by Shannon Hale
Finally I sat up, and My Lord the cat, annoyed with all the talking and wiggling, sprang away to the door and set to cleaning his paws.
"What's wrong now, my lady?" I asked, and not very nicely.
She started to cry. Of course. "I order you to do one more thing for me."
She wants the cat, I thought. Let her try and take him.
"I want," she said, sniffling and sobbing, "I want you to kill me."
My lady never plays games with words. She means everything fully, she drinks down the world whole and spits nothing out. I knew she meant what she said, and it set me spinning.
"No," I whispered, my throat dry as salt meat.
"I order you to — "
"Order until you're out of breath," I said, glancing at Gal and Qacha, who were still dead asleep. "If I did such a thing, there'd be no place for me in the Ancestors' Realm, nor for you either. We'd wander in the gray beyond the borders forever, with nowhere to sit and no milk to drink, and I'd never see my mama again. Punishment for disobeying your order can't be worse than that."
Saren turned on her side, her back to me, and set to sobbing so violently I thought she'd vomit.
"I don't want to live anymore," she said, the words almost lost with each wet sob. "Every night I think the sun's gone forever, but when it rises in the morning anyway I wish it wouldn't. Because then I spend all day scrubbing. And my chest hurts like it's stuffed with rocks. And everyone's dead in my father's city. Because of me. All those bodies, because of me. Because I wouldn't marry Khasar. It's my fault and it's too much and I can't carry it anymore. And Khasar's still coming for me anyway. He'll find the tower empty and come looking. And Khan Tegus will never love me because I'm not clever and I smell like dirty pots and I want to die, Dashti. Please, I can't do it myself, I've tried. I'm too afraid and I'll do it wrong. You have to do it for me. Please, Dashti."
I didn't move all the while she pleaded. I felt buried by her sobs and words.
I turned toward My Lord and very quietly sang the cat song, the slow, sliding song that goes, "Twitch and itch, the world is meat, the world is mine." He put his nose out as if he could smell the song, then he padded to me and pressed his head against mine. I felt a jab in my heart as though someone had just told me that he was dead after all and never coming home.
Then I sat behind my lady, sang the cat song, wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and placed the cat onto her lap.
"Now you sing," I said.
At first she was timid and still sobbing too hard for the cat to hear any tune, but she calmed and her voice found the song.
"Temple to tail, purr zipping through." Her voice was softer than mine, but sweeter too. Whereas my singing's a hot, hearty meal, hers is a drink of sugared milk.
I didn't know if My Lord would accept her song or if he'd scorn her still — it's always the hearer's choice to heed a calling song, and cats are more stubborn than most. But he is a friendly cat, a happy soul. He curled up inside her crossed legs. After a time, he purred. She's no mucker, but that song she sang as well as my own mama.
She kept on singing and stroked his fur, but she stayed rigidly still as if afraid to spook him.
"It's all right. You can lie down," I said. "I think he'll stay with you."
Very slowly, very carefully, she eased herself down on her side. My Lord curled up beside her with a pleased rumble.
It was a long time before I slept that night, and I slept fitfully. When I sat up again, the fire was lower, and everyone was still snoozing except for Saren, who kept whisper-singing all night long and stroking his fur. My Lord the cat lay asleep, nestled in the curve of her body.
Except for singing my mama into the Ancestors' Realm, giving My Lord to Saren was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I felt emptied, a well dug out of my chest, and as pathetic as a three-legged cricket. But, strangely, as I rolled over to find sleep again, I realized that I didn't hate her anymore.
Day 134
When My Lord the cat came in from his morning prowl, Saren sang the song for cats, and he jumped onto her shoulder, curling his tail around her neck.
Qacha touched my elbow. "Dashti, Sar is — "
"I know," I said. It's a gross sin among muckers to sing a calling song to another person's animal, so I explained, "I gave her permission. He's her cat now. He was all along, actually. I was the one who first took him from her."
