I straightened at the title. He knew these? I’d always thought the book was some obscure volume collected by an eccentric merchant. To know someone else knew the stories that had kept me sane through my years of isolation kindled a strange sort of hope in me. “The Basket Bearer is my favorite,” I said. “This is the book that helped me learn Hraric.”
His stern, dark eyes considered me for a moment.
“If you need more books,” Imad said, “I am happy to send them.”
I perked further. “I-I would love that. This . . . I can’t count how many times I’ve read this.”
Imad laughed. “It shows!”
Lo smiled.
“Forgive me, but I must go,” Imad said, running his fingers over one of his thin braids. “I will try to come again for longer, but—”
“You have responsibilities. I am grateful to you for making the trip so soon.” Looking to Lo, I added, “Please see him to the palace safely.”
“Of course.”
It saddened me to see them go; I stood in my doorway and watched until the snowfall hid their retreating camels, not caring if snow dampened the rugs at my feet. I had no more visitors that day, and Havid’s visit the next day was as quick as Rhono’s had been, though he was gracious enough to leave me a package of flatbread. To my relief, Aamina came on the third day as promised and stayed several hours.
“And she, of course, will have nothing of it,” she chattered as water boiled over my fireplace. She told me an animated story about a woman I did not know and would likely never meet. “She’s smitten with that bricklayer, even if marrying him will mean living in a tent the rest of her life!” She clicked her tongue and brought the bubbling water over to the stone table. “You know how young girls are.”
She seemed not to notice that I, too, was a young woman, having just turned twenty-one, but it did not surprise me that the dark circles around my eyes and white hair made me appear older to her. I thanked her for the water, dipped a rag into it, and began washing my hands.
“Goodness!” Aamina said, placing a hand on her heart. “Doesn’t it burn you?”
I shook my head. “The hotter the better.”
Aamina clicked her tongue again and started fussing with my bed linens, which did not need tidying. “You need to eat more. This food shouldn’t be lasting so long.”
“I will try.”
“I’m going to need boots if this snow gets much deeper,” she said, staring up at the canvas overhead. “I’m surprised that doesn’t cave in.”
I considered asking Aamina about Rhono’s and Havid’s apparent distaste for me but ultimately decided against it, not wanting to burden her with my problems. Instead I listened to her stories of how her husband had lost his little finger on his left hand and how the farmers were planting on the slopes again. Aamina enjoyed talking, and I enjoyed listening to her.
When she left, I brought my blankets over to the fire, undressed, and curled around the hearth, massaging my tense forearms and willing some small whisper of the heat to penetrate my muscles. The motion helped a little, but my teeth still chattered as they always did, and my frosty blood scraped its way through my veins.
“Perhaps I should announce myself, not that I mind the view.”
I grabbed the corner of a blanket to cover myself before rolling over to glower at Sadriel, whose grin spanned more of his face than usual.
“Perhaps you should.”
“Quite the company you’re keeping,” Death said, making himself comfortable in my red chair. “But they’ll learn soon enough. Didn’t I tell you about Marya?”
I waited.
“Marya from Kittat,” he clarified. “A dyer, and a good one, with two little boys. I had to collect her a few days after your visit there. Pneumonia is a nasty thing, often brought on by the cold.”
I sat up, the blanket sticking to me with frost. “Truth? You’re telling me the truth?”
“Why would I lie to you, Smitha?”
It was strange to hear my name pronounced that way again. The way it was said back home. I turned from him, hugging the blanket to me.
“Two boys?” I asked. “Did . . . did the cold take any others?”
“Do you really want me to tell you?”
“Yes. Please.”
He spoke of two newborns, a boy who had slid on the ice and cracked his head, and an elderly woman who’d died of fever. Each name ate at me, making me colder and colder until I lingered on the verge of numb. Tears came to my eyes and froze on my lashes. My very heart was sculpted in ice.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Sadriel stood. “No need to apologize to me,” he said. He strolled over to my fire and crouched beside me. “These people,” he continued, softer, “will turn their backs on you, eventually. I won’t. You can’t hurt anyone in my realm.”
