by Kristi Lea
“Now the Ken-Segra welcome you of the Xan-Segra into our family. On the eve of the next new moon, our tribes become one in people. Today, we become one in heart. Let us feast.”
His mother's voice cut through Joral's musings like a sword through buckskin and he gave himself a mental shake. He blinked, his vision blurring. For a moment he thought he saw the water spirit, slim and willowy, entering the ceremonial tent through the flap at the rear.
He blinked again, and the vision was gone, replaced by the sight of two plump Waki girls bearing baskets of food. With their plain clothing, silent feet and their discretely bowed heads, they were meant to blend into the backdrop.
The first of them glanced up and their gazes met briefly. Quickly, she bowed her head and hunched her shoulders even lower than before and hurried along the edge of the tent to deliver the first of her bowls of food to the Xan-Segra.
Joral forced his eyes back downwards so he didn’t embarrass the little thing, or himself. He had spent far too many years among his father’s people in the lowland mountains. There were few Waki so far south. In his father’s stone fortress, the servants were all local people with distinct personalities and names of their own. Few were silent and none were treated as though they were invisible.
One of the Waki placed a platter with slices of roasted meat and stack of flatbreads in front of him. Bread might settle his stomach.
He waited. This part of the ceremonial dinner was familiar, even to his foreign manners. One always waited for the Lord or Lady of the house to eat first. When his mother tore a healthy chunk from her own bread and dipped it into her stew, the mood of the tent visibly relaxed as everyone tucked into their food and low conversations began to swirl through the air in place of the ceremonial smoke.
The Waki moved quietly and quickly among the guests, refilling plates and cups and removing discarded bits and crumbs from the floor. No one paid them any mind. No one but Joral.
One of them padded up next to the Chieftess to right a cup that had tipped over and to blot the grol that had spilled next to the meem bowl. As the girl knelt down next to the filmy tendrils of smoke, she coughed.
It was a quiet cough, and no one else seemed to notice but him. The haze of the smoke cast shadows on Joral’s eyes too. The childlike servant’s face seemed to waver and shift in front of him so that she wasn’t one person but two, shimmering together in the same space. With quick, efficient moves, she finished her task and hurried out of the tent.
***
Sticky platters covered in crumbs threatened to spill from Illista’s carrying basket. She had overfilled it again, she knew. If she could just get these to the cooking tent to be cleaned in one trip instead of two, then she might finish her work just a little sooner. The bent-legged magician had prepared a firestar show tonight in honor of the betrothal. It was a treat almost unheard of here among the Segra, one she and Quarie had loved as children.
She remembered snuggling into her mother’s embrace as the colors popped and sparkled overhead. Remembered their dazzling reflections in the sea. Remembered her father’s warm laughter and the way Quarie would hold Illista’s hand so that she would not be afraid of the noise.
The top platter teetered as she backed out of the tent flap and into the dusky evening. She turned slowly around, keeping one hand on the top of the stack while the other clasped the bottom of her basket with shaky fingers. She righted that platter, but her movement shifted the entire tower, and one of the middle plates slipped out and tumbled toward the dirt.
“Whoa. I got it.”
A large figure blocked the orange-red sun, kneeling to pick up the fallen plate.
Illista squealed and stepped back but her foot caught in the leather tent flap behind her and she lost her balance and fell down onto her backside. The wooden and earthenware plates clattered against each other as they raced for the ground around her clumsily outstretched legs.
“Are you all right?”
The figure reached down a long-fingered hand. She grasped it with her stubby fingers and allowed him to haul her to her feet.
“I am sorry I startled you.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes focused firmly on the man’s feet. She was not supposed to make eye contact. Not supposed to speak unless spoken to. Not supposed to draw attention to herself. She had become exceedingly good at recognizing the individual tribespeople by their shoes.
This man wore knee-high boots of soft shearling with laces that crisscrossed up from lean ankles to firmly muscled calves. The shoes looked newly made, with only a little dust around the toes. Dust and bread crumbs and a few flecks of gravy.
