Reluctant Concubine Read online

  Without true powers, I did not have the ability to send my spirit into Keela’s body to seek the illness and draw it out, to tell her spirit how to help me, what to do.

  My mother used to say youth had its own healing powers, and to them I entrusted Keela. She was young, her body strong. I hoped strong enough—for both our sakes.

  I held her hand, anchoring her body to life by the power of touch. I talked to her, for her spirit to hear and find the way back, should it wander. I told her the story of Lawana, the merchant and the beggar boy, the faithful wife, and by the time I got to the Guardians and the Forgotten City, her breathing had grown even.

  “You would have liked the Forgotten City.” I wiped her face with a wet cloth. “The houses and towers were beautiful beyond anything that exists now in the world. In the middle of the labyrinth of streets stood a round building of wonders, topped not by a flat roof but something that looked like a giant bowl turned upside down. They called it a dome.”

  She gave no indication that she heard me, but I went on with the tale.

  “The outside they covered in sheets of lustrous gold. The inside of the building was one large open space, with seats enough for multitudes. They painted the ceiling blue and attached golden symbols for all the stars as they stood in the moment of the creation of the world. So exact were their measurements that scholars came from distant kingdoms to study them.”

  I glanced at Keela, and although she did not look in need of clarification, I explained anyway. “Scholars were magical people who studied all things and could explain even the unexplainable.” I did not know anything more about their strange order than that.

  “In exchange for seeing the Map of Eternity, they brought wondrous gifts, metals many times the strength of iron, and lamps that used less oil and burned ten times brighter than the ordinary ones. They even taught the people of the Forgotten City how to make water come to their houses, so nobody had to pull water from a well or go to the creek.”

  This had always seemed the most impressive part of the tale to me, and as a child, I had often wished the secrets of the Forgotten City were still known to us.

  “These scholars gladly gave any knowledge they had for a glimpse at the Map of Eternity, for when they compared it to the position of the stars of their own times, they could tell many things that passed before in the world and even predict events that were to come.”

  I went on, for her sake as much as my own. I needed to think about something else than what would happen to me if I failed to restore her health.

  “Other strange people came to the Forgotten City too, philosophers, the wise men of the world. They came together in the Forum—their name for the building with the dome that held the Map of Eternity—and by sharing their knowledge, they increased it a hundredfold. The three Guardians of the city asked only one thing of all these masters of knowledge—that before they left, they wrote their wisdom onto scrolls to preserve in that place. The walls of the Forum were covered in holes from floor to ceiling, like honeycomb. And these recesses held all the knowledge of the world.”

  I wondered what Keela would have said to such a thing could she have talked. Many of the Shahala did not believe the myth of the Forgotten City and thought of it as another of our many tales that were but entertainment for small children. My mother, however, talked about the Forum often and with such detail as if she had been there, so it lived vividly in my memory.

  “I do not know what to tell you,” I said to the pale-faced girl and squeezed her hand. “Each person must choose what they believe.”

  The breeze brought the smell of baking bread from the kitchen and the sound of servant women singing. I could see the blue sky through a small window that stood open to let in fresh air. It seemed as if all life stretched out there, shut away from me, and I was already buried in the dim chamber with the listless body that lay on the bed.

  My stomach clenched at the thought, the hunger of my missed morning meal replaced with nausea. I had not seen any Kadar tombs around the House of Tahar. Maybe like the Shahala, they had sacred places to rest their dead. Did they bury the spiritless bodies in the hillside as my own people did? Or did they use caves like some foreigners? Did they burn the bodies until only the bones remained?

  Everything I had ever heard about funerals in distant lands flooded my terrified mind, as my thoughts circled back to the same unimaginable horror again and again—what it would be like to be buried alive.

  Keela whimpered, startling me out of my anxious wonderings. I wiped her brow, frustrated that I could not do more, and tucked Kumra’s red silk coverlet around the girl’s body. I held Keela’s limp hand and whispered to her about all the good things in life, the few that I knew. And in between, I prayed to the spirits, pleaded for their favor.

