by Jean Winter
A burst of giggles broke the monotony as two of the women, hardly more than girls in Lyra's estimation, with heads tilted together in conspiratorial glee, risked surreptitious glances at her. Lyra ignored them. She knew she was a curiosity. She had a good fifteen years on most of them.
This was a younger woman's realm.
Shifting position, Lyra tucked her legs up underneath the skirt of her plain yellow frock. Her left ankle twinged at the sudden transition—but only a little. It was mostly healed now. With a sigh, Lyra settled herself in to wear away yet more minutes of the long afternoon.
The compartment door soon opened with the Keeper pulling behind her a cart stocked with a large pitcher of water and a few choices of breads, fruit, and vegetables. The mood was instantly transformed. Khari'na cooed and flounced forward, eager fingers sought plates stacked on a tray underneath, and food was heaped in sloppy mounds and spirited away.
Lyra just put her head back down and resumed her blank staring out the window.
The scar over her implant began to itch again. She rubbed at it a little—a shudder passing through her as she did so. The thing still gave her the creeps.
A light touch at the side of her neck, however, brought her attention around and Lyra affectionately took Maehan's wrinkled hand in her own to kiss the back of it. The Keeper grinned. Her cataract-paling eyes, already nearly hidden by creases of skin, became mere slits. “You have no' been eating enough, Little Tiger. Please take this.” A filled plate was set on her lap.
More out of respect than a desire for nourishment, Lyra manufactured a grateful smile and started to pick at a roll. She was grateful. Really. What horrors would have been hers had the captain kept her?
Maehan poured her a glass of water and hovered until she was satisfied that Lyra was eating. As soon as the old woman left, however, Lyra pushed it all aside and leaned her head against the bench seat's back, closing her eyes. The memory resurfaced again, and the events leading up to Jon's murder played on the inside of her lids for the thousand and first time … the thousand and second. …
… The wide open space exuded an ethereal brightness. It seemed to go on forever, nothing but glassy floor as far as the eye could see. But wait. In the distance, something rose vertically, extending upward into the frothy mist overhead. Lyra set her feet toward the barrier.
She neared and saw that it was actually an immense, ivory curtain, the limpid fabric stretching forever in either direction. There was movement on the other side of the airy weave. Human-shaped silhouettes. Many of them.
Against her hand the fabric was light and smooth to the touch, but … it wouldn't budge—not even a centimeter. Lyra tried a light slap. The same result. It was like steel covered in silk, only, no sound rang from the impact. Lyra hit it harder. Nothing. All was silent and serene.
One silhouette appeared closer, more distinct. It stood placidly—motionless—several feet from the curtain, but Lyra recognized it in an instant.
“Jon!”
She pressed her nose against the strange wall, fingers clutching at the interminably flat surface in vain. All she could make out was his familiar outline. “Jon!” she yelled louder this time.
The shadow made no response.
“Jon, please talk to me!” she plead in near hysterics. “Please say something!”
Lyra pounded on the curtain, screamed at the top of her lungs. She wanted him to do something—anything.
“I'll be waiting for you.”
Bang!
Her eyes flew open; her heart was beating rapidly, breath coming in labored spurts, and Lyra found that she was coated in a layer of perspiration from head to toe. It took a moment to release her muscles from the seizing nature of the deep dream state. Then she noticed that the caravan was stopped and she was alone in the coach.
A breeze wafted in. Its coolness pimpled the skin of her bare arms. The sun was just settling behind a stand of broad-leaved trees and the broken rays from haloed limbs splashed a mosaic of light and dark against the coach's interior. Outside, a pleasant commotion pounded and rattled away. It was the sounds a company of about three-score bodies makes after a long day on the road.
Like every night, the caravan had veered into a rest area side track to pitch tents, make the evening meal, and, by lantern light, engage in whatever nightly amusements someone was sure to conjure up. Unable to deny her legs a good stretch, Lyra stepped outside to sweet air and soft grass, but she wouldn't let herself appreciate it. The nightmare—it had come to her many times now—was still too fresh.