“Let me help you with these.” He knelt, and Illista’s heart nearly stopped.
It was Joral. She had spilled food on the Chieftess’s son. Heir to the tribe, bridegroom-to-be, and grol-drinking late-night swimmer.
Chapter 3 Illista stared up into eyes the color of the ocean at dusk, a deep blue-green-gray that twinkled with the first hints of the evening stars. The tendrils of hair that escaped the low cord at his neck were shot with the hues of a late autumn sunset and curled into unruly waves. Where had a man of the Ken-Segra found green eyes and red hair?
His skin was the same deep bronze of the rest of the tribe and he was just as tall and powerful as the hardiest of the hunters. Tall, powerful, but lean. It was an efficient power that was lithe enough to ride a horse without killing it. The thick-set warriors of her homeland would underestimate the strength of this man. Of these people.
With that strength, he easily balanced the stack of dirty dishes on one palm.
“Pardon me, my lord.” Illista stammered as she reached up to accept the load from him.
He lifted his hands up, just out of her reach. “So Waki can talk.”
She stared into his smiling eyes. The corners actually crinkled. “Of course we talk, my lord.”
“Are you taking these to the wash tent? I can carry them.” He waved her hands away.
Illista's tongue seemed to grow three sizes too large for her mouth. What should she do? What would Quarie do? What would the other Waki do? Was there even a protocol for accepting help from one of the Segra? From the prince of the tribe?
“No thank you, my lord. It is my job.” She held her arms out again for the plates.
He ignored the gesture and began to walk. “It's no problem. The tent is this way, right? I haven't had a chance to see how your operation works.”
She had no choice but to scurry after him, taking two quick steps to his one. In this body, she was not even eye level with his shoulder blades where his long braid of hair bobbed over a bleached and beaded tunic. Her true self was not a lot taller than her Waki body, though. Enough to perhaps see his shoulder without raising her eyes. At least, she thought so. It had been hard to tell while he lay prone on the bank of the pond and she was sitting on his chest attempting to exchange lake water for air in his lungs.
Joral turned back and opened his mouth as if to say something. He closed it again and slowed his pace so that Illista had to slow down too, to a soft patter in his shadow.
“What is your name?” he asked over his shoulder.
Illista realized she had met his gaze directly again. That was not good. She quickly looked downward, willing her eyes not to linger on the V of his back, or the muscles of his thighs. Dust and grass. She must look at the dust and grass and his heels.
“Surely you have a name?”
She bobbed her head up and down while staring at his legs. The lacing on his boots sculpted the fine hide to a pair of toned calves. Her mouth was dry and her heart fluttered with fear and the exertion of her half jog behind him. “My name is Illista.”
He stopped, and she nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to avoid running into his back. The stone around her neck throbbed hot and sharp against her skin as it bobbed with the sudden movement and for a split second she could hear the whisper of rain droplets coming on the wind. The sound was like the tinkling of a thous
and crystal bells far away before it faded to the mere whistle of wind.
Joral's voice sounded funny when he spoke, soft and thick as though he were waking from a dream. “That is a beautiful name. Illista.”
The sound of her name on his lips sent a shiver down her back. Not a shiver like she felt from the cold, hard winter air on these plains. But the shiver she used to feel before diving into the lacy waterfall near her childhood home. The pool at the bottom had tasted so sweet and pure and fresh and the cool water used to tickle her skin and her hair and her imagination so that she would lose herself in its blue depths for hours.
“Thank you, my lord. The tent is here. Might I take the dishes to be washed, now?” She peeked up at his face. He looked a bit pale or even gray underneath the tanned color of his skin and his pupils were dilated. Still hung over from last night's festivities. Still water-logged from the lake. She stifled a snort.
“I will return them on one condition. Could you point out the...I don't know the word for it. The person, the Waki, whoever is in charge of the kitchens and the washing and all of this?”
