Reluctant Concubine Read online

  I sat as close as I could to the nearest brazier that still had some glowing lumps of coal, shivering in my wet clothes. I soaked up the heat for a while, then brought a clean bowl of water from outside the door, careful not to let anyone see me.

  Onra stayed away longer this time. But she did return with a few squirming beetles, bundled tight in the rag once again. I lifted the first beetle and, watching my reflection in the mirror of the water, placed its pinchers against the edges of my wound, then squeezed its body.

  The beetle sank its black pinchers into my skin, drawing the edges together. With a quick twist, I separated body from head, which would have held the pinchers firmly in place had I not pulled the body away too soon. I could not see enough in the water, my hand obstructing the view. I pulled the half-done pinchers out, wiped the blood, then started over.

  Onra, who had been alternating between watching and glancing away in horror, pushed my hand down and picked up the second beetle, only to drop it again when it bit her.

  “Like this.” I showed her how to place her fingers farther back on the hard shiny-black wings.

  She drew a deep breath, then another, until her hands stopped trembling, then, beetle by beetle, closed my wound.

  She had nearly finished by the time a servant woman entered the room with a small bowl. She looked at Onra for a long time with tears in her eyes, then set the bowl down inside the door and left as abruptly as she had appeared.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  Onra dropped the last headless beetle on the pile, cleaned up the mess we had made, then padded over to bring us the bowl. She set the food, some kind of grain cooked in milk, in front of me.

  “My mother,” she said in an emotion-filled whisper.

  I thought of my mother, who had died and was buried somewhere in this land. I was closer to her than I had been for a long time. The thought comforted me a little.

  I looked at the closed door. “Can you not go to her?”

  “I will, after tonight.” Onra scooped some grain from the bowl with her fingers and lifted it to her mouth, motioning to me to do the same.

  I did, and the food tasted better than anything I had had for a long time, although not as good as my mother’s cooking, which was now only a sweet memory.

  “What will you do tonight?” I asked after I eased the worst of my hunger.

  Onra’s eyes filled with tears. “Kumra chose me for our Warrior Lord, Tahar.”

  “Is Kumra his lalka?” I used the word from my own language for wife as I did not know it in hers. “Mate for life.”

  She shook her head. “My mother’s people too had that custom, but not the Kadar. Kumra is the favorite concubine.”

  “Are you a concubine?”

  A fat tear rolled down her face.

  I wished I could call my words back. “Forgive me. I do not know your ways.”

  She nodded, then pointed toward the room in a sweeping motion. “In Maiden Hall, all of us are slaves. When I reached womanhood, they moved me here from the Servant House for the pleasure of our Lord Tahar. A virgin’s blood increases a warrior’s valor, so he takes a girl often, and always before going off to war. For good luck.” She swallowed hard.

  I sat still. “What happens to the virgins afterward?”

  “A few who please him much, he keeps as concubines. They move to Pleasure Hall and no longer have to work with the servants.”

  “And if you are not selected?”

  “I will go to the Servant House.” She looked away. “And after that, any warrior who pleases can have me when he wants.”

  I looked at her, stunned, thinking even death was preferable to that fate. “Maybe he will keep you.”

  But she shook her head. “Kumra hates me, and Tahar listens to her. Even if he picked me and I moved to Pleasure Hall, I would be dead from some mysterious disease soon. That is Kumra’s way.”

  My heart squeezed tightly. “Can we not escape?”

  She grabbed my hand and held it, her watery eyes intent on mine. “You must never try. Tahar’s warriors are great hunters. When they catch you, you will die.”

  I considered whether that might not be a better fate than this.

  “I am scared,” Onra whispered after a moment.

  “Is Tahar—”

  “Not of Tahar. Of weakening. Of crying and bringing shame to our House. I am just a weak girl. Look at me. I have cried ten times today already.” She dropped her hands to her sides.