Qacha shook her head as though she didn't believe me. She doesn't think so highly of Saren. Not knowing that she's an honored lady, how can she be expected to be patient with this girl who doesn't do her share of work, who won't talk to anyone but me, who fusses like a small child when I'm not around? I understand Qacha's glares, but then I see Saren smiling at the cat as he extends his nose to hers, and my heart does a little flip. A happy flip, I think.
Still no news from her khan's army.
Day 136
Something has happened, and I thought I needed to write it down so my nerves can quiet, but now I hesitate. There was a tribunal today and . . . Ancestors, how my stomach hurts! Let me distract myself with other thoughts first.
I never realized before that every city in the Eight Realms has eight chiefs as well as a lord or lady — nine rulers to mirror the sacred nine, the eight Ancestors plus the Eternal Blue Sky. Each chief serves one of the Ancestors and is always of the opposite gender. For instance, Batu, the war chief, serves Carthen, goddess of strength. I like to see things ordered, and right now I need a bit of calming, so I'll jot it down here:
Khan Tegus (lord of the city)—serves the Eternal Blue Sky, and so is over all.
Chief of war (commands the warriors)—serves Carthen, goddess of strength.
Chief of city (maintains walls, structures, and trade routes) — serves Ris, god of roads and towns.
Chief of animals (keeps livestock, dairies, monitors hunting in the woods) — serves Titor, god of animals.
Chief of food (supervises the farms that feed the city and the market, and keeps the town's food supply) —serves Vera, goddess of farms and food.
Chief of order (sits in judgment)—serves Nibus, god of order.
Chief of night (leads the night watch, keeps the peace)—serves Goda, goddess of sleep.
Chief of light (hosts festivals and directs the shamans)—serves Evela, goddess of sunlight.
Once I learned all this, I wanted to know, what about the eighth chief? The one who would serve Under, god of tricks? Koke explained that she's the invisible chief, and there's always an empty chair for her at counsels. That thought scattered skin prickles down my back.
So I'm going to record now what's happened, though my stomach squeezes just to think of it. But it pesters my mind, so I will. The tribunal today was for Osol, the boy who used to wink at me, who once gave me a wildflower. Word in the kitchens is that he and a girl were having loud words in the dairy, and the chief of animals was passing through. When she heard the ruckus, she commanded them to silence, but Osol was in a rage and pushed the chief, and when she fell, he kicked her.
For minor offenses, the chief of order would decide punishment, but this is not minor. The chief of animals is one of the khan's cousins, so she's gentry. Without Khan Tegus and Batu, there are still six chiefs in the city (plus the empty chair), and it only takes four of the nine to pass judgment. So they met together and they decided — Osol will hang tonight on the south wall.
I know this is the punishment for such an offense. I know I shouldn't be stunned, but I never knew a person who was hanged. I've glimpsed the bodies sometimes, hanging there, but I never knew. It changes it all. It makes me cry to miss seeing his smile, it makes me wince at the memory of his winking, it makes me shudder to imagine how he's feeling tonight. It makes me feel as if I'm the one who will hang.
He shouldn't have struck gentry, no, but Ancestors, does he really deserve death? Sometimes I wonder if that eighth chief, the absent one who serves Under, isn't getting more of a voice in things than we suspect.
Day
137
Osol died last night. I won't go see his body.
Day 140
I haven't had time to pick up the brush and ink these past days because I've been working my fingers to the marrow, but here's my news — so has my lady! She scrubs and mops and hauls water, and she hums all the while. And when Cook says, "Hurry with that pot, girl," my lady smiles, dimples and all. Under strike me silly if I lie.
She has her willow tree moments, she has her mopes, and she still startles at sudden sounds like a dropped pot or slammed door. But other times, in the in-between easy moments, she's calmer than pond water. Sometimes, she even seems happy.
I keep kissing her cheek and once I tickled her side, and hear this — she laughed! She says such things as, "Look at how clean that rag is, " and "That's a pot I'd eat out of, sure enough." After she worked through her stack of pots today, Cook let her take over the stirring of the soup kettle, and I thought Saren would burst from joy. It's that cat's doing, no doubt in me. The creature loves her true as true, and she knows it. It's the knowing that's made the difference, I think. He wraps around her ankles or neck, even when she isn't singing to him. He finds her at night and purrs into her belly. A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap. His very nearness is a healing song.
