Queen of Slaves (The Powers of Amur Book 4)

by J. S. Bangs

  “If you have money to pay us,” Jauda said with a wry smile. “And my men will have a mission again: keeping the os Tastl from killing us.”

  “One thing I’ll add,” Mandhi said. She looked at Kest, whose cheeks were wet, and Hrenge who bowed and listen to Shadle’s whispered translation. “You said earlier we don’t know anything about the clan, and you’re right. I know only what I’ve seen in a few months here in Kalignas. But I do know the Uluriya, and I will promise you that we’ll be as kind and faithful to you as any clan. Here in the Dramab you have your clanhome, but when the men of your clan go to Amur as sailors, you won’t sail to a foreign land but to another clanhome. You will enter into the homes of your Uluriya brothers and sisters as confidently as you enter the homes of your clanmates. You will be our kin, and we will be your clan. I know you are giving much up, but we will give you much in return.”

  Did you know this was your fate when you kissed Taleg behind closed curtains in Veshta’s house?

  But it didn’t matter what she knew at the time. This was the cost she paid, and in the end it was a cost she would have to bear.

  Shadle spoke up, translating for Hrenge. “We hear and accept your word, Mandhi. We are ready.”

  Nakhur breathed heavily. He began tapping on the grain of the pine table before them, counting with his fingers. “It will take time,” Nakhur said. “In order to bring you all into the Uluriya, I need purified water with the tincture of blood and milk. I will need a ram, and it must be sacrificed at the new moon, which is in… four days. If we want to do it as quickly as possible.”

  “As soon as possible,” Glanod agreed. “It’s been half a month since marriage was proposed, and more talking will solve nothing. It just gives the os Tastl time.”

  “In four days, then. I can purify myself and the place of sacrifice by then.” He grimaced, counting out days and rituals on his fingers. “Barely. We’ll forego some things—the rite of dedication isn’t necessary, since it won’t be a permanent altar—yes, it can be done. But I will need help. Help finding an unblemished, intact ram, in the first place.”

  Glanod nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Oh, dozens of things,” Nakhur said. “A large silver vessel—well, you have no silver, so clay will do—sharp bronze knives, clean linens, leaves of the four herbs… I won’t name everything now. Suffice to say that I will be very busy for the next four days.”

  “Whatever,” Glanod said. “We save our lives by doing it, so whatever you ask. And the wedding itself?”

  “The day after that,” Nakhur said. “The first day that the moon is visible in the sky again.”

  Glanod glanced at Hrenge and repeated what Nakhur had said. Hrenge made a low groan and began muttering a litany of work as long as Nakhur’s. Glanod shook his head and said, “She’ll be as busy with the women preparing the wedding as you are with the men. But she can do it.”

  “Very well,” Mandhi said. She looked Kest in the eye. “In five days.”

  Kest stared back at her. There was no trace of a smile on his face.

  * * *

  It was the strangest wedding Mandhi had ever been to. The fact that it was her own wedding only made it stranger.

  In the days leading up to the wedding Hrenge and an endless number of os Dramab aunts fitted Mandhi with the Kaleksha bridal gown: a long skirt dyed bright blue and embroidered with patterns of flowers, voles, and rabbits. The custom was to stitch a new one for the bride as a gift from her mother-in-law, except there was no time for Hrenge to stitch anything, so they found the shortest, smallest woman in the os Dramab and gave her old skirt to Mandhi. It had to be hiked up until the waist was just beneath Mandhi’s breasts, and it still trailed on the ground, but some quick hemming by Hrenge made it so at least Mandhi could walk.

  They bound Mandhi’s breasts in white cotton and then gave her an upper garment of white rabbit fur. It was soft and beautiful, especially in contrast with the brilliant blue of the skirt, but the sleeves hung over Mandhi’s wrists and its bottom reached past her waist. More frantic modifications followed.

  If only Kaleksha women weren’t such towering giants, Mandhi thought. And it was dreadfully hot. Shadle assured her that wedding season was normally in the fall after the harvest, and in the cool weather the rabbit-fur shirt made perfect sense. At least Mandhi only had to wear it for a day.

