Reluctant Concubine

by Dana Marton

  I spent a whole day examining every door and window, with care not to cause suspicion, always ready with an excuse should I be caught and questioned. In the end, I decided to exit the palace in a flour jar, of which many were brought to the kitchen every day in a narrow wagon.

  The miller exchanged freshly ground flour for his empty jars in the morning. I hoped in the cavalcade of the busy kitchen, I could find a moment to slip into one of the jars unseen.

  I begged the spirits for an opportunity, the wisdom to recognize it, and the courage to make the most of it. They answered me, taking me from Karamur, but in their own way. Instead of finding freedom on the road back home, I found it on death’s doorstep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  (Into the Mist)

  The last day of waiting I spent in nervous agony. I gathered food first thing in the morning—cheese, cured meat, flatbread, and apples. I hid them under my bed, along with a rolled-up blanket. My knees trembled by the time I finished.

  My anxieties only increased as the morning progressed, and I suddenly thought of a great many things that could go wrong with my escape. Better to spend the rest of the day in my chamber, lest I gave myself away.

  By the time an unfamiliar servant woman asked to see me after the noon meal, I was grateful for the distraction, guessing she had come for healing.

  Leena followed on the woman’s heels, her face in a displeased frown. She reached out to tug the stranger back. “I told you, my lady is not accepting visitors.”

  But the portly woman fell to her knees and bowed until her forehead touched the pelt-covered stones.

  “Lady Tera, I beg your forgiveness for disturbing you. I plead for a mother’s life.” Her voice shook, as did her hands that clutched her worn shawl.

  “I will gladly help if I can. Tell your master to bring her to the kitchen. I shall wait for her there.”

  Her master was probably one of the merchants who regularly visited the palace and had heard of my healings. He must have sent the servant because he had a sick concubine.

  “My lady cannot be moved. She is near death in childbirth.” The woman sobbed with the last couple of words. “She lost two babes in these past years, and now the third might take her. A boy this time, the soothsayer is sure.”

  Leena tugged her up, appearing not the least touched by the sad tale, despite the soft heart I knew she possessed. “I am sorry for your troubles, but my lady cannot leave the palace. The High Lord is away. We cannot ask him to give her leave.”

  I stared at the pair, dismay flooding me.

  Something deep inside me railed against Leena’s words. She had called me her lady, but for all my beautiful clothes and my spacious chamber, I had little more freedom than a slave.

  “I beg you to send your powers to my lord’s house.” The woman tore away from Leena to fall at my feet. She looked at me with a tear-streaked face, brackets of despair around her mouth.

  “I wish I had powers as such.” Tales of my healings had grown so exaggerated, people were willing to believe anything. “But I cannot tell what ails her until I see her, and I cannot heal her unless I know what ails her.”

  She sobbed then in earnest, still prostrate before me, her body racked with grief.

  Never had I hated not having my own free will more. And from that frustration, resolve was born the next moment.

  I was a healer.

  No High Lord and no threat of punishment could ever change that. I lifted my veil from the end of the bed and wrapped it around my head, even as Leena’s eyes widened with alarm.

  “Lead me, then,” I said to the woman.

  If by some misfortune I could not escape before Batumar returned, let him flog me if it pleased him. Shartor had already accused me of sorcery; what worse charge could they construct against me?

  Leena threw herself across the doorway, barring my way, bolder than I had ever seen her. “I beg you, my lady.”

  I could not be angry at her disobedience. She had my best interests at heart.

  “Ask her who her lord is,” she insisted.

  I did not care. I cared only about the birthing mother in pain.

  “She is from the House of Gilrem,” Leena said at last, her voice hardening.

  Her words stilled me for a moment. Would my healing bring further charges of sorcery upon my head? Was it a trap? If I failed… And even if I succeeded…

  Fresh tears washed the servant’s face.

  “Did Lord Gilrem send you?” I demanded.

  “No, my lady.”

  “He probably forbade them to come.” Leena’s accusing gaze shot to the woman.

  She did not respond, just hung her head.

  “You must not go, my lady,” Leena begged with renewed force then. “The High Lord will be greatly displeased, and if something should happen to Lord Gilrem’s concubine…”

  She did not have to finish. Lord Gilrem’s punishment would be swift and deadly, of that I was certain.

  And still, I could not refuse to help, not even at the price of my own life. I had time enough before the departure of the caravan.

  I walked forth, and the women followed, Lord Gilrem’s servant with a hopeful face, Leena weeping now. Such a fuss she made, servants poked their heads into the hallway to see us pass.

  I walked to the nearest side door of the palace.

  Only six guards faced us here, all startled to see me intent upon leaving. They asked respectfully that I would return to my chamber. Before I could fully explain why I could not, the Captain of the Guard was sent for and rushed to us with more warriors yet.

  Old scars crisscrossed his face, his breastplate scratched and dented. He drew his thick eyebrows together. “My lady, you cannot leave.”

  I could not push through them. They stood like the mighty trees of the forest and I a slight sapling before them. And yet the woman’s pain called me from the distance. Then a simple thought unfurled among the frustrated swirls of my mind, a whisper of the spirits perhaps.