She wandered past the meal canopy, already wreathed with tantalizing hints of the night's supper, and past the caravan's few male laborers busily erecting the sleeping tents. She kept her head down, her movements and posture aloof.
The sound of moving water caused Lyra to change course and it soon brought her to a bubbling stream about eight feet wide. Many of the other women were already up to their knees all along the bank, skirts raised high, splashing each other and laughing. Upstream was less populated so it was here that Lyra sat down on the sandy bank to take off her shoes.
She didn't like these hard-soled, cropped, ladies' boots she had to wear that pinched her toes, but her own tall and roomy leather ones had been compelled into storage—indefinitely—as they didn't belong with the caravan petticoats and lace. Pooh! A Caldreen'n woman's attire was supposed to make her resemble a beautiful, delicate flower. Consequently, Lyra's pullover top and leggings had been promptly burned. Given their sorry state, it was probably for the best, but Lyra sorely missed them.
She sucked in a sharp breath when the brisk water rushed by her calves and in between her toes. Spring runoff from the summits. Lyra had been hoping to wash off some of the day, but the icy stream was also rather murky, laden with the Forkor range's red soil. She contented herself instead to a quiet wade. At least the cold water felt good on her ankle.
She spotted industrious mudfish in a calm eddy, probing the loose silt with rudimentary appendages. A dragonfly the length of her arm whizzed past her face. Ducking, Lyra's gaze happened to fall on a point of iridescent light among the reeds and she almost gasped. A fishing toad! She had only seen pictures of these in books! She waded closer.
Its unique hunting apparatus, that of a limb of cartilage growing out of the top of its head at the end of which dangled a teardrop of transparent tissue was fascinating to behold. The orange liquid that filled the teardrop actually glowed. Lyra held her breath as a fly landed on the little ball.
Zap! The fishing toad's long, sticky tongue flashed and caught its meal.
“I suppose you have been feeling a lot like that fly,” a soft, wavering voice said. Lyra almost lost her footing.
She spun to Maehan sitting comfortably on the embankment like she had been there for some time, studying Lyra like Lyra had been studying the amphibian. “Oh, you startled me!” she said, making her way over to the old woman.
“You look like you are moving around better on that ankle.”
“Yes, ma'am, I am.” Lyra knelt and bowed her head to one hand in respect.
“Little Tiger, get up.”
“Ma'am?”
“I am too old to care anymore about formality. My name is Maehan, and all you get for kneeling there,” she chortled, “is a skirt full o' wet sand.”
“Yes, ma'am—Maehan.” Lyra stood and attempted to brush off the grittiness.
“Come with me, child. We have much to talk about.”
Maehan waited patiently for Lyra to don her stockings and boots, then together they walked back to the camp, Lyra matching the Keeper's careful, unhurried pace.
“Has it been ten days since I found you showing your claws to that spoiled captain?”
“Eleven,” Lyra corrected quietly, her lip twitching in bemusement.
The meal canopy loomed, where the caravan's cook, a mousy, greasy little man with darting eyes that followed the pretty young females he served a little too closely, was just setting up the buffet tabl
e. He bared small teeth in his approving smile at Lyra's approach, already mentally undressing her, groping her. Lyra hitched her shoulder seam a little closer to her neck and blessed the long table that stood between them.
“I am no' quite ready to ring the dinner bell yet,” he crooned silkily, leaning forward, “but for you, 'Na Lyra, I might be willing to make an exception.” Ignoring the Keeper he went on softer, “A trade o' favors, perhaps?”
“Would you 'trade' with me as well, Snivelee?”
The deep, no-nonsense voice of Hundt rumbled up behind Lyra. A very large, very protective hand came to rest on her shoulder. How had he heard that? Whatever. The man had great timing.
Snivelee's silk depreciated to burlap. “Uh, sure thing, Mr. Hundt, sir.” He coughed nervously. “Just let me grab a plate or two …” And the cook scurried off, positively twitching with industry.