  When Kumra returned, she found me on my knees next to the bed.

  “I will clean these.” I jumped to my feet and picked up the soiled linens from the corner, but she motioned for me to put them down.

  “You will stay here.” She moved toward the sheets and wrinkled her nose at the smell of vomit. “So the illness came from her stomach.” She thought for a moment. “Is it out?”

  I nodded, hoping and praying it would be so.

  Kumra walked to her daughter, her dress swooshing over the stones as it swept the floor. “Will she live?”

  “Yes,” I said, not because I knew so but in case Keela could hear me.

  Kumra glanced toward the pile in the corner. “I will send someone.” She looked less imposing now, standing by her daughter’s bed in the middle of the sour-smelling room.

  “May I ask for Onra?” I snapped my mouth shut with the last word, stunned by my own impudence.

  Kumra narrowed her eyes, and I rushed on before she had a chance to come up with a punishment for my brazenness. “She helped me with my forehead when I first arrived. She is good with the sick, and she is strong. I might need to change the bed again.”

  Kumra looked at her daughter one more time and left without a word. I sagged against the wall with relief but found no time to rest. Keela began thrashing again, and it required all my strength and attention to keep her from falling from the bed.

  * * *

  The time of the midday meal had passed when Onra finally came with a jar of fresh water and a bowl of cheese and bread from the kitchen. She looked thinner than I remembered and would not meet my eyes.

  I set the bowl on the floor while she refilled Keela’s jug. When she finished, I reached for her hand to still her, unsure whether she would want me to ask about what had happened to her.

  “I wish we were still together in Maiden Hall,” I said.

  She looked up at last but said nothing.

  “You did not cry.” I wanted to put some honor into all that was dishonorable.

  She shook her head, and her short hair swayed listlessly around her hollow cheeks.

  “It must be nice to be back with your family.” For my own sake as much as for hers, I needed to find something good in all that had happened.

  “Mother says now that I am a woman, I will have a family of my own soon,” she spoke finally. “Children would be good.” Her lips stretched into a sad smile. “But so would be never seeing another man.”

  She watched Keela while I ran out to the latrines, but she left as soon as I returned, not daring to linger. Before she rushed off, I asked her for some goat milk for Keela, hoping we would get another chance to talk. But when the small jar of goat milk came, Igril delivered it with stars in her eyes as she walked through the splendor of Pleasure Hall.

  Her lips pressed into a thin line as she handed me the jar without a word, clearly displeased that I should be assigned a task there while she had to work outside. She left the chamber in a huff, but I heard her respectful greetings to the concubines on her way out.

  I forced some of the milk down Keela’s throat, then waited.

  She did not wake for another day, and then only to tell me she would have me beate
n as soon as she felt well enough to watch. She remembered my fingers down her throat.

  I cared for her as best I could, aware that each passing day brought closer Tahar’s return, after which escape would be impossible.

  In the mornings, I rose early and waited for Kumra to leave to issue the day’s orders to the maidens. Keela slept a lot, oblivious to the noises of Pleasure Hall outside her chamber. She recovered a little more each day, so I had to act fast, for I did not know how much longer I would be required by her side.

  I crept into Kumra’s chamber, jumping at the slightest noise. She had several chests full of garments and cloth still on the bolt in every color of the rainbow.

  With trembling fingers, I searched through her treasures, listening for any noise outside. Thrice footsteps chased me back to Keela’s chamber, but they passed each time. At last I found a length of cloth suitable for a healer’s veil and not so fancy that it would be Kumra’s favorite and she would miss it too soon.

  I wrapped the silk around my belly under my clothes, then tucked my tunic carefully back into place. As soon as I could leave Pleasure Hall, I would go to Talmir for food—he had also promised to find a small flask for water—and keep on going until I reached the hills.

