Reluctant Concubine

by Dana Marton

  “No, grandfather.”

  His shoulders sagged, a troubled expression settling on his lined face. “All that we already knew.”

  I had not, but the scroll did not fully satisfy me, either. I had expected some kind of instruction, do this, do that. Some plan we could follow. What use were Eptah and his empty platitudes? A great enemy was coming indeed. Well, we had known that. We searched the scrolls for solutions, not to be told that which was already obvious.

  “Eptah’s prophecy was handed down from generation to generation among our people, spoken around every fire. I expected more to be on the scrolls, not less,” the Guardian murmured.

  “Less?”

  “Mayhap our storytellers embellished the prophecy as they passed it down. Or maybe Eptah told more of the vision to his followers than what he wrote. The scroll did not mention anything about you walking out of the mist at the top of the cliff.”

  “But you knew?”

  “Everybody did. We called the mist every time the stars were favorable. Only we did not know you would come that day or even in our lifetime. We waited every time the stars aligned the right way. Our fathers did the same before us, and our sons are already trained to continue on after.”

  “It is not me you waited for, I think,” I said with some relief.

  “You are. We sensed it in your mother. She too knew the truth of this.”

  Yet she had given her spirit to Barmorid and died and left me to face my fate alone. For the first time, I felt a rush of anger and disappointment when I thought of her. But those emotions quickly disappeared, and then I just missed her again.

  “Maybe the other scrolls.” I reached for them and tried to loosen the strips again, to no avail. I placed them back on the stone ledge with dismay.

  “They will open when the time is here.” He picked up the lamp and groaned as he stood. I could feel the ache in his bones.

  I rolled up the open scroll. “May I take this with me?”

  He thought for some time, then nodded.

  The way out seemed much faster than the way in, maybe because I had much to occupy my mind. The Guardian of the Cave waited for us at the opening, his face painted with questions. But he looked at our dejected expressions and did not ask any.

  I wished I could help them. Part of me wished I had the power to save nations. Yet I feared great power with all my being, knowing my great-grandmother had it and she had been thoroughly corrupted by it.

  The Guardian of the Cave sealed the gap in the rock behind us. “The Guardian of the Gate has not yet returned. He will be sorry he missed you. We do enjoy your company.”

  They would have enjoyed results even more, no doubt, but he was too polite to say this.

  “Come.” He gestured. “Warm yourself by the fire before you leave.”

  I settled in, then gasped as my gaze fell on a bundle next to him. He smiled at me and drew a blue crystal the size of my head from a leather pouch on the ground. Such a crystal had value beyond measure and power even to turn away storms.

  “Is that—” I began to ask, breathless suddenly.

  He nodded. “A city father brought it as a gift. It was found in an old cellar.” He held the crystal over the flames, and the light of the fire shone through the great rock, revealing a myriad of fissures within.

  The guardian tapped his treasure slightly against one of the stones that outlined the fire pit, and as I gave a startled cry, the great crystal disintegrated into shards.

  “What a terrible waste,” I moaned.

  He was not as perturbed as I. “Nothing is to be cried over. Everything is to be learned from.”

  A lesson? I could barely think.

  “She should go. She can learn another day.” The Guardian of the Scrolls, who had been picking through the messy pile next to his sleeping place, now straightened at last and brought me a small length of rough cloth.

  I had brought the leather cord from the inner cave with me. He helped me wrap the scroll, then watched with approval as I tied it to my waist with care. The way down the cliff face was not overly difficult, but we both wished to see the scroll safe.

  Outside the cave, dawn lightened the mist. I bade them farewell and hurried to the cliff, thinking all the way about the great crystal. Power with a flaw. I thought about my great-grandmother once again. I pondered her fate as I climbed, but had to set those thoughts aside once I reached the bottom of the cliff.