“Only watch as you do.”
“What is life without Death?” he asked, tilting up the rim of his hat. “Will you punish me for doing that which I was created to do?”
I drew my knees up to my chest and shook my head, tears falling onto my cheeks, freezing to my chin.
“Come with me.”
“I can still help them,” I whispered, little more than a breath. “The drought—”
“The drought.”
“I have a home here.” I met his eyes. “I have friends.”
He snorted. “For now, perhaps. But they can’t change what you are any more than you can. They’ll realize the consequences of your curse soon enough.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed, the tears gluing my eyelids shut. By the time I had worked them off—losing a few eyelashes in the process—Sadriel had vanished.
I cried the rest of the night with my face pressed close to the fire. The coals sizzled faintly with each tear.
CHAPTER 16
I didn’t sleep that night. I wished and prayed and begged for sleep, to blow myself out like a candle just for a little while, but sleep eluded me. Once I had cried myself dry, I tried to remind myself of all the people I had saved by curing the drought. I replayed Imad’s praises over and over in my mind, but they did little to relieve my guilt.
At least I could hurt no one out here. The Finger Mountains were too steep for farming or habitation and too far from Mac’Hliah’s community for any who lived there to fall prey to my storm. Here I could be sure my curse stayed only with me and did not touch anyone else.
The next morning I dressed in my fuchsia clothing and braided my hair over my shoulder. I admired the intricate plaits Aamina wore, but I doubted my fingers were deft enough to manage such a pattern. I left off my head scarf and waited for Rhono. The helpers Imad had appointed to me usually came mid- to late morning, but Rhono stayed away.
With little else to divert me, I decided to wash my laundry. I did not sweat, so the clothes only needed to be cleaned of stains. I soaked the hem of my mustard dress to get the snow-wetted dirt from it, handling it carefully with my gloves, then scrubbed it with my toothbrush. I didn’t mind that it was my toothbrush—I had grown so accustomed to dirt in my years alone I honestly didn’t think twice about it.
I left my clothes by the fire to dry and read through The Basket Bearer to cheer myself, for it was a pleasant tale with a happy ending. I reread The Fool’s Last Song as well, a more complex story that held subtle commentary on the balance of justice and compassion, told from the point of view of an executioner on the verge of retirement. His last criminal to eliminate was the king’s jester, who’d been thrown in prison for being too honest.
Fitting that this would be Lo’s favorite.
A knock sounded at my door near sunset. After setting down my dinner, I hurried to the door, wondering why Rhono had come so close to dark.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Lo outside instead, warmly bundled with a mashadah wrapped around his head. Behind him a few snow harvesters with shovels cleared snow from the ground.
“Lo,” I said, stepping aside. He had a hea
vy leather bag over his shoulder.
“I found this on your doorstep,” he said, holding up a set of clothes, wet with snow. I recognized Kitora’s handiwork.
“Thank you,” I said, taking them from him. “Rhono must have left them outside.” I must have been frightening to her, the poor woman. But she had come, and for that I was grateful.
I took the clothes—a lovely pale gray dress and salmon head scarf—to the fire to dry and took down my others, quickly tucking the undergarments out of sight. “It’s late,” I said, glancing at the cracks around the door. “Dark soon.”
“Do you not stay up late?” Lo asked, removing his mashadah and coat. Instead of his usual indigo uniform, he wore a plain brown shirt with no markings, and loose sirwal slacks that cinched at the ankle.
I nodded, thinking of our exchange about goat bladders and curses in Shi’wanara. “But it isn’t safe to travel in the dark, not through my storm.”
“It doesn’t concern me. I work long shifts; this was the best time for me to come. I can leave, if it bothers you.”
“No!” I said, perhaps too animatedly. “No, it’s fine. Please, sit.”