  But as the days passed, I still had to spend my nights on a blanket tossed onto the cold floor in the corner of Keela’s chamber. And as she fully recovered, her mood only grew darker.

  “Do you know Rugir?” she asked one day.

  I shook my head, and she huffed, her round face snapping into the icy expression her mother wore so well. “He is the bravest warrior in my father’s House.”

  I nodded, unsure what she expected me to say.

  “Before they left to battle, he promised to perform an act of such bravery that my father would gift him with his first concubine. He is going to ask for me.” She hesitated. “My mother forbids it.” Her face crumpled into misery then, and her shoulders sagged, making her look much younger than her age.

  I wondered when Keela had the occasion to talk to Rugir. None who lived in Pleasure Hall were allowed to cross the threshold of Warrior Hall. And no man other than Tahar was permitted in Pleasure Hall except the sons of the concubines, and they only until the age of eight, when they were taken for training.

  Perhaps Keela and Rugir had seen each other in the Great Hall. If so, then Rugir was already in Tahar’s favor. Only his captains and a handful of his favorite warriors attended the feast, the Great Hall not being large enough to seat the whole of Tahar’s army. The rest of the warriors ate at Warrior Hall or in the kitchen, or in their own hut if they had merited a concubine and had a family.

  Of course, even with Rugir being a worthy warrior, Kumra probably wanted a better match. Another warlord, perhaps. “Is that why you drank the poison?”

  Keela’s lips parted, and I could see the denial on her tongue. But then she shrugged.

  “Where did you find it?”

  She slipped out of bed for the first time and walked to her mother’s chamber on unsteady legs to point at the ceiling.

  Near the holes that let in air and light, someone had secured a clever ledge of wood. On it stood a number of pottery bowls with various plants growing in them, some known to me, others not. The invention seemed both marvelous and horrifying.

  Plants, healing and otherwise, were the gift of Dahru to her children. We sought them on sacred journeys, revered the glens that grew them, removed only as much as absolutely needed for immediate use and drying. To have all that so close nearby, ready at the moment of need, fresh… But surely it could not be right. Anger rose inside me. How dare she keep the gifts of Dahru captive?

  Keela leaned toward me, her face drained. I reached for her arm and helped her back to bed so she could rest, which she did. By the time her mother came to see her, Keela felt well enough, so Kumra allowed me to leave her chamber to work in Tahar’s Hall with the rest of the maidens.

  My feet light with the promise of freedom, I flew down the long corridor but skirted his chambers and the Great Hall, and stole out the back door at once. Warriors came and went in the courtyard—more than had been left behind on guard duty.

  “Is Tahar back?” I asked the first servant I came across, my good mood quickly darkening.

  “With the first of his warriors. The rest are on their way.”

  I wasted no time but sought out Talmir.

  “How did you like Pleasure Hall?” He laid a thick slice of meat onto the flat stone slab in front of him and rubbed it with dry herbs and spices. He might not have had the healing knowledge some Shahala did, but herbs and spices sang to him. All who ate his food praised his dishes.

  My stomach growled at the sights and smells of the feast being prepared. He pointed to a small wicker basket of fresh-baked biscuits. I thanked him for his kindness and snatched one, still warm from the oven, but did not bite into it.

  I looked around to make sure no one lingered close enough to overhear us. “Tahar is back. I cannot escape now. It is too late.”

  “They will go again soon. War is coming, worse than before. It is coming here.”

  I barely heard his words, so deafened I was by my own misery. “Here?” I asked at last when his words reached my awareness.

  Our corner of the world had not seen large-scale war for a hundred years and for another hundred before that. Not since the Kadar had settled the lands to the north. The Island of Dahru stood well-protected.

  “The Kerghi hordes have a new khan. He allied himself with Emperor Drakhar.”

  I bit into the flaky biscuit at last and sighed with pleasure as the rich flavor melted on my tongue.

  “The Emperor who seeks to rule the world.” I took a few more greedy bites, not worried in the least. Drakhar’s armies had been invading since I remembered, and his father’s armies before him.