He gestured around the circle of tents where pots and pans and herbs and various meat-drying racks and roasting pits were set.
“Nunzi is the canteen mistress. She wears a red apron.”
He handed her the basket of dishes and waited, hands poised, as she balanced them. She walked away slowly and deliberately. There was no way she was going to drop them all over the ground a second time. His gaze weighed heavily on her shoulders. She felt foolish and silly and awkward, more aware of the ungraceful waddle of her steps and the shortness of her stride than ever.
It was not until she had sorted the plates onto the work table and had begun scouring them with sand to remove all of the food particles that she breathed a sigh of relief. The familiar motions of the scraping them and rubbing them with cleaning oils and rinsing them and storing them on the drying-travelling racks soothed her.
Joral would never connect a servant, a Waki, with the incident at the lake the night before. His attentions were odd, but he was a foreigner. Most of the other Waki were mildly embarrassed for the Chieftess these past months as she had her son instructed with many of the younger boys of the tribe.
Illista took another plate, and shoved it into the basin to rinse. She knew how he must feel. Most of the Ken Segra’s Waki workers were from the same family group. There were a few outsiders, like herself and Quarie. Yet none of them were at all like herself and Quarie. The sisters were more foreign than Joral would ever be among his Segra kin. At least he was a man among men and not an imposter.
At first, she barely noticed the sound.
The water gurgled with each new plate, choking and sputtering every time she dipped one of the wooden platters down under the surface. As the bits of leftover oil and sand clouded the surface, the sound grew more choked and wobbly. Like an old drunken man chortling through his grol.
She timidly lifted the plate out and the water let it go with a slurp. Curious. She slipped it back under and was rewarded with a single chord of half-hummed music. She grabbed another plate, not bothering to scrape off the cleaning oils and dunked it into the water.
A sing-song burst of woozy joy trilled through the tent, and she laughed out loud.
“Illista!”
She jumped at the high-pitched squeak that was Nunzi's voice. Illista whirled, a plate clutched to her breast, dripping precious water onto the packed earthen floor of the tent.
Nunzi's face was impassive and bland with that look that the taller folk associated with a simpleton. Illista herself once thought Waki were ever happy, ever ignorant, ever innocent. Now she recognized the tight curl of Nunzi's fingers, the set of the woman's shoulders, the tightness of her lips.
Illista's stomach curdled in fear. What had Joral told her? “Yes, Nunzi?”
“Put down your plate, child.”
Illista hurried to obey, carefully wiping the plate and setting it into the drying rack tenderly. Nunzi's fists did not uncurl.
“You have been noticed, child.” The older woman's breathy voice belied the core of stone that Illista knew she harbored. To be noticed was trouble for a Waki. To be noticed could mean much worse for Illista and Quarie.
Illista bowed her head and tried to wet her lips to speak. Even the water of her mouth escaped her now. “I am shamed.”
Nunzi's laughter was low and barking, in steep contrast to her girly voice. “It is no shame of yours. The prince is a strange one. He notices much that he should ignore.”
Illista remained still, afraid to agree with such a statement. But neither would she argue with Nunzi.
“If the request had come from another, I would have refused. But Chieftess has named Prince Joral as her heir, and we serve the Chieftess.” Nunzi sighed heavily. “He and his magic man require an assistant. And he requested you in particular.”
Chapter 4 Illista paused outside the flap to the medicine man's tent, her blood rushing loud as a storm-whipped wave in her ears. Few of the tribespeople had ever came all the way here, preferring to meet with Zuke in one of the larger gathering tents. From what she knew, few of the Ken-Segra trusted this medicine man. None of the Waki ever used his services. They had their own healer and did not trust the tall people's medicine.
Scents of burning firewood and exotic herbs overpowered the dust and horse dung and tanned leather that were the mainstays of the rest of the camp. She touched the buttery fabric of the tent.
Silk.