He pulled out one of the chairs and sat, then reached into his heavy bag. I chose a spot on the bed across from him.
“Here,” he said, handing me a thick hardbound book. I took it, surprised at its weight. “These are Dideh Bab’s earlier works, before he was acclaimed.”
My mouth formed an O as I ran my gloved fingers over the title, embossed into the front cover along with the outline of a bird. “Imad was willing to part with this?”
“It is my copy,” he said, pulling a second book from his bag. Another hardcover, but covered in black cloth, with no title that I could see. “This is old Hraric,” he explained, opening the front cover. On it had been written a sort of code in fine, slanted penmanship, scrawled with deep blue ink. “The Dideh Bab is . . . a thick read, but this will help you translate.”
I accepted the book, smiling. “I . . . thank you. I’ll take good care of them; I promise.”
He glanced at the tattered volume at the end of my bed and smirked.
“Really,” I insisted. “I . . . didn’t have a safe place . . . for that one.”
“Prince Imad will have to build you a shelf.” He glanced around. “Though I’m not sure where you would put it. This room is more decoration than sense.”
“It is, isn’t it?” I laughed.
He smirked again, a sort of half smile that tugged on the left edge of his lips. Then he stood and shrugged on his coat.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, though I was disappointed he was going so soon.
“I’m not leaving,” he said, sitting back down. “It’s cold in here.”
“Oh. Oh!” I hurried to my fire and poured some extra oil on it. Removing my right glove, I rearranged the coals and tried to fan up a bright flame.
“I think it’s warmer over here,” I said, gesturing to the red chair.
Lo shook his head, his earrings glinting. “This is fine, thank you.”
I paused, staring at him. He had never said that to me before—thank you.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry. May I ask you an odd question?”
He waited.
“Prince Imad,” I said. “If he is the prince, why doesn’t he wear more earrings? They’re a sign of wealth, correct? I’ve seen merchants with so many their ears touch their shoulders.”
“It is because our sheikh is a good man,” Lo said, his eyes following me as I retook my place on the bed. “He knows he has more wealth than any one man could ask, but he does not feel the need to exploit it.”
“And yours?” I asked, counting the rings in his ear. Six of them, looped through with a gold chain.
He touched the rings with his fingertips. “The first three were given to me when I joined the king’s guard,” he said. “The others when I became captain of the prince’s.”
“The king, is he doing well?”
“As well as can be expected. His passing will not be long now.”
I nodded, and a moment of silence fell between us.
“Why did you become a soldier?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Why did you become the Svara Idyah? You still haven’t given me an answer.”
The question caught me off guard. I shivered.
Lo let out a long breath. “About sixteen years ago, when I was thirteen, Undah-hi raiders attacked Zareed, Djmal and Kittat included. I did not think such a thing was right, so I signed up for the militia.”
“Militia?” I asked, wide-eyed. “They take soldiers so young?”
His mouth formed a wry twist. “They did not know how young I was until I was old enough.”
I nodded. “And . . . your siblings, who passed away. Was it from . . . ?”
“One, yes,” he said. “The other from childbirth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What of yours?” he asked, tapping his fingers against his arm. “Or is that a secret as well?”
“I have one sister, Marrine, who’s younger than me. Almost sixteen now,” I said, staring at the seams of my gloves, tracing each stitch with my thumb. “As far as I know, she is well.” I hesitated. “She was sick, when I left. The cold . . . it—”
“It is all right,” Lo interrupted, perhaps due to impatience, but I thought it for the quiver in my voice as I spoke of my sister, whom I had so often mistreated. “I did not come here to pry into the details of your life.”
I glanced up at him.
“Numbers, with your handtalk,” he said, unfolding his arms and going through digits zero through nine on his fingers. “What if they are unspecified quantities? What then?”
I smiled, relieved to change the subject. “Then you make your best guess and wiggle it,” I said. I formed nine by touching my thumb and pinky together, and shook my hand back and forth. “There are a lot of men in the army,” I said. I then flattened my hand, palm toward Lo, and curved my thumb inward, the sign for zero. “There are very few men in my bedroom.”