We've all been worked to bruising lately because now we cook for Lady Vachir and a large entourage from Beloved of Ris. They fled the war and a feared winter siege. I wish they'd brought more news with them. So far, I've learned little about our khan's warriors and how they fare, but surely the Ancestors will protect them.
When her khan returns, I don't rightly know how I'll tell him I'm Lady Saren. Having his current betrothed sleeping in his house does add a complication to this already thorny situation. Thank the Ancestors I hadn't made the claim before. With Khan Tegus gone, there'd be no one to prevent Lady Vachir from deeming me a threat to her betrothal and taking my life. That's how the law's written, that's how Nibus, god of order, made the world. And Osol's death has reminded me that the chiefs wouldn't hesitate to carry out that law.
Day 145
Last week, Cook was so impressed with my lady's new devotion to working, she moved Saren out of the scrubbing kitchen and into the presenting kitchen, where she arranges food on the platters before they're taken up. It's one step below server and one of the highest duties any kitchen worker achieves. Saren fairly glowed at the news. My Lord entwines himself in her ankles, and she hums as she works, her cheeks bright and pink as though she were a healthy mucker girl living under the sun.
"Cook only chose her because she's pretty," said Gal, "in case she moves up to server. It's not fair. You're the fastest worker in the kitchens. It should've been you."
"It doesn't matter. I'm a scribe," I said, though I don't know if I'll ever be again.
Today was my free half day, and I sprang outdoors and into the city. I was anxious to see if I could find any news about the khan's army, but all the talk was the same —Khasar invincible, bloodshed imminent—enough dismay and fear to please Under, god of tricks, for years to come.
I passed the jobbers market where refugees stand in long rows hoping for employment, all holding the symbols of their trade: jewelers with magnifying glasses, goldsmiths with tiny mallets, teachers with books, merchants with scales, smiths with hammers, carpenters with saves, and scribes with brushes and ink. I felt kind of funny when I save those scribes, wondering if I'd join them there after my lady marries.
Day 150
We've all been in such a flurry only now am I able to write. Khan Tegus is back, wounded, a tenth of his warriors dead. They rode hard into Song for Evela, bringing in villagers and shutting the city gates behind them.
I spent an entire helpless day scrubbing so hard I feared I'd make holes in the pots, until at last Shria came for me. Since then I haven't spent much time here in my quiet little room. I only came now to get some sleep because I was so tired I was beginning to see frogs leaping about in the corner of my eye. It'd make me laugh if times weren't so scary.
Three days I've spent with the shaman healers in Khan Tegus's room, singing until my throat's fair scalded with songs. He bears an arrow wound through his side and it's turned to fever. His breath wheezes while he sleeps, a sound that makes my own skin hurt as if a thousand red ants bit me at once.
The shamans change his bandages, give him drinks, dance with their drums, pray toward the Sacred Mountain, burn incense, and read the cracks in fire-heated sheep bones for any signs of hope. I hold Tegus's warm hand and sing and sing. My lord, my poor lord. It's too much like my mama's end. Times there are these past days when I lay my head on his couch and begin to dream as soon as my eyes shut, and my dreams are always the blackness of the tower falling over all the world, an endless city of corpses, and my lord's body there, too, cast on the ground.
I need to try and rest so I can return to him and sing some more.
Day 150
The shaman healers dismissed me. Tegus isn't improving. My singing does nothing. So they said. And I was lying here on my horsehair blanket and believing them. But then I remembered how Tegus asked me to help Batu, hove he said please. Please, Dashti. And I did. And he got better.
Then I got to wake-dreaming about a time when I was ten and I fell into a thorn bush and scraped my arm, and it swelled and swelled, my arm on fire, my whole body trembling with heat. Mama and I were alone on the edge of a great forest, with no one around to help for miles, but I remember how calm she was, how cool her hands on my face. And while I thrashed and sweated on my bed, she never stopped singing. On the third night, I woke from death dreams and looked up into her eyes, and I remember how I could see her confidence. She knew I could heal. So I curled up on her lap and felt her song move inside me until my skin cooled and I could sleep a healing sleep.