  The mist lifted just as my feet touched down. Soon people filled the streets. I could not go to the front gate, so I thought to try my luck at the kitchen and turned into the narrow side street that led to the door. But Shartor strode my way from the opposite direction, a fair crowd following him.

  His eyes narrowed as he spotted me and pointed with a knobby finger. “I say she is a sorceress. Look at her clothes. Unnatural. I say at night she roams the streets to find the weak points of the fortress city. I say she roams the mist.”

  The crowd, mostly men, rumbled.

  I turned tail and ran.

  Their boots slapped on stone as they pursued me.

  I broke out onto the main street and grabbed a rag from the back of a cart, wrapping it around my head. My concubine weaves covered, with my small stature, I hoped I looked like some street urchin hurrying about his business.

  I ran past the Palace Guard at the front gate, looking away from them so they would not see my face. I rounded the palace, dashing through a cluster of alleys, reached the wood chute, and slipped in, then closed its metal door behind me.

  I reached for the scroll and found my precious charge unharmed, but still my heart did not stop clamoring until I was halfway to Pleasure Hall, hurrying down a deserted hallway. Then I pushed the door open, and my heart lurched into a mad race again. I nearly fell over two servant women who lay on the floor inside, both asleep. The slight forest scent of the sleeping stick permeated the air. I held my breath and left the door wide open behind me.

  More people slept farther in, servants stretched out on the floor. I picked my way across the hall, careful not to step on anyone. The sight that greeted me in my chamber paralyzed my limbs. Leena slept curled in a ball in the corner, and on my bed snored gently Batumar, his sword hanging from his side.

  Quickly I extinguished the sleeping stick and fanned the door to remove its drug from the air. I could not hold my breath through all this. My eyes grew heavy as I breathed some of the perfumed air.

  With movements too slow, I hid the scroll in the trunk at the foot of the bed, then stripped out of my thudi and donned the nearest dress as best I could. I had to twist like a water willow to lace it up in the back and only managed halfway before Batumar opened his eyes.

  My arms at my sides, I made sure not to present my back to the High Lord. I plastered a smile on my face.

  Leena woke with a gasp. Voices filtered in, others awakening.

  Batumar’s gaze darkened as he glanced around, his brows drawing tight with anger. He stood and strode to the door on unsteady feet, his heavy boots scraping the stone. He roared at the servants as loud as any manyinga beast. “Be gone!”

  I stared. I had never known him to abuse anyone under his command. Leena cast me a worried look, ready to defy the High Lord’s order for my sake, but I nodded to her to leave. Whatever trouble I had earned, I did not want her harmed.

  Batumar spun to me as the last of the servants scuttled out of Pleasure Hall.

  “I will not have sorcery practiced upon me, upon my people, in my very palace. If that is where your healing comes from, I want to see no more of it.” He tempered his voice to a low tone, but it scared me no less than his shouting.

  His face looked like the night sky erupting in thunder, flashes of anger thrown from his obsidian eyes. Like an enraged beast was he, defending his own from an unexpected enemy.

  “I—”

  He advanced toward me. “The war is upon us. And the mist comes more often than ever. People lock themselves in their houses in fear. And now this—” H
e stopped. “I sent a servant for you. She did not return. I sent another. Then another. And when I came looking, I found them asleep on the floor and you gone.”

  His anger filled the room, the air vibraiting as after thunder. I had thought him fearsome when I had first seen him at the House of Tahar, but during the time I had spent at Karamur, I had grown more comfortable in his presence. All that disappeared in a heartbeat. A fearsome warrior he was indeed, confronting his enemy.

  “Where have you been?” His sharp words flew at me like daggers.

  “In the kitchen—”

  “Do not lie to me!” he roared then and stalked closer. “Did you talk to the enemy? To the spy you healed at the House of Joreb? He escaped later, but you must already know this. Is he in Karamur?”

  He grabbed me by the shoulders, his merciless gaze searching to read my soul. I trembled under his hands.