  I could not understand how she could worry about bringing shame to anyone when unspeakable shame was being done to her. I began to ask but thought better of it. “You will not cry tonight.”

  She looked at me with wet eyelashes that clumped together, her eyes begging. I did not know if I could give her what she needed, but I gave her what I could. “You might be a girl, but inside you are as brave as any warrior. Look at the battle you already won today.”

  She waited.

  “The battle of the beetles.”

  The corner of her mouth tugged up as she wiped her eyes. “I will not forget you, Tera, even if I do not see you for a while.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed gently to turn me around, then combed through my hair with her slim fingers. “I will make your maiden’s braid.”

  All the girls I had seen that morning had their hair in one long braid down their back. Kumra wore hers woven into the shape of a crown around her head.

  Onra separated my hair into three equal parts and began to work the strands with quick fingers. “Slave girls wear their hair in two braids, one on each side. When they reach womanhood, they switch to a single braid like mine. After leaving Maiden Hall to go back to Servant House, their hair is cut short. Concubines keep their hair long to make into pretty weaves to please our lord.”

  She drew the leather cord from the end of her own braid to tie mine.

  When she finished, she said, “You have pretty hair, like black silk. And eyes to match. Be careful of Kumra.”

  She grabbed a blanket from her cot and pulled four long pieces of wool yarn from it. “We should make you a charm belt.”

  I glanced at hers, made of simple yarn and decorated with small wood carvings, nothing like Kumra’s gold and crystal.

  “I do not know this custom.”

  Her fingers flew as she braided the belt. “Fire, earth, water, air,” she named each strand. “They offer protection from bad luck. Better if you have charms. Better even if the charm is made by the soothsayer, but for that you would have to pay.”

  She pulled a reddish pebble from the folds of her dress, kissed it on one side, spit on the other, wrapped a piece of yarn around it, then tied it to the belt.

  “Here.” Onra held up the finished piece and helped me fit it around my waist. “I drew the pebble from the creek. It might be lucky for you. The creek gave you the beetles that helped you heal your wound.”

  I nodded, although I did not completely follow her logic. But she seemed happy to have protected me so neatly, and I did not want to ruin even that little joy in her day.

  When she was finished, she stood with sudden determination. “I need to go and prepare. The goddesses protect you, Tera.”

  She walked to the small door that connected our room to the rest of the house and, without another word, disappeared through it.

  I stared after her for a long time.

  I vowed never to follow that path. For myself, for Onra, and for my mother’s memory, I swore to the spirits to escape from this unbearable place and find my way back to my own people.

  But first, I would find out how my mother had died in this terrible land and recite the Last Blessing over her grave.

  * * *

  The Kadar battle feast seemed the same and yet completely different from our Shahala celebrations. People joked, sang, ate like any people coming together. Except for the slaves who served the warriors and their concubines.

  The servants came in a steady stream from outside, bringing heaping tr
ays of food from the kitchen. Each tray stopped at a stone table at the head of the Great Hall. Giant swords carved from stone made up the table’s legs, their tips resting on the ground. The swords’ handles supported the table top, a large stone shield.

  Carved symbols covered both the swords and the shield, angular and resembling slim arrowheads that pointed in every direction. But their pattern seemed orderly in a way—maybe some kind of writing.

  Onto this stone table the servants placed a small portion of food from each tray before serving the rest to Tahar and his people. I sat in another room with the rest of the maidens, about fifty of us, watching the feast through veiled windows.

  Darkness enveloped our room, while a multitude of oil lamps and torches lit the Great Hall; thus we could see them, but they could not see us. Nobody even glanced in our direction, even though they must have known we were there.

  A stalwart man sat at the head of the table, his large upper body covered in formfitting, hardened leather. The wide panes of his weatherworn face glowed with color from the wine. As all deferred to him, I knew he must be our Lord Tahar.

  Only men sat on the short-legged wooden benches around the low dining table, warriors to the last. Behind them, reclining on pillows, chatted their concubines.

