by Shannon Hale
"What happened there?" I asked.
"Lord Khasar happened. Wiped it out entirely almost a year ago. Now he's off making war with Goda's Second Gift. We're hoping he burns them down, too."
"Hoping?"
"As should you. If he just conquers, if he adds their armies to his, all the warriors of our realm will have little chance against him. He's bound to come our way next. Tales be true, there's nowhere in all the Eight Realms where Lord Khasar's shadow won't cross."
My lady's hands covered her face, her shoulders trembling.
Day 44
Our grain meal is long gone, as is the cheese and oil, and after days on nothing but nettles, I think we were both feeling twig-thin and cranky. This morning I killed a marmot with my stick. I stuffed its belly full of hot coals and let it cook from the inside out. We had no salt or spice, and the meat was so tough it took fifty chews each bite, but even so I guess I never ate a meal so delicious. Even my lady didn't complain.
Very soon, I'll reunite her with her khan. And then? If she wishes, I'll stay with her and be nursemaid to her babies. If not, I'll find work in the city, or perhaps I will return to the steppes and find a mucker clan, take a seven-year oath, and work in their herds in exchange for eating their meals and sleeping on the floors of their ghers. But I'd be twenty-five by the time I was eligible to marry, and that's old for a mucker bride, even if anyone would take me without a dowry.
I'll worry about it after I see my lady settled in her happiness.
The sky no longer seems breathlessly huge, but feels to press down on me. Perhaps I'm just afraid of the uncertainty to come. When I'm moving on a journey, the ending is still unknown and possibly wonderful. But once I arrive, it's hard to keep imagining.
Day 46
Ris, god of roads and towns, has guided our feet, for we are here at last! The city of Song for Evela is greater than Titor's Garden, with a wall three-men high and a small army on horseback beside each gate. They fear Lord Khasar, I think.
A caravan from the south entered the gate ahead of us. I'd seen caravans arrive in Titor's Garden when I ran errands for Qadan, and I knew that they offer their goods to the lord or lady of the city before setting up in the market. Following behind seemed the fastest path to finding the house of my lady's khan.
It was a bold sight, camels and wagons and dozens of traders swathed in the brilliant white cloth of the desert lands. They uncovered their cargo to excite interest in buyers, and I caught glimpses of dye pots, porcelain bowls, bolts of silk, casks of honey, bags of sugar, skins of wine, and bricks of incense. The incense and the scented woods wafted a heavenly scent over us, and I walked as though in a dream. Performers rode atop the cargo, their heads bare and painted faces smiling. Later they'll show off their talents in the market to attract buyers to the goods. Acrobats, contortionists, storytellers with wild, strange accents — I wish I could see them perform.
We followed the caravan up the streets, past the wooden houses, merchant stalls, and animal pens, toward the city center where the buildings are made of stone. It wasn't long before my heart was going as fast as a rabbit's stomp. I was wondering if her khan would be in his house, if we'd see him that very hour. If he'd welcome her back, if he'd take her in and marry her at once. And what would happen to me then?
The streets were clean and straight, as different from the crooked, narrow lanes of Titor's Garden as my lady's face is from my own. And as I ached for a way to tell her where we really were, she said, "This is Song for Evela, isn't it?"
"Yes, my lady."
Her face wrinkled as though she were pained.
"Khan Tegus isn't plotting to kill you," I said. "I spoke with him in the tower, remember? He is goodness from boots to eyebrows, my lady, I could tell that, plain as plain. The tower sits heavily on you still, that's all. And the whispers — "
"I don't hear any whispers," she snapped. "I'm fine. I'm not afraid."
She walked tall, her hand on Mucker's back, her other arm in mine. She was trying to be brave, I could see. And it twisted my heart.
She didn't say another word for all those long, straight streets. Perhaps she felt buried in all that life. I certainly did. There were people everywhere —cooking in the street, shouting and chasing, throwing wash water out the window, fighting and kissing and eating and just talk, talk, talking. The smells! And the noise, like having your head stuck inside a wasp's nest. I'd forgotten that people were so loud, that they move around so much. They were beautiful, their eyes, their hands, their voices and laughs. It was many blocks through the city before I realized I'd been crying and I didn't even know why. Is that strange? I think Mama would understand. And maybe Khan Tegus.