  When he spoke again, his voice was tinged with disappointment. “Have I been a fool, then, and Shartor right? Should I have put you to death the day I found you?”

  I could not utter a single word.

  “Are you Noona the dark sorceress come to find us through time and endless distance to destroy our people once and for all?”

  I recoiled from his words and sank to my knees at his feet. I bowed deeply. “I would bring you and your people no harm. I swear upon my life.”

  A cold silence followed; then he lifted me up to look into my face. “I know you wished this union not. But I thought with time… Do you seek to disgrace my House by lying with another man?” His voice was measured, and hard enough to be broken against.

  He had seen the back of my dress unfastened.

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  “I will know the truth of it, Tera, if you are no longer a maiden, if you freely give to another what you withhold from me.” He reached out and tore the dress from neck to hem, then tossed me onto the bed without effort.

  And for an instant, behind the rage I saw a fierce hunger flood his eyes.

  I had never thought anything could feel worse than Kumra’s flogging, but Batumar’s accusations cut through my skin more effectively than the whip. Yet I would not beg and scamper. I would be brave, as Onra had been. So I fought him not but lay still on the silk pillows and closed my eyes.

  “Do with me then as you wish, my lord.” My voice might not have been as strong as I wanted, but it rang clear and did not betray my fears.

  I heard his labored breathing.

  Time passed enough for at least two mooncrossings.

  Then his boots scuffed the floor as he stepped away from the bed.

  When I opened my eyes, I found his gaze burning into mine.

  “You belong to me, Tera of the Shahala. To me and no other.”

  He turned away to stare into the fire. Suddenly, it seemed as if a great weight sat upon his shoulders. Something inside me pushed to comfort him, yet I dared not. I pulled my gown together in front.

  “Has something happened, my lord?”

  He did not answer for some time, and when he did, he did so without turning. “The Kingdom of Orh fell. Their king is slain. The Kerghi retreat was a ploy. They returned as soon as we left.”

  He watched the flames a while longer before he looked back at me. “Tell me where you went.”

  There had been a tenuous connection between us of late, some sort of a truce, the beginnings of trust, maybe some understanding. All that had disappeared. We were once again as strangers.

  I sat up. “I cannot.”

  “You can. You will.”

  “There are many things still that even I do not fully understand, my lord. My tale, if told, would be impossible to believe.”

  He looked at me with much doubt on his face.

  “I beg you to allow me more time, my lord. There is a place—” I bit my lip.

  He waited. Then his eyes widened as he stared. Long moments passed as he watched me, a myriad of emotions crossing his face. “You found the Forgotten City.”

  My stunned expression must have been all the answer he needed, for he went on. “Impossible. It could not be anywhere near. For hundreds of years, Kadar warriors searched for it.”

  My mind was a jumbled mess of half-coherent thoughts. “You know of the prophecy?”

  “I make certain to know everything that has a bearing on my people. I am the High Lord.” He shook his head. “When the enemy cometh, a Kadar slave, a Shahala healer who crossed the waves, shall rise up to fight the great darkness. She will find the Forgotten City and help the Kadar to victory.” He sank onto the end of the bed. “I know the myth, but I never believed it.”

  So many things made sense all at once. My face flooded with heat. “But you believed it enough so that you asked for me when you came to the House of Tahar?”

  He scowled. “Swords win wars, not obscure legends. But some of my people are superstitious. I could not let some healer cause a distraction while I am conducting a war. I had word of a slave ship that had delivered a Shahala healer to the House of Tahar. At first, I was content to leave you there, but as the war neared, it seemed wise to keep you closer. I expected a young girl dazed by her calling,” he mused. “And easily controlled.”

  I felt my ire rising as he continued.

  “Slaves are not often taken from the Shahala. They are our allies. A warlord might receive one as spoils of war from a faraway place now and then.” He shrugged. “Then I heard the stories of miraculous healings at the House of Tahar. Servants tend to gossip in the marketplace; caravans carry such news.”