“One could easily believe that you enjoy scaring the whiskers off that scrimp.” Maehan looked sideways at her friend.
“Just keeping him in line,” he grunted. His hand slid away from Lyra's shoulder.
Lyra hadn't seen much of the head of security since that first night, but in their passings, he always tipped his head to her with a quiet, “'Na Lyra.”
Tonight's main course was a deliciously-seasoned flank of beef with roasted pashu'root in a cream sauce. Regardless of what she thought of the man, Lyra had to admit that the rat sure could cook.
She and Maehan parted ways with Hundt and carried their hot plates to their tent where, after a few minutes digging into their meals, Maehan dabbed at her mouth and settled her eyes on Lyra. “When I brought you here, I could see that it was more than just your body that needed time to heal. For that, I have let you be these many days to mourn your loss. But I must insist that you put your past behind you now and begin to earn your keep.” Her tone was gentle, but firm.
Lyra put her fork down. She knew this was coming. And she knew the woman was right. Maehan had been more than generous in the space and time she had granted her. Mourning Jon more was not going to bring him back. At least her children were safe and sound with her younger sister. Vahny would love them as her own. Lyra also knew she was losing her mind living like this. She needed an occupation. She needed work.
Even if that work is preparing young women for sexual slavery? Lyra chewed at her lip. Well, regardless, it was time to focus on life again … such as it was.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Lyra whispered, willing it to be true.
“Good. Tomorrow we arrive at Bansool to pick up the last o' the applicants. I always get a large number from there and then I only have two days to pass them through final orientation before we reach the capital. But, it is the forty-four hours before auction that are hardest for these old bones to handle anymore. That is when I will need you the most, Little Tiger.”
“I will do my best,” Lyra said. She meant it. The sweet woman sitting before her had earned her respect. With a determined push of a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she met the Keeper's eyes.
“I know you will,” the Keeper answered. Maehan took one more bite then set her plate off to the side. “So, first, do you have any questions?”
Questions? Oh, where to begin! As a guarded observer peering through wary lashes, she had only gleaned so much from her perfunctory observations of her “fellow” khari'na. The question she wound up blurting out first, however, had nothing to do with loose, buxomly girls.
“Where did you get the money to bribe the captain?”
It had been a matter of curiosity from the beginning. It didn't matter how many years Maehan may have been saving up, even five hundred rednotes was an awful lot for a second-class citizen to be carrying around. The old Keeper had paid two thousand five hundred for her.
“Ah,” the old woman smiled, revealing a few missing teeth. “If you really want to know that, I need to show you something first. Go to my trunk and bring me the red case, there on the right.”
Lyra put her half eaten meal down and did as asked, hefting open the trunk's heavy lid to sift through eclectic depths. She soon located an oval box covered in deep, red velvet. Lyra sat beside Maehan while the woman set it on her lap to open. Oh. It was a jewelry box!
The first silk-lined level was filled with earrings, bracelets, and trinkets of no particular remark. This Maehan removed. Then she hunched over to pick through the lower level's contents. Lyra was astonished to catch sight of a tell-tale bump at the base of the Keeper of the Women's neck glowing a faint green.
Maehan was khari'na!
How had she never noticed before?
In the days they had spent together, Lyra recollected always seeing the Keeper in the high collared blouses called for in her uniform. When the two of them undressed for bed at night, Lyra would modestly avert her eyes. She just never thought to look!
Khari'na!
She didn't think tagged women were eligible for paid positions. They were slaves—barely human. Okay, so now she had even more questions.
Maehan pulled out a very small, framed cameo sketch of a young couple, only a few inches wide and tall. The richness of detail in the faces, however, revealed a talented hand. The young man looked kind with a definite genteel air, and his partner—well—she was stunningly beautiful. Luminous eyes slanted upward at an exotic angle framed by gracefully arched eyebrows. Creamy, high cheekbones sloped dramatically down to the delicate tip of a nose. Full lips curled up in a becoming, shy smile. She was in three quarter profile, glossy hair swept into a fancy twist to better show off her ornate, bejeweled earrings and matching, even more impressive, necklet.