  The final piece of the wedding garment was the only thing made wholly new: a crown woven from willow branches and decorated with the feathers of magpies and jays. The feathers stood up in the crown, stripes of blue and iridescent violet gleaming like strange jewels against the jet black of Mandhi’s hair.

  Then, when the whole thing was finally prepared, the women put it away until the day of the wedding.

  On the morning of the wedding, Hrenge, Shadle, and the rest of the women pulled Mandhi into one of their huts. The wedding clothes were folded on a table in the corner of the hut, and Mandhi went to them to dress. Hrenge slapped her hands away.

  “There’s a woman’s rite beforehand,” Shadle said. She leaned against the wall of the hut with her arms folded.

  Mandhi felt a moment of nervousness. “Woman’s rite?”

  Shadle shrugged. “Not my business to do it, since I’m not in the clan. It should only take a moment. But you need to strip.”

  Mandhi suddenly wished that Aryaji was there, but her maid was taking care of Jhumitu while the wedding preparations were underway. Hrenge pulled at the wrapping of Mandhi’s sari and made it abundantly clear what she expected Mandhi to do.

  Ah, well, she was going to have to undress anyway. She stripped, and Hrenge approached her muttering an incantation and stirring a black mixture in a little wooden bowl.

  “What’s in there?” Mandhi asked.

  “The white of a quail egg and the ash of an apple branch, cut while it was in flower,” Shadle said quickly. “And some other things you should not ask about.”

  Mandhi almost objected, but it was too late. Hrenge had dipped her thumb into the mixture and drawn a stripe across one of Mandhi’s breasts. She relented. The other breast received its stripe, then both knees, her feet, and the inside of her thighs.

  “There you go,” Shadle chuckled. “Now you’re sure to have a baby within a year.”

  “I already have a baby,” Mandhi objected, “and he’s not even a year old.”

  “Then you can have another. Now get dressed.”

  Some more of the os Dramab aunts entered the room and got Mandhi dressed in the hemmed blue skirt, the rabbit fur blouse, and the blue-and-black feathered crown. A constant yammer of Kaleksha chatter surrounded her, which Shadle made no attempt to translate, then they pushed Mandhi out the door.

  Mandhi began, “What do—”

  She was cut off by a big, freckled arm which wrapped around her waist and heaved her in the air. She found herself slung over Glanod’s shoulder, with a band of Kaleksha men following. They sang rowdy, rollicking songs that resounded in their barrel chests like boulders being rolled down a hill, and they cheered as Glanod said something involving Mandhi and Kest’s names.

  Mandhi struggled and kicked. Glanod roared something in Kaleksha and slapped her on the thigh. She squirmed and whacked him in the back of the head. He laughed. The women emerged from the huts a moment later, some of them laughing, some of them wailing with mock sadness as the men carried her up the hill to the door of the lodge. Mandhi spotted Shadle following. Her eyes caught Mandhi’s furious glare, and she threw her head back and laughed.

  Mandhi went limp in Glanod’s grip. Some barbaric Kaleksha custom, evidently. She would kill Shadle later for not giving her warning.

  At the door of the lodge, Glanod threw Mandhi to the ground where she landed on her feet with a thump. Kest stood there, red-faced, looking at her with some embarrassment and chagrin. Glanod addressed him, and he responded with a memorized line. Laughter, cat-calls, and jokes sounded from the men and women all around, intelligible by their tone even though Mandhi under
stood not a word.

  Finally, Hrenge tottered up the path to the door of the lodge. She, too, addressed Kest and Glanod, and finally turned to Mandhi with Shadle standing beside her.

  “She asks,” Shadle translated, “whether you’ll consent to be married to Kest now that you’ve been carried away from the house of your mother?”

  “Did they really have to come and pick me up like a stray ewe?” Mandhi asked.

  “Yes,” Shadle said. “Now, do you consent? If not, they can always capture you again.”

  “Oh, fine.”

  Shadle repeated Mandhi’s agreement, and the Kaleksha crowd exploded in merriment. Kest took Mandhi’s hand and led her into the lodge.

  The interior of the lodge was the brightest Mandhi had ever seen it, with vents opened in the roof to let in bright beams of summer sunlight. Nakhur waited at a table at the front of the lodge, with a jar of oil, a comb, and a vessel of purified water before him. Oh, at last. It was a Kaleksha wedding outside, but here in the lodge Nakhur would join them in proper Uluriya style.