  “You knew a Shahala healer had been taken as a slave, and you did nothing to right that wrong?” I was too angry to consider that questioning and accusing the High Lord this way was probably an offense punishable by death. Truthfully, I had lived with such a threat for so long, I no longer cared.

  “The matter of a single slave is hardly a concern for the High Lord of the Kadar.”

  “A true leader cares about the smallest of his people. Every one of the Shahala Elders would have given his life to save mine had they had the opportunity.”

  His shoulders grew rigid. “I’m protecting you now,” he said. “Tell me the way to the Forgotten City.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  (Escape from Karamur)

  “I cannot.”

  Batumar scowled and began to say something, but Leena appeared at the door, begging his forgiveness for the interruption. One of his stewards waited in the Great Hall, wanting to report a matter that needed immediate attention.

  “We will settle this when I return,” he said before he left me, his tone carrying ample warning.

  Leena rushed to me, paling at the sight of my ruined dress. She brought me another one at once. “Did he harm you, my lady?”

  I hesitated a moment, for he had known I had been stolen from my people. He had done nothing to right that wrong, and in that he had harmed me greatly. But in the end, he brought me to Karamur and to my destiny. Could I blame him for walking the path the spirits had set out before him? Perhaps he had a choice, and perhaps he had one not. And perhaps the same stood true for me.

  At my silence, Leena began to weep, and I rose to comfort her. “Truly, it is no crying matter. He is much angered, for I refuse to tell him all he wants to know.”

  Leena wiped her eyes and nodded. “Forgive me, my lady.”

  “You ask because you care. I never regarded you as a servant. I wish we could be friends.”

  She looked so horrified at my words, I had to laugh. “Oh, fine well, then. Even if you will not accept my friendship, you are a comfort to me and a treasure.”

  Tears flooded her eyes. “And you, my lady, are like the daughter I never—” She caught herself and bowed deeply. “Forgive me if I offended you. I am but a foolish old servant.”

  “Have you no children?” I felt selfish and guilty for never having asked before. Had I grown so accustomed to the ways of the Kadar that I had treated her like a servant and did not even know it?
>
  She waited a long time before she answered and spoke each word with great reluctance and visible pain. “I had a son once.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “When he was born, the soothsayer said on the day my son called me mother, he would die.”

  My heart lurched at such a cruel prediction. “Did he?”

  Leena shook her head. “I left him before he learned to talk.”

  Tears rolled down her face, and I moved to hug her. And this once, she did not draw away. Every heart has a sorrow, as the Shahala said.

  She was the same height as I, although I had not realized it until I embraced her. I had always thought her smaller, probably because she was forever bowing before me. But now, the realization led to an idea, even as she pulled away, glancing at the floor as if embarrassed for having shown weakness and behaving so familiarly toward me.

  “I would like to borrow your dress,” I said.

  Her gaze snapped to me. “My lady—”

  “I must leave the palace without anyone knowing.” I could not wait for Batumar’s return. I could not let him force me to reveal the Forgotten City, which he would surely do. And if I stood strong and refused… He had looked as if he would be quite content to lock me in my chamber until I was older than the Guardians.

  “You must stay, Lady Tera. The High Lord will not harm you. You are safe in the palace. You do not know the dangers of being alone, a woman as beautiful as you.”

  Horror filled her voice, and I wondered what had happened to her once she had left her child and run away to start another life. I thought of Shartor and his mob. If I ran away into the city and Batumar washed his hands of me, I would not fare well, for certain. But I meant to go to the Guardians, and there I knew I would be safe.

  “I will leave with or without your help. If you care for me, do not try to stop me.”

  At that, she sobbed aloud but pulled her simple brown dress over her head. I thanked her and donned her servant clothes quickly.

  I offered her my thudi and Shahala tunic in exchange, for I knew she would not take anything finer.