strange for me to think about gentry in that way, as people who had mothers who gave them names. People who wanted things they couldn't have, who were ordered to marry men they feared. Though I clean her plate and wash her unders, I guess until today, I never truly thought of my lady as a real person.
Later
I showed my lady the drawing I did of her smiling, and she said that I'm her best friend. I thought I should write that down.
Day 298
Daily I sing to my lady. Sometimes it's to help ease a headache or bellyache, and sometimes it's my continued attempt to cure whatever troubles her inside. Yesterday I tried a new song, one I'd nearly forgotten.
The song for unknown ailments is a wail. High the notes stretch, my throat stretching with them, the tune reaching up and up like a wounded bird's call, "Rain rips as it falls, it tears as it falls!" Just the sound of it echoing in our tower made my chest feel tight. My lady sighed and curled up against me, not crying but breathing as if she would. After she had a good rest, she seemed lighter. She even chatted with me over supper and joined me in a game of pea toss.
So I went to bed content last night, thinking I'd made some progress with her healing. But this morning she's the same again. If only she'd tell me why she's so sad and crooked-brained and lonely and often acts as if she's only half her age. Does she even know why? Maybe it's just how she is, maybe there's nothing in her to fix.
I'll keep trying.
Day 312
It's summer, and thank Evela, goddess of sunlight, that it's a gentle one this year or we'd roast in our brick own. There were children running around our tower this morning. I think they've been here before, but I could hear them more clearly today. They were closer to the tower, perhaps daring one another to draw near, and their voices ghosted up the uncovered hole. As they ran around and around, I could hear broken bits of the song they sang. I believe it went like this:
Two dead ladies in a tower
Counting peas for every hour
In seven years
With all their tears
They drown in pea soup sour
I didn't care for their song much, but I sat near the hole all the same and listened, listened, listened. New sounds are like lost sugar.
Day 339
Most of the time, my lady sits alone and stares at things — her fingers, the floor, a single hair. I wonder how a person can sit so much without work in her hands. Are muckers born to work and gentry born to sit? This darkness makes me ask questions that never occurred to me under the Eternal Blue Sky.
But it doesn't seem fair, does it? Why can't my lady dip her hands into the wash water and give the clothes a good scrubbing or mend a rip or make a pot of something worth eating? I'd be pleased as anything if I never had to haul a bucket of water up the cellar ladder again, but some work isn't so bad, not when you have naught else to do but stare at a candle flame or into the shivering dark.
Later
Ancestors forgive me, but I offered to teach my lady how to cook dung cakes.
She said, "I don't know how, Dashti."
"That's why I'll teach you."
"I'll do it wrong."
"Of course you will, everyone does wrong when learning something new."
Then she started to cry. "But I'll do it wrong."
I wish I understood my lady and her crying and her shaking. She looks at the who
le world as though it crouches over, ready to pounce.
Day 457
Weeks and weeks go by, months and months. I wash, I cook. My lady is more shadow than girl. Once I tried to teach her to read. Her eyes wandered.
Some days I hate candlelight. Sometimes I think we'd be better in all darkness, then we'd just hold still until everything went away. But I keep cooking. I keep washing. I keep singing. And I keep the fire and candles lit.
Day 528
Today I thought I would like to die, so I went into the cellar and smacked a few rats with the broom. It helped some.
Day 640
This summer is worse than last. The heat, heat, heat pushes against the walls of the tower, forces its way inside, and yells silently in our faces. We sit in the cellar, underground where it's a little cooler, and keep the rats company. Or we sit upstairs, where the barest slip of breeze comes through the crack between bricks. I can't light fires, lest we die of the heat. We eat cold food. We pour water over our heads and shiver.
The hearth is left bare for summer, and I feel as though we're living with eyes shut. Day and night we keep a candle burning, and that tiny fingertip of light wobbles before me, as if too weak to live on, gasping its last breath. It creates more shadows than light, filling the tower with corners. When my lady sits against a far wall, she disappears.
I don't dare light more than one candle. The rats have eaten many. A dying wasp of candlelight is so much better than none.
Some days I look at the bricks in the door and wonder how hard I'd have to hit them to knock one loose. If I managed to break us out, would the guards shoot me with their arrows? Are they even there anymore? Would her honored father know of our escape and stuff us back in for another seven years? Would Lord Khasar hunt us down?
This is more thinking than I've done in months, and I'm tired now. The heat is so huge, I have no space left for thoughts.
Day 684
Here's something true about darkness —after enough time, you begin to see things that aren't there. Faces look at me, and when I turn my head, they disappear. Colors wash themselves before my eyes, then fade away. Shiny gray dream rats dart between my feet but don't make a sound. I wanted to write this down so I can remember that those things aren't real.