I'm going to go back to the khan's chamber now. I'm going to keep singing.
Day 153
It's still dark, the autumn morning too tired to rise, and I'm writing by firelight. The shaman healers feared that the khan's fever was the kind that comes with an open wound and stays and stays until it takes a warrior down days after battle. But at midnight his fever broke. They said it was a miracle, mumbled prayers to the north, then left or curled up to sleep on pallets on the floor.
I stayed by my lord's couch. It was the same couch where Batu had lain ill, where Tegus and I had leaned back together and stared at the fire, touching Batu's arm. This time, I touched the khan's arm and watched his chest rise and fall.
Over the past six days, I'd sung all the healing songs I knew, I'd stitched each one with my memories of sunlight, I'd poured any blue sky from my soul into the sounds. Now I was a snail's shell. There was nothing left for me to give.
So I sang him the nonsense song he'd given me in the tower. My voice was a horse's bray, I'm sure, raw with little sleep and so much singing. But I didn't want him to feel alone without any music to keep him company. "The piglet rolled while squealing, moving by snout and by jaw, happily snuffling for treats without use of hoof or paw." I sang it wrong. It needs a happy voice, the words jigging and the tune lilting up. All I could manage was a slow whisper, but I think it served.
I kept one hand on his arm and smoothed the hair back from his brow with the other. I sang. His eyes opened, and I should've withdrawn my hands. Really, I should've scuttled under the couch and hidden for shame. But I kept singing. And I kept one hand on his arm and the other on his forehead. And I stroked his hair back.
He watched me while I sang. He looked at my eyes. My heart felt so big, it hurt against my ribs. At last I felt some shame and started to pull away, but he put his hand over mine on his chest to hold me there longer. He knew I was just the mucker girl, the scrubber, and still he wanted to keep me close. I don't think I breathed for a long, long while.
I remembered in the tower before he came to visit, wondering if he'd been formed by Evela, goddess of sunlight. I think it might be
true after all, because I began to squint wretchedly and couldn't look at his face.
When he slept again, I left him with the healers. I think I'll curl up in my horsehair blanket until the shivering in my limbs stops.
Day 155
This morning when I entered her khan's chamber, he was sitting up, his face not so pale. The icy fear that had lodged in my belly this last week at last began to melt. He was speaking with one of his chiefs, his face troubled, but when he saw me, he broke out in a grin so wide I have to believe it came right from his soul. Then he held his arms out before him, palms down, inviting me to clasp forearms as though we were of a clan, meeting again after a long absence.
"A warm greeting, Dashti," he spoke in the formal manner, though the cheerfulness in his smile made me think he wanted to laugh.
"A warm greeting, my lord," I replied, kneeling beside his bed and grasping his forearms with my palms up.
Then he did what I didn't expect from gentry to commoner — as we gripped arms, he pulled me closer, resting his cheek against mine, and inhaled through his nose, taking in the breath of my soul. I was too terrified to breathe. I hope he didn't notice that I didn't sniff as well, because refusing would mean insult, but I couldn't help but think, Did he keep my shirt from the tower? Does he remember the scent?
When he released me, he said, "So, just come from milking the sheep, have you?" which made me snort in laughter. It's a common mucker tease after a cheek greeting and means, of course, that I smell like a ewe, which I know I don't because I've been indoors for two weeks and bathed two days ago. His sly half smile made me think he'd actually sought out some other mucker and asked for something right silly to say to me.
So I answered, "I have, in fact. They send greeting to their brother Tegus."
Day 156
This morning, Tegus welcomed me again with an arm clasp and cheek touch. I wasn't startled this time, and I breathed in at his neck. How can I describe the scent of his skin? He smells something like cinnamon — brown and dry and sweet and warm. Ancestors, is it wrong for me to know that? To write it? Is it wrong for me to imagine laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes and breathing in his smell?