  How could they stop me without being allowed to touch me?

  I stepped forward. The guards exchanged glances but stood their ground, barring the way.

  I took another step. Then another. “I mean to leave.”

  I stood but a breath from them now. With the next step, we would collide. I moved ahead; they stepped back. I drew a deep breath, then strode forward with purpose, and they could do naught but part before me.

  But they followed behind, forming a half-angry, half-stunned escort.

  “For your protection, my lady.” The captain ground out the words, his scowl making clear that he strongly disapproved of my actions.

  I pleaded not to be sent with such force, until he agreed to leave all save his three strongest men behind, but he himself insisted on coming.

  I hurried down the streets behind Lord Gilrem’s servant, careful to notice every detail that might aid me in the morning. I marked in my mind the street that led to the market, the narrow alleys where I could move unseen. The city bustled with life, many curious glances directed at us as we progressed.

  Thus I arrived at the House of Gilrem, a grand house built into the rock wall, its stone columns nearly as majestic as those of the palace.

  The servant woman led us not through the bronze-strengthened front door but through the kitchen, a shorter path, I suspected. We hurried through, straight to Pleasure Hall’s carved doors, where my guard had to stay behind.

  Inside, concubines huddled around in groups, anxiety etched on every face as they clutched their charms. Small children clung to their mothers, all girls. According to Leena, Lord Gilrem had had but four sons. All had been taken by the spotted fever that had swept through the city some years ago and had hit Lord Gilrem’s House especially hard.

  In a chamber in the back, a woman lay in bed, writhing with pain, unaware of all who came and went around her.

  “You will live,” I said at once in a strong voice, in case her spirit was listening.

  I placed my hand
s upon her belly and felt the child, nearly dead, his weak life force ebbing away. His mother’s spirit prepared to follow.

  At first I could not see the illness. The child, indeed a boy, had no deformities; the cord had not twisted around his neck as sometimes happened. I looked harder, deeper, and gasped aloud when I finally understood what ailed him.

  The babe’s blood ran thick with poison. But not the mother’s. How could such a curious thing be accomplished? Had the mother deliberately consumed some evil plant that would harm only the child? I had heard such a thing whispered among the lowest of Kadar serving women but had never believed it to be real.

  I looked more carefully, and I saw that the poison came not from what the mother had eaten. Her blood attacked the child, thinking it her body’s enemy. This I remembered from one of my mother’s lessons but had never seen before.

  Although the concubine had shared her spirit with Lord Gilrem and they conceived this child of mixed spirits, their blood could not flow together in the new life they created. Nor could it ever, each child they made being attacked by his own mother’s body worse than the one before.

  The child’s life force weakened with every passing moment. He would have another few pulses of the poisoned blood and no more. I knew not how to help him, although I could feel the pain of his small body as my own, I could feel the pain of his mother and the anguish of her spirit.

  I drew all that pain into me as I had done with others before, and with it I tried to draw the poison.

  My blood burned as a terrible weakness filled me. I fought against it as I sent my spirit into the child and gave strength to his.

  Once his heartbeat steadied, I sent my spirit to strengthen the mother’s—slow work and hard, since the poison weakened me. On top of the weakness, agony raked me as the woman labored, her pain my own.

  By the time the babe pushed into the world and gave his first mewing cry, I had not the strength to stand or to open my eyes to see him.

  I called for my spirit to return as I folded to the floor, but my body brimmed so full of poison no room remained for anything else. Since I could not see with the eyes of my body, I watched with the eyes of my spirit that lingered above as Leena cried over me.

  She ordered the servants to bring in a cot, then helped the women to place my body upon it and carry it out to the door where the captain and the Palace Guard awaited.

  The men grew ashen-faced at the sight.

  The captain stepped forward. “Back to the palace. Hurry.”

  They rushed through the house to the kitchen but stopped when the outside door creaked open.

  Fear widened their eyes as they looked into a thick mist that had descended from the mountain while we had been inside.

  Leena sobbed, holding my hand. “We cannot leave.”

  “We must,” said the captain, the set of his face determined.

  I floated above as Lord Gilrem’s servants pleaded with them to stay. None could feel my touch or hear my voice as I begged them not to risk their lives for mine.

  One of Lord Gilrem’s guards looked at the captain as if he had lost his mind. “Nobody walks in the mist.”

  “We will surely perish, taken by the evil spirits,” Leena whispered to my listless body as if hoping that I still listened.

  I did, but I could not influence the men. I sensed the fear that coursed through them, gripping their hearts and freezing their limbs, but I did not understand it.

  The mist swirled, so thick they probably saw not a hand-width in front of their eyes, but my spirit eyes felt through the mist and found no evil in it. No life, either. The streets stood deserted.

  The captain said, “We will take her where her servants can attend her. If she dies, she will do so in her own bed with the cries of her people to honor her. For the Lady Tera and for our High Lord, we must make it so.”

  He stepped out the door, and after a moment of hesitation, the guards followed.

  The captain walked with one hand on the wall. Behind him, a guard held the left corner of the cot with one hand, the other on the captain’s shoulder. A second guard held the cot’s right corner. The third guard carried the back of the cot. Leena walked by my side, holding my hand. Thus we were all connected.