Her khan's house was fat and square, with a roof five tiers high made of yellow and blue enamel tiles, grander even than my lady's house had been. How can anyone believe such a claim? And yet it's true. A throng of guards stood at posts all around, and more clustered about the gate. We tried to enter, but they stopped us and a little man in a deel too long for his feet asked us our business.
"Tell them who you are," I said.
"No," said my lady.
I spoke in her ear so the little man wouldn't overhear.
"Please, my lady. Tell them you are Lady Saren of Titor's Garden, betrothed of Khan Tegus. Tell them so you can be fit up like gentry and live as you should."
"No. And I forbid you to tell anyone who I am." She was looking around now like a hunted thing. "Lord Khasar would find me, or Khan Tegus would — "
"He won't hurt you, my lady! He'll protect you."
Her eyes were wet, her chin quivered. "What if he's not safe, as I once thought? No one is, but you." She gripped both my arms with her hands, like a bird clutches a branch.
"I can't look after you forever," I whispered. "I don't have money or work, and I don't have status or clan. We're barely surviving, my lady. And come winter, we'll freeze and die without a gher. You're an honored lady. You need more than a mucker maid can give you. Please, tell them who you are."
My lady took a breath, turned to the little man, and said, "I'm a mucker."
Ancestors forgive me, but I think I cracked in half then. I turned my face into Mucker's neck and I cried and cried like a roof in the rain. I was so tired. Not just of walking or feeling hungry, or washing and keeping my lady. I was just tired of being Dashti, of breathing, of being alive. Forgive me, Mama.
"What's going on here?" A white-haired woman approached the little man. I found out later that her name is Shria. "Who are these girls blocking the way? "
The little man cleared his throat as if to signal us to leave. I took a deep breath and felt my heart stutter and my sobbing dry up, and I knew I couldn't be broken any more than I was. There's some comfort in that. Mucker was lipping the laces on my boot, and I thought, I can get by, and I can find a way to keep my lady alive, but I promised poor Mucker he'd have a stable and a brush down at the end of our journey.
So I wiped my cheeks and told Shria, "I bring a gift for Khan Tegus. This is the best yak I've ever known. His name's Mucker."
The little man started to protest. "We don't buy animals from — "
"No, not buy. I want the khan to have him. It's an honest gift from a mucker girl."
It was a right stupid thing to do, I know, and as I sit here writing, I can't believe I was so thick-skulled as to give away our only possession. With no animal or tent, in a few months' time winter would whack us dead like a yak's tail slaps a fly. I might've traded him for employment at the least. But in that moment I only thought how much I loved that yak, what warm and happy company he had been for me when I thought all the world was dead, and how he deserved a stall like the kind her khan's house was sure to have. And a little I thought of her khan. He gave us My Lord the cat, who was the best cat who ever breathed. And though Khan Tegus never came back for us, I'd heard the sound of his soul through his voice, and I believe he's the kind of person who deserves the best yak in all the realms.
I ki
ssed Mucker's nose and sang into his huge ear the song to ease parting, the one that goes, "Roads go straight and roads go on, my heart moves like the sun." A boy came to lead him away to promises of oats and that quickly Mucker was gone. I hadn't realized it would hurt to lose that yak, but I nearly gasped at the pain in my heart. Thank the Ancestors, Shria didn't give me the chance to think and mourn because she asked right quick, "Do you girls know kitchen work?"
I showed her my hands. She turned them over, felt for calluses.
"She's a good girl," she said to the little man. "Her face has the mark of bad luck, doesn't it? Even so, I'd bet my shoes she's a good girl."
"What about the other one?" The little man squinted at my lady.
I smelled hope in the air, and I snatched at it. "She's my clan sister, and we've survived in harsher living than most girls could imagine. Why, she's worth two of any city girl you can find."
I guess they believed me because here we are in her khan's house. Instead of placing my lady in a chamber of silk and pillows, as I'd hoped to do, she's sharing my blanket on the kitchen floor by the washing hearth. Ancestors but I'm tired and kitchen work starts at dawn. I'll pay for this writing time tomorrow.