  The os Dramab filled the lodge behind Mandhi and Kest and gradually quieted. Nakhur anointed himself with oil, tracing a pentacle on his forehead, then anointed Mandhi and Kest.

  “In the name of Ulaur,” he said, “who formed the stars and cast them to the earth, who makes the five-winged amashi his servants, who gave the iron of heaven to Manjur his chosen, whose Heir we remember forever.”

  The rite was brief. Their hair was plaited together, they tasted the tincture of blood and milk, and their hands and faces were blessed with oil. When it was done, Nakhur raised his hands and said, “You are blessed, you are married, you are pure. Shadle?”

  Shadle repeated his words, and the lodge erupted again in bellowing, cheers, and songs. Hrenge’s voice pierced the ruckus, and the women began to bring in the feast.

  It was not a great feast, Hrenge explained apologetically, since the fall harvest hadn’t yet begun. But the os Dramab had made do. There were a great number of rabbits, hunted frantically over the last several days and spit roasted following Nakhur’s instructions to make them pure for Uluriya mouths. The rest of the feast was baked apples stuffed with pungent sheep cheese, blueberry jam and pine nuts, fried wheat cakes, mint-flavored honey, and boiled quail eggs. Strange foods to Mandhi’s palate. She really wanted a little white rice and some dates.

  But Taleg had probably felt the same when he first came to Amur. So she would take what she was given.

  All through the feast Kest barely looked at her.

  Evening came, faster than Mandhi was prepared for it. The light pouring in through the lodge’s vets dimmed, and the orange of sunset glowed in the open door. Kaleksha men came by making jokes which made Kest blush and look down. A shout came from outside, and Hrenge rose from her place at Mandhi’s left and walked slowly to the door.

  Shadle sidled up beside Mandhi. “They said that the last light of the sun has dropped below the horizon. That means it’s time for you and Kest to go to the bridal chamber.”

  The rest of the lodge was still eating, joking, and singing. “What about them?” Mandhi asked.

  “Oh, you don’t want them to come into your bridal chamber.”

  Mandhi snorted. “I meant, will they stay here?”

  “Of course. They’ll stay up celebrating all night. You and Kest have to leave the lodge at sundown, though. You’re encouraged to celebrate by yourselves.” She cackled.

  Hrenge announced something in Kaleksha from the front door of the lodge, and Kest rose to his feet. He offered Mandhi his hand, and they both stood. Kest walked her toward the front of the lodge, his gaze straight ahead, neither smiling nor blinking.

  Mandhi bit her lip. Rambunctious yelling surrounded them at all sides. At the front door, Kest bowed his head and received his mother’s kiss. Hrenge kissed Mandhi on the cheek as well, and they exited.

  The path to their hut had been lined with stones and strewn with quail feathers and aspen branches. A few people at the door of the lodge shouted advice after them. Mandhi felt grateful that she didn’t understand a word of their ribaldry. The dark door of the hut was open. Mandhi went in. Kest shut the leather curtain behind them.

  A nervous dread filled her stomach. She breathed heavily. She had come this far for the sake of her child and the memory of Taleg. Only a little remained.

  A large straw-filled mattress covered with piles of red-dyed blankets took up most of the center of the room, with some stools and a wooden chest pushed against the walls. The only light was a tallow candle burning in a holder on the far wall. Two other unlit candles rested in other holders. Mandhi went to light them, then turned to face Kest.

  He stood unmoving by the door, a tall yellow statue in the smoky tallow light. He had been watching her, but he turned away as soon as she looked.

  “Well,” Mandhi said. “Here we are.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She sighed. Her heart was beating heavily, and an oily unease sat in the pit of her stomach, like grease atop a soup pot. She had managed to get here without thinking too deeply on this moment. Not that she had denied it would happen, or had wished to avoid this part of her duty. But she had not spent thought on it, and now in the smoky gloom, she didn’t know what to do.

  At least she was no virgin. She knew how it was with men, and that it wasn’t nearly as difficult as she had feared as a young girl. She even knew how to sit atop a bulky Kaleksha man so as not to get crushed underneath.