  I could see them with my spirit’s eyes as I hovered above. They could not see each other or the wall, walking by feel, their hearts trembling, even the captain’s.

  No guards stood outside the gate of the palace, but when the captain banged on the door, it opened, revealing a wary group of warriors who had not expected anyone at such a time. They quickly barred the door behind us.

  The men carried my body to Pleasure Hall’s door, where they handed the cot over to the servant women who hurried me to my chamber to be laid upon my bed.

  The chamber filled quickly with servants who wept on their knees. I wished to console them, but could do nothing. Their cries filled Pleasure Hall, until Leena sent them to Rorin’s altar to pray to him and the goddesses.

  “Will she die?” the last servant girl whispered on her way out.

  “She will not,” Leena snapped, but I knew she did not believe her own words, for when all had left, she changed me into my Shahala clothes.

  With tears in her eyes, she prayed to both the goddesses and the spirits, falling asleep at last while holding my hand and waiting for my shallow breathing to cease. My body grew weaker with every passing moment, the poison too strong to fight.

  I did not mind the dying; I only wished I could die on our hillside among the numaba trees. I pushed hard against my body with my spirit, trying to get in.

  Leena slept, the servants busy praying in the Great Hall. If my spirit would return to my body for just a short time, I could go to the kitchen and hide in an empty flour jar. If I could hang on to life until morning and get through the gates with the caravan, if I could live long enough to walk away from them into the woods, at least I would die as a free woman.

  I forced my spirit into the limp body on the bed. And in my limbs, I felt a quickening, and after some time, I could open my body’s eyes. No real improvement was this, for I knew that people about to die often regained some strength and appeared to feel better just before death claimed them.

  I had often thought the short reprieve a gift of the spirits, allowing the dying to say their last farewells and prayers. I could feel strange coldness in my bones—death coming.

  I gathered the strength to sit, and my hand slipped from Leena’s. She stirred but did not wake. I stood, none too steady, and little by little shuffled from the chamber.

  The corridors stood empty; I did not have to be so careful there. The farther I walked, the more hopeful I became. I dragged myself to the kitchen, my legs shaking all the way.

  I prayed to the spirits that I would find the kitchen empty, and in their mercy, they answered my prayers. The room stood in darkness, only a few embers glowing in the hearth in the middle of the night.

  I moved to the empty flour jars on the small wagon and leaned against one. Then nearly cried. As weakly as my heart beat, I knew I would not survive to climb out in the morning.

  Yet I craved freedom with a desperation that gave me a last little boost of strength. I cast my gaze upon the door that led to the street, secured only with a lock. No guard now, not when the mist covered the city. They knew nobody would be moving outside. I lifted a fork from a sideboard and shuffled to the door, pried the lock open and walked out into the mist.

  Weak and confused, I saw little now that I was looking with my body’s eyes. I kept shuffling forward, stopping often, a few times nearly collapsing. Then I walked into a stone wall. I somehow ended up behind the palace at the sheer cliff from which the back of the building had been carved.

  I had been aiming for the city gate, in the opposite direction.

  I leaned against the rock and squeezed my eyes shut, not having enough strength to cry. But as my hand slid down the rock, my fingers caught on a small crevice.

  A crevice that could b
e a foothold.

  My mind had gone beyond reasonable thought. I thought of the numaba trees and began to climb.

  Many times I had to stop to rest; many times I nearly slipped. But my body remembered climbing, and my limbs moved of their own accord, working from memory, each muscle knowing what it needed to do.

  Sharp edges cut my hands and bruised my knees, but I barely noticed. I lost sense of time. I thought I might have somehow crossed over to the afterlife. But at last I ran out of rock and reached the top of the cliff. I pulled up with the last of my strength and collapsed on the ground, tears spilling from my eyes.

  I was once again a free woman.

  The mist swirled thinner up here, and I could see before me the edge of a vast woods, with tall trees and good earth upon which to die. I had to reach just that; then I could leave my body behind and let my spirit go to find my mother’s.

  A long moment passed before I realized I wasn’t alone.

  Something moved in the mist.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  (The Forgotten City)

  Shadows separated from the swaying landscape that swam before my eyes. As I tried to blink away my confusion, the three monoliths drew closer.

  No, not rocks were they, but…men.

  The bitter taste of disappointment filled my mouth. I had no more strength to run, could do nothing but watch as they approached. They walked in a solemn procession, their long, white beards cascading over brown robes that remained unmoved by the breeze.

  They surrounded me, standing at the points of a perfect triangle, with me in the middle. I could make no sound. And even if I could, I would not have begged for my life. I was happy to part with it and the pain.

  They spoke, not with their lips, but with their spirits straight to mine. Their three spirits mingled and twisted together and entered my body with a great strength. They talked to me of healing as they fought the poison. They told my spirit to gain strength and soothed my mind.

  * * *

  I woke in a long cave, lying on a pile of pelts, the rock wall reflecting the dancing flames of the fire. The three old men sat around me cross-legged on the stone, one on each side and the third at my feet.