The Ken-Segra used leather and furs for their dwellings, protected with oils distilled from the fat of the grazing herds of the plains to make them waterproof. It was what they had, and it made for an effective barrier to both the harsh winter winds and the unrelenting summer sun.
Silk such as this was reserved for ceremonial garments. A man-sized length of silk rope was more precious than a year's worth of fresh water. To use such fabric for a tent was as frivolous as it was impractical in this climate. She shoved the fabric aside, surprised at its heft. Not a single layer of filmy silk, this. This was quilted with some other layer in the middle.
She lifted the flap and slipped inside, allowing it to drop behind her, and blinked at the shift in light. In the center of the tent was a small red-gold fire. But it was the dozens, or maybe hundreds, of candles topping multi-armed stands that illuminated the room to a brilliant imitation of daytime. Their flames flickered a bright blue-white and, based on the cleanly scented air, they were made of costly beeswax instead of tallow. Bees were almost as hard to come by on the open plains as silk.
Illista's breath caught in her throat as her gaze travelled upwards to the brightly colored murals painted on the inside surface of the tent. Detailed depictions of trees and flowers and stone fortresses and water filled the entire surface of the conical dwelling. Across one swath she recognized the distinctive patterns and wide arching wings of the gulls native to the shores near where she was born.
She gulped.
“Do they scare you?”
Illista jumped at Joral's voice. He sat on a cushioned chair on the far side of the fire, his long hair unbound and loose. A snowy white shirt hung from his shoulders, unfastened at the chest. She blinked. With his foreign garments and the chair he had nearly blended into the exotic scenery.
He stood, his height dominating the space. Illista shrank backwards.
“Don't be afraid, Illista. The drawings are not real. Not even magical. Nothing up there can hurt you.” He smiled with a friendly openness that made her belly warm.
No, not friendly. Paternally.
She dropped her gaze immediately to the floor. Color could not flood a Waki's cheeks, but she felt ashamed anyway. To think, even for the briefest of moments, that a tribesman would treat a Waki like an equal was ridiculous. To admire his eyes and the breadth of his chest and the way a small bit of golden-brown hair curled at the neckline of his open shirt was beyond absurd.
“Zuke. Wake up. The Waki is here.” Jora
l nudged a pile of furs with his foot, and the furs groaned and rolled over.
“I was not asleep. I was meditating on your illness.” The voice from the furs was thick with sleep.
Joral chuckled. The rumble of his voice resonated through Illista like the melody from a well-tuned drum. “Up, lazybones. Our guest is here.”
The bundle of furs parted, revealing a wiry man whose age Illista could not guess. His hair was shiny and the deep brown-black of a man in his prime, but his eyes were old. Old like the sea or the mountains or the skeletons of trees out on the plains, dead from lack of water and withered by the wind into dusty sticks. He assessed her, staring frankly at her person, and she shivered under the attention and had to restrain herself from grasping the stone at her throat. To restrain herself from revealing its magic by foolishly trying to hide it from his eyes.
The medicine man smiled, and pushed himself to his feet. Unlike his piercing gaze, his smile was warm and welcoming and it calmed a few of the wild birds that swarmed in Illista's belly.
“You usually work in the kitchens, correct?”
She nodded, trying not to notice how one of his legs was shorter than the other, twisted somehow. He didn't seem to notice her furtive glances or didn't care. He walked to the far side of the tent with a sweeping gait that dragged his lame leg on every odd step.
“You are competent with cooking?” he asked over his shoulder. He knelt beside a wooden box. For all the twisted lameness of his legs, his back looked strong and his shoulders broad. She wondered what kind of life he led before he and Joral arrived in camp this summer past.
“Y..yes.” she said.
“Excellent. Come here, don't be afraid. I am glad to have an assistant.” Zuke waived her over, and then tossed something through the air to Joral. “Make yourself useful, too.”
Joral caught whatever it was, and Illista stared at the casual way that the medicine man addressed the prince. They treated each other as brothers or friends, not master-and-servant. Interesting.