Day 54
Though it's middle night, I'll write now because I never have other time. I'm used to recording my thoughts by the ghost light of fire, anyhow.
This kitchen is like a herd of wild horses for how it runs and runs and never stops but to sleep. My lady and I tend the wash fire, boil water, scrub pots, and wash aprons and rags. There are two other scrubber girls that share our fire, and we all sleep together before it, using the dirty rags for pillows, or one another's legs and bellies. I'll tell you somewhat of the other girls.
Gal is thirteen and our youngest. Her eyes are pale brown and so sad. She's from Goda's Second Gift, and her mother made her flee before Lord Khasar's armies arrived. Because of the mountain range to the west, she had to sneak southeast through Thoughts of Under and the ruins of Titor's Garden before finding safety here. She doesn't know where her family is or if they still live. At night, I hear her cry, but she's camel stubborn and won't let us comfort her. When she doesn't suspect what I'm about, I work close to her and sing the song for heartache. She's got a wicked tongue and quick temper and saves it all for my lady, who is a slow worker.
Qacha is eighteen like me, and what's more, she's a mucker! Her mama was in the city of Titor's Garden when Khasar attacked, but her papa survived, and he works in the stables. They have the same half day free each week and spend it outside the city walls, talking and hunting for roots and berries. We teach each other new songs and talk about the steppes. How she laughs! She laughs when she wakes, and laughs when they dump another load of washing before us, and laughs when Cook knocks her head with a spoon for spilling water.
I love Qacha like I love sunshine, but I don't seek her company more often than I must. When we laugh together, I see how my lady looks, her eyes cast down, as though she wishes she could curl up and cry.
I don't call her my lady in front of others, of course. Her name here is Sar, and she wears her braid down like all the scrubber girls. We say that she's my clan sister, since we don't look enough alike to claim the same mother. Clan sisters. Ancestors forgive me.
Day 60
This lie is making me feel heavy, as though all the world is under water and I can't run for its weight. I can't be a good scrubber because I'm looking after my lady. I can't be a good lady's maid because I'm scrubbing pots and rags. I'm failing at both and I hate it like I've never hated a thing in my life.
And my lady isn't well. She doesn't cry so often as she did on our journey, but she still hangs like a veil-low in leaf. Always she stays near me, seizing my arm or standing so close our sides touch. She looks about as if everything in the world had teeth and was planning to bite her. She weeps at night more than Gal.
"Is it the work, my lady?" I asked her tonight, when we were cracking soap from the block in the cellar.
"I'm tired," she said. "I don't like Cook. I want to go to sleep."
"You don't have to be a scrubber anymore, my lady. Your khan is the master here. Go to him and remind him of your powerful love."
She turned white and shook like a hare facing a hunter. I patted her face and shook her and prodded her with my toes, but she wouldn't agree, she just stood there, dumb and shaking. Ancestors pardon me, but I dumped wash water over her head.
My lady was angry. "Why did you do that?"
"To wake you up! To make you make sense. Tell me, my lady. Why won't you go to him? Why?"
"I don't want to say. You won't believe me. But I know it, I know they all want me dead. And if one doesn't kill me, the other will. Lord Khasar will come after me. He's a beast and he tears out the throats of goats with his teeth. I save him."
"Oh, my lady," I said, and turned my back so she couldn't see my expression. First she claimed Khan Tegus is plotting to kill her with arrows and knives and now Lord Khasar bites goats. In her mind, I don't think she's ever left the tower. She's still seeing things that aren't there.
Day 62
The girls at the next fire wash plates and platters and occasionally help Cook with the stirring. Sometimes they say things about us pot scrubbers, or about my mottled face and my lady's slowness. It makes Gal glare and Qacha hold her laughter. Maybe before the tower, such talk would have made me feel love, but I have no patience for it now. The world is far too beautiful to waste a moment on such nonsense. Even so, we four scrubber girls keep to ourselves.
Except there is one boy who's a cutter — that is, he cuts up vegetables, prepares meat, that sort of kitchen work. Well, he had some free time and he came and helped me scrub pots. In his free time. Then today we caught eyes as we worked and he winked. I giggled about it with Qacha, but I don't know what to think. His name's Osol and he has loads of hair and a fine jaw. Maybe he hasn't noticed my skin splotches? How could he not notice? All the same, I keep the left side of my face turned away from him whenever I can.