  Tahar had the most, all beautiful women save the youngest, whose wide cheeks had a strong resemblance to his.

  “Is she his daughter?” I whispered to the girl next to me, a willowy redhead with a tiny mole under her right eye.

  She drew her eyebrows together in a disapproving grimace. “It is not to be spoken of.”

  “She should have been sent away a long time ago,” the girl on my other side, younger and rounder than the first, whispered. “Sent to another Lord as a gift. Daughters of concubines do not stay in their father’s Pleasure Hall beyond childhood, lest their father’s eyes fall upon them in lust and their House be cursed forever.”

  “Kumra has no sons, just one daughter,” another girl added as if unable to resist the gossip. “She uses every excuse to keep her.”

  A commotion at the Great Hall’s door silenced her.

  A beautiful young woman entered, dressed in a white flowing dress of the finest silk. Her golden hair, combed to a sheen, fell nearly to the backs of her knees. A garland of white flowers graced her head, her small feet bare on the stone floor. I did not recognize her until somebody whispered, “Onra,” behind me.

  She walked to the Lord’s seat with trembling grace, then lowered herself to her knees and bowed deep before him. I held my breath as he looked her over, then took her hand and rose, bringing her up with him. He turned his back on the warriors at his table and led her through a doorway, deeper into the house, a servant quick to close the door behind them.

  “I cannot believe she was chosen before me,” the redhead whispered furiously. “I should be the one to wear the dress and nothing else on my body to please Lord Tahar. When it is my turn, Lord Tahar will keep me.”

  I could barely breathe, but the celebration in the Great Hall continued as if nothing had happened, as if nobody at all cared about the brutal crime being committed somewhere near.

  At the Shahala, if a man forced himself on a woman, he was cast out from his people, left to wander the hills alone until he starved, if the spirits willed it so.

  I felt stricken by the vast difference between the Kadar and the Shahala, repulsed by the people who had bought me. How could the sun and the moons tolerate such people? How could the spirits? Why did the sea not rise up to wash away even their shameful memory?

  How I wished for my mother, her wisdom, her strength. Silently, I asked her spirit to guide me, to help me be wise enough to know how to save myself, and brave enough to do it.

  I waited for a long time to feel a response that she heard me, as I often had back home—a slight breeze on my face, the graceful dip of a tree branch, the playful slosh of a wave that sounded different from the others. But nothing happened there in our veiled room.

  Then Tahar reappeared in the doorway, with Onra behind him, and I forgot to worry about my mother. Onra stood naked, her pale flesh glowing in the trembling light cast by the torches. She stayed where she stood, while Tahar, an arrogant smile on his face, seated himself amid loud cheers.

  “Does this mean he keeps her?” I whispered.

  “He would have sent her straight to Pleasure Hall, then,” one of the girls answered.

  My heart ached for Onra as she walked slowly across the endless room. A woman servant threw flower petals on her and thanked her for bringing good luck to the House. The warriors banged their fists on the table, whistled, and made other rude noises.

  She slowed when she walked by our window, blood smeared on her white thighs. Her head held high, she shed no tears. When she reached the outside door, her mother wrapped her in a blanket and led her into the cold night.

  A young warrior stood from the end of the table.

  “Tonight, she will be had by many,” the redhead next to me whispered. “Straight from the Lord’s bed, her virgin’s blood still flowing. It is good luck for the men.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  (Pleasure Hall)

  That night, I had a dream—the last one for a long time to come.

  In my dream, I searched the woods behind our house for fresh herbs when a great mist descended on the mountain. I crossed the foothills and reached the mountain with the speed of a dream. At first, I could not see anything. My heart flapped inside my chest like a caged bird. Then I heard a faint voice, my mother’s, calling me up the mountain and deeper into the mist.