  But the Shahala and Kadar lands—mostly mountains and desert with narrow strips of arable land along the coastline—lacked the things that wars were fought over. Any invader would realize that as soon as they set foot here, and leave us alone. “What do the warriors say?”

  Talmir winced as he shrugged. “They are ready for the fight as always. They do not realize whom they face.”

  The Kadar always stood ready to fight. A nation that lived from war would welcome it.

  “How soon will the Kerghi come?” The upheaval might bring an opportunity to escape.

  “Bad always comes too soon.” Talmir used a fist-sized stone to pound herbs into the meat and make it tender. “Remember the Tezgin mercenaries I told you about? They captured me to heal some of their men wounded in a fight against the Kerghi.” His voice grew somber. “Such wounds I have never seen.”

  “Maybe they will never reach the Middle Islands.” Dahru was the largest of the Middle Islands, in the middle of Mirror Sea. The Outer Islands surrounded the sea, holding great kingdoms. Beyond them lay the ocean, raked by hardstorms, its treacherous waves impassable by ship. The lands that spread beyond the ocean could be reached only through the Gate.

  “I better hurry,” Talmir said. “Lord Tahar has guests.”

  He slid the meat into the brick oven, and I caught a smattering of dark stains on the back of his tunic. When he turned, I saw the pain on his face for the first time, although it must have been there all along, invisible only to me through my veil of small troubles.

  “What happened?” My sharp cry drew glances from the other servants, so I lowered my voice. “Are you hurt?”

  “Worry not about me, little sister.”

  “Let me help you.”

  He started to say no but then sat on a low stool in front of me and pulled up his tunic. His back had been beaten raw, the bloodied skin mangled to expose his muscles.

  “Tahar wastes no time, does he?” My fingers trembled with rage as I reached for the phial that hung on the cord around my neck, hidden under my tattered tunic. “He had only just arrived home. What could you have possibly done?”

  “Not Tahar, Kumra. F
or sending her daughter food that made her sick.”

  I bit my lip as I cleaned his back with water, then dabbed the worst of his wounds with moonflower tears. They were no use against poison, so I could not help Keela with them. But the drops worked well on wounds, fighting off both the yellow pus that brought with it fever and the deadly blackening.

  I used all I had to help Talmir, then, when no one watched, I unraveled from my body the fine fabric I had taken from Kumra and wrapped the cloth around Talmir’s wounds and pulled his long tunic over it.

  “Keep that from the eyes of others,” I said, knowing I did not have to. “I will come back for it later.”

  “Thank you, little sister.” He drew me to him and kissed me on the forehead as a father would his daughter. “You better hurry before they miss you.” He handed me a tray of cold sweetmeats to take to Tahar’s Hall, but I barely reached the kitchen door when I bumped into Igril.

  “I’ll take that.” She set an empty jar at my feet and snatched the tray from me. “You fetch some water. And be quick with it.”

  I did not mind. She probably wanted to hurry back to Maiden Hall to ready herself for the feast. I preferred the walk to the creek even in the biting cold. After being cooped up in Keela’s chamber for so long, I needed some fresh air.

  The sun had set while I had been in the kitchen, the courtyard teeming with warriors now. I hurried along the crowded path that led to the end of the fields, impatient with the slow pace of the water carriers and the warriors heading to the creek to wash the grime of battle off their bodies.

  Something wet touched my face, and I looked up as a sparkling speck of white dust floated by me. I stopped and watched in wonder as more and more snowflakes came floating out of the sky.

  I had seen snow before, on the top of distant mountains. I knew it was cold and wet. Some Shahala—very few indeed—had gone that far and brought back strange tales. But the snow on the mountains looked like a solid white blanket the peaks drew over their shoulders. Here the snowflakes floated around me as fragile tiny stars, the gifts of the sky. I tried to catch them on my fingertip, but they melted too fast and would not allow any length of examination.