I haven't heard any gossip about Khan Tegus. Or Lord Khasar.
Day 64
Today was my free half day, but Saren had to work. I wasn't going to leave her, she's likely to fall apart without me nearby, but the girls insisted.
"Go have some freedom," said Qacha, walking me to the door. "You haven't taken a half day since you arrived."
" But Sar - "
Gal grumbled. "That girl works slower than a snail makes a trail. Let her get kicked out of the kitchens already."
"Never mind," said Qacha. "She'll be fine. I'll watch Sar. Go on!"
It felt so nice to have someone looking after me a bit, and I believed Saren would be just fine with a solid mucker girl like Qacha watching out for her. So I left.
It was strange walking about without my lady hanging on my side. Ancestors forgive me, but I felt as though someone cut me loose from heavy chains. First I went to the market. A caravan visited the khan's house two days ago, and I hoped to view some splendid performers.
Sadly, this caravan had only one contortionist and all he did was stand on his head and occasionally wiggle his legs, so I moved on, gliding my hand over the finery for sale — bundles of cinnabar, camphor, and sandalwood, bags of brown and white sugar, pearls and purple gems safe under glass, fragrant waxes in square bundles, turquoise, pink coral, and my favorite — blue nuggets of lapis lazuli.
I was gazing at the blue stones when I heard the caravan storyteller's magnificent voice. She boomed during the dramatic bits and then went love and eerie to make your hairs rise. The desert folk don't know the Ancestors and their tales, so the stories she told were foreign to me. Stories of night and fear, some so strange they left me feeling shrouded in ghosts.
One was like the story of the skinwalkers that I'd heard before — people who deal with the desert shamans to gain animal powers, but the storyteller added more details than I'd ever heard. First, a skin-walker offers his spirit as barter to a desert shaman, then he m
ust kill a close relative—the more he loves the person he kills, the greater his power will be. Imagine such a thing! After that sacrifice, the desert shaman summons a predator spirit into the person, who then gains the added strength and cunning of that beast as well as the ability change into its shape. The storyteller told of man-leopards that prowl the desert night and with one bite turn a living person into a corpse.
My mouth went dry and I wanted to cover my ears, but I sat and listened anyway. Could it be true? Only the shamans should have power to change into animals, as foxes in service of the Ancestors. Shouldn't they?
It was a dark story and I needed lightening, so I headed back to the khan's house and visited Mucker in the stables. That magnificent yak grunted happily and snorted over my hands, leaving them warm and somewhat sticky. I sang to him and brushed him, and he looked shiny as polished wood when I left.
Here I am out in the sunshine, a full hour left for me to just sit and smile. Osol passed by, making a run to the dairy, and he dropped a wildflower on my book. I called out a greeting as he scurried away, and he looked back at me and winked. And smiled. He has a smile to be proud of.
The sky is a yawning blue, big and delicious, as though it wants me to be happy.
Later
Saren didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped. She panicked, there was some screaming, and they had to stuff her in a closet before Cook heard.
"She threw a tantrum like a waddling child," was how Qacha explained it. "I don't know how you put up with her."
"She's had a time of it," I said. "She lost her family."
"Who hasn't?"
I couldn't explain about the tower, and about Saren being gentry and made of softer stuff than muckers. But are they? I mean, her khan is gentry and it makes me smile to imagine him throwing a tantrum. Would Saren be like Tegus if I could heal whatever ails her? Then again, didn't the Ancestors make gentry perfect? And if they did, what about Lord Khasar?
I'm not sure about any of it anymore, and that's the truth.
Day 67
Today Qacha, Saren, and I were sitting on the floor scrubbing pots, and we mucker girls got to reminiscing about the steppes. Living every day under the Eternal Blue Sky, surrounded by animals, milking in the mornings, making cheese and yogurt, washing and cooking and cleaning, and then running free through the grass like antelope. I can still imagine myself in that life, as clearly as if I'm eight and in two braids, drinking milk fresh from the mare and twisting dry grass into play dolls.