“Is this you?”
“Aye,” Maehan whispered, nostalgia evident in her reverenced tone. Then the Keeper put on a grin. “I used to be quite the beauty in my youth, was I no'?”
Lyra nodded. She could pick out a few traces of Maehan's worn features still bearing some resemblance to the brilliant creature in the picture. “How old were you?”
“Twenty-three.” Wistful fingers brushed over the young man's face. “This was my second lord, the one I spent over forty years with. We were one o' the lucky few who actually fell in love.”
“Your second?”
“My first lord was a very wealthy old man o' seventy-something. I was his khari'na for only two years before he died and I was auctioned again.”
“Oh.” Lyra tried not to sound too disgusted at the thought.
“Burr and I were quite happy together for many years—until I outlived him, too.”
“Did you have any children?”
“No. The child o' a lord and his khari'na is born to a tenuous existence. Much depends on the attitude o' the extended family. Burr loved me enough to make sure I always had a ready supply o' contraceptives.”
“And he left you money when he died?”
“No' exactly. It is no' lawful to leave land or monetary inheritance to one's butlers, khari'na, or cat,” Maehan's lips pursed briefly, “but, a lord may give certain gifts.”
From out of the box she lifted a pair of earrings. Lyra admired the brilliant jewels and metalwork. It was the same set as in the sketch.
“In his will, my Burr left me the necklet set he presented me at our joining.”
Lyra suddenly blinked, realization dawning. “Wait. You sold that necklet for me? The last thing your love gave you before he died?” Her voice rose in pitch.
“Just the necklet. I still have the earrings,” Maehan answered lightly.
“Maehan!” The pitch leaped. “What possessed you to let something so special go for a total stranger? As far as you knew I was a criminal!”
Maehan chuckled as she patted Lyra's hand. “It did no' take much to see that you were no criminal. As I said that day when we met, I had a strong feeling that I needed to get you away from that man. And besides, I do really need the help.”
Lyra stared at the rheumy eyes, the papery, wrinkled skin, the colorless, striated lips. Then she was hugging the
old woman. “Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking, “I never told you … well, thank you for heeding that—that feeling.”
Weak hands returned the embrace and when Lyra pulled back, she was looking into the face of wizened lucidity. Wait a minute.
“But your necklet—” Lyra said. “He loved you, right?”
“Aye.”
“Well, if a man really loves a woman and knows he's going to die, he would want to make sure she was provided for her after he was gone.” Lyra paused, thinking. “Maehan, if he just wanted to leave you something of sentimental value, a beautiful love letter would have sufficed better than a really expensive jewelry set you no longer had the right to wear and would have to painstakingly guard for the rest of your life. Surely he intended this set for your own comfort or security somehow.”
“I never said he did no'.”
“So, what was that necklet's real purpose?”
With a sigh, Maehan put the earrings back in the box. “The set was meant for my retirement. I am due to be freed later this year.”
CHAPTER 4
Lyra sprang to her feet.
“Freed? Freed! How is that possible? I thought—”
“Do no' look so hopeful, child. I was referring to my term o' servitude ending when I turn ninety. It is standard policy.”
Lyra deflated. She plumped down on her hammock opposite Maehan. Criminy! If the old woman kept going with the revelations at this rate, she would have to start taking notes just to remember. Then guilt started to seep in and Lyra looked up. “Maehan, you shouldn't have sold it. How will you survive now?”
“Do no' worry about me. The earrings will provide living for at least a year.” Then she laughed as she laboriously rose to put the jewelry box away. “If I am lucky, I will no' last any longer.”
Lyra frowned. “Don't talk that way. You spent the bulk of your retirement to help me and now I feel responsible for you. I don't know what I can offer, but … I promise I will do what I can.”