  Taleg. A heat burned in her cheeks and her thighs. Was it shameful to think of her first husband in this moment? But she was here because of him, for him. The thought warmed her.

  Kest still stood by the door unmoving.

  “How old are you?” she asked on a whim.

  “Seventeen summers,” he answered.

  Three years younger than Mandhi. She was the only woman she knew with a younger husband. “You’ve never been with a woman?”

  He looked up, his eyes cocked curiously. A moment later she remembered that he had been a sailor, and there was never a Kaleksha sailor who didn’t visit the whores. The thought repulsed her. But he had been cleansed, together with all the os Dramab, so whatever filth he had picked up in the Kaleksha district of Davrakhanda had been washed away. And some things would be easier with his experience.

  She walked over to him and presented the back of her fur blouse. “Unlace this. I can’t reach the ties myself.”

  A choked, gurgling sound came out of his throat. Nothing happened for several long breaths. Then she felt his heavy, rough fingers scraping the back of her neck, tugging at the laces and gradually loosening the ties. When it reached the point at which Mandhi could shrug the blouse off her shoulders, he stopped.

  “Is something wrong?” Mandhi asked.

  “I don’t really want to be here,” Kest said.

  Mandhi breathed heavily. She could not decide whether to be injured or relieved. “I’m not here under compulsion,” she said, to herself as much as to him. “I want to do right by Taleg’s memory and your family.”

  “Taleg,” Kest spat. He brushed past her and found a stool sitting beneath one of the tallow lights, where he sat down with a grunt.

  Mandhi carefully pulled the fur blouse over her head and folded it atop the wooden chest. The air felt cool against her belly and shoulders. She began to look for the place where she could undo the cotton bindings around her breasts.

  “Are you angry at your brother?” she asked.

  Kest watched her without reacting. “Yes,” he said finally. “But mostly I’m angry because this is for Taleg, not for me. He’s dead, and he forces this on me.”

  “Taleg isn’t the one who gave me the idea. Your mother and your clanmates need us to protect all the os Dramab.”

  “I know,” he grumbled. “That’s the problem.”

  Mandhi still had not found the place where the end of the wrapping was tucked in, but she dropped her hand and moved over to Kest. She put a hand on his s
houlder.

  “It doesn’t have to be a problem.”

  He brushed her hand off his shoulder and rose from the stool. He walked a few paces away and stopped, leaning a hand against the wall of the hut.

  “Perhaps I see it that way.”

  A spark of anger flared in her chest. Turning back now would only make things worse in the future, or else trap her in a marriage where she would never have a child again. Mandhi gave her voice a thin, sharp edge. “There are things we do for duty, Kest, but we do them nonetheless. Listen. We are married in order to save your clan and my child. But when I chose to marry you, I chose to do it in deed. I do not do things by half-measures. Now, are you going to sit there and pout, or will you come over here and make me your wife?”

  He turned and looked at her with a smoldering anger in his eyes. His brows were knotted together, and his thin red beard shook with his trembling chin.

  “Are you chastising me, woman?”

  “I’m trying to get you to be a man and not a child.”

  Her fingers finally found the place where the binding was tied. She pulled the end of the cotton wrap free. A few seconds later the wrap was reduced to a few loose loops of cotton in her hand.

  Kest’s eyes grew wide. His gaze roved across her shoulder, belly, and breasts, and the anger in his face dissolved into a different heat. But he turned away, breathing heavily. “Don’t try to corrupt me.”

  “I don’t think it’s called corruption when a man sleeps with his wife.”

  “Mandhi, I don’t want you to be my wife. I don’t want my brother’s leftovers. I want….”

  He lapsed into silence. Mandhi walked slowly to him. She put one hand into the small of his back and the other on his hip. “Kest,” she said.

  With sudden violence, he whipped out an arm and shoved her away. She struck the wall of the hut, scraping her back on the rough mud plaster, and fell to her knees. Bits of broken plaster and twigs from the daub-and-wattle fell into her hair.

  “I want Taleg back, here in the Dramab where he belongs,” Kest said, anger and arousal mixing into a single, even boil in his voice. “I want him to never have gone to Amur, to never have taken a foreign wife. I wish I had never seen you. Now leave me alone.”