  As I walked, the mist began to swirl around me. I recognized the good spirits of the Shahala, and I knew they had come down from the sky, not to harm but to protect me, to lead me to my mother. I ran forward as fast as I could, all the way to the top, and when I reached the highest snow-covered peak, the mist disappeared.

  I looked down the mountain to search for my mother and saw a great multitude below: the Shahala, the Kadar, and all the people of all the lands from as far as the Kingdom of Orh. And they lifted their eyes to me.

  I woke up in tears, wishing I had caught even a single glimpse of my mother instead of all the nations, but I did not have time to ponder the dream long, as the next moment, the door flew open and Kumra walked into our room.

  I received one more day to heal, a day of anger and sorrow that I spent alone, missing Onra’s company. The warriors prepared for war outside. I could not see them but heard them through the window holes.

  The women cried their farewell as Tahar left with the best of his men for the harbor. They would sail to Wotwor, a nearby kingdom ravaged by rebellion. Their king had paid for Tahar’s services.

  The next morning, my first morning as a servant, I jumped up with the rest of the girls and listened to Kumra’s orders as she made her way to me, her gown of golden silk trailing on the floor behind her. She stopped in the empty spot where Onra’s pallet had been before—one of the girls had folded it and leaned it against the far wall after the feast. Kumra grabbed my chin with strong fingers and lifted my head to examine my wounds.

  Her scent, the strong essence of the lorba flower, twisted my nose. She clicked her tongue, I hoped not in displeasure.

  “What is your name?”

  “Tera.”

  She let go of my chin and pointed to the two girls standing next to me. “You will take Tera and clean behind Warrior Hall today.”

  When they deepened their bows, so did I.

  As Kumra moved on, I followed outside after the girls, across the gravel courtyard surrounded by stone buildings. I wrapped my arms around myself against the cold, but the wind bit into my skin. I hurried, the sharp gravel cutting my bare feet.

  I shivered at the sight of all the stone around me, large, evenly cut boulders, hundreds and hundreds of them piled on top of each other to form the buildings’ unnatural shapes. These stones had not been taken out of the fields by men who worked the land—my heart trembled at th
e thought—they were cut from the mountains.

  I could see in my mind those scarred mountains and their angry spirits demanding retribution for their damaged sanctuaries.

  Did the Kadar respect nothing? Did nothing stand beyond being used for gain? Did they not know that by chipping away the mountains, they were bleeding the strength from their own lives?

  I swallowed my grief and made sure to note the square buildings, the high wall that protected them on what I knew was the street side to town, the multitude of small huts, the open fields behind the Servant House at the end of which, Onra had said, ran the creek.

  The land stretched like flatbread toward the horizon, and although I could not see it, I could smell the ocean and heard the cry of its birds in the air. Dahru was a vast island, too treacherous to cross on foot. If I were to return home someday, I would have to go over the water again.

  I shivered, my worn clothes hardly a match for the biting wind. Yet despite the chill that seeped deep into my bones, I slowed to see more, but the two girls entered the building on the far end of the courtyard and I dared not lag too far behind.

  At least ten Maiden Halls would have fitted inside Warrior Hall, with room left over. The place stank like rotten kukuyu. I breathed short, shallow breaths. “Do all the warriors stay here?”

  “Of course not,” the taller of the two girls, the willowy redhead, spat the words at me, her green eyes narrowing with displeasure. “Only the young ones who have no concubines.” She marched ahead to throw open the wood shutters.

  Light flooded the room, revealing row upon row of pallets, larger than ours and with more space between them. Most had wooden trunks either at the foot or at the head. Weapons and various articles of clothing covered the floor, some stacked neatly, some carelessly scattered.

  “I am Lenya.” The younger girl, who still had the plump, chubby look of childhood, walked across the room toward the door in the back. “Do not mind Igril. She thinks we were sent here because of you. She hates servant work.”

  I followed her. The breeze finally thinned the foul air enough so I could fill my lungs. “Are we not servants?”