Lo laughed, more heartily than I had ever heard him do so, and the rare, rich sound of it warmed me, in a manner of speaking. In truth, I licked my teeth to coax them to stop chattering.
“That is smart,” he said. “You surprise me.”
I mocked offense. “It surprises you that I am smart?”
He nodded. “For one so young.”
“Unless years pass differently in Zareed, I am not,” I protested. “I turned twenty-one not long ago.”
“Hmm. Perhaps not so young, then. It is hard to tell with white women.”
I gaped dramatically. “Aamina happens to think me an old woman, I’ll have you know.”
Lo stood. “Perhaps I ought to sign something with my left hand to show I am joking?” He wrapped his mashadah around his head. “Thank you, Smeesa, for enlightening me. I’m sure I will have more questions for you.”
“And thank you for the books, very much. And for your company,” I said, rising to my feet. “I appreciate it.”
“Read ‘Milkmaid’ first,” he said as he walked to the door. Snow flurries flew into the room when he opened it and stepped out. “You may find it amusing.”
Despite last night’s weariness drawing on me, I opened the larger of the two books Lo had given me and sifted through the pages until I found “Milkmaid”—a short story, not a play. It told of a spice merchant who traveled to the High-Top lands—I assumed he meant those farthest north—to sell his wares. I soon discovered the tale to be a comedy, for Dideh Bab wrote so openly of the strangeness of white folk—women especially—it was laughable. Some of the practices he described, like wearing rouge, were true. The rest, such as singing with the nose and drinking straight from a she-cow’s teats, were entirely false.
I laughed through the story before carefully wrapping the book in a blanket and tucking it away. I turned off my light, and as my dying fire’s rosy glow filled
the cavern, I fell asleep and rested better than I had in weeks.
CHAPTER 17
Rhono and Havid soon got into the habit of dropping off their parcels, if they had any, at my front door, often early in the morning. Sometimes I heard them, and sometimes I did not, but I never opened the door when I suspected they were there. They hadn’t asked to serve me, and I understood their fear. Had my life gone differently, I certainly would have feared the Svara Idyah, and I doubt I would have been so kind as to make the trip to her cave to deliver food, even if my sheikh had requested it of me.
But every third day Aamina came to see me, and she always stayed for several hours. She was not a superstitious woman, or perhaps she craved a listening ear. I did not mind in the slightest. Her chatter helped me to solidify my handle on Hraric, and she always explained more complex words and terms to me without malice, even though I often had to interrupt her babble for clarity.
Aamina brought me a small loom with which to occupy my time, since my fingers could not manage threading a needle, and every third day she fetched me new yarn and showed me tricks for creating different patterns and designs. I often undid my own weavings and started over, since I had the time to strive for perfection. My best pieces of work hung on the walls, and I soon began my own mosaic to cover the dog drapery near the head of my bed.
I had thought Lo’s generous visit a special occasion, but he returned almost two weeks later on one of Havid’s days. Night had already fallen over Mac’Hliah.
“It must be terribly boring, being the prince’s guard,” I commented as I let him into the cavern, “if you come all the way out here for recreation.”
He smirked and set his mashadah by the fire to dry. “Most of my men are learning your handtalk; now the palace halls are eerily silent, even midday,” he said, breath clouding in the air. “Have you read them?”
It took me a moment to realize he meant the books. “Oh, yes,” I said, hurrying over to the fire to stoke it. I only built up the fire on Aamina’s days, as it did not matter to me how chilly the cavern became. I spilled some oil on my glove, but fortunately pulled it back before it could catch on fire. I jogged to the other end of the room, removed my gloves, and grabbed a clean pair. Frost traced uneven lines over the fabric as I pulled them on. “I’ve read the plays twice, but I’m still working through the other. I’ll admit, I didn’t believe you when you called the language heavy.”
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