Reluctant Concubine Read online

  I had no strength left to care about what would happen to me next—the pain could scarcely grow worse. But the warriors did not hurt me. They cared for me as if I was one of their own, as I had cared for them in the past. They kept me safe at Warrior Hall, out of Kumra’s reach.

  I remained with them day after day, Talmir bringing soups from the kitchen, made from tender kiltari liver and whuchu greens, and bread too, baked with spicy shugone nuts. Onra stayed with me whenever she could, and Lenya sent messages.

  I healed fast, my mother’s spirit working within me, and by the next moon crossing, I stood ready.

  I planned on sneaking away through the fields to the hills as soon as the sun set, to give myself as much time as I could before they discovered my absence in the morning. As much as the warriors liked me, they would have to report a runaway slave or pay the heavy price when accused of aiding my escape.

  Only Onra and Talmir knew of my plan. I asked both to join me, but both chose to stay, Talmir for the sake of his family, Onra for the sake of her mother.

  Talmir brought me a small bundle, shoes of tough leather strips that would stand up to the rocks of the hills, a flask for water, and food. He returned the length of cloth I had given him, clean and beautiful as ever, ready to provide me with my disguise.

  I could scarcely believe that Kumra had not missed it yet. A whole winter had passed since I had owned anything other than my ill-fitting Kadar dress. I could not fathom a life of such abundance that someone would not miss a possession of such beauty for so many days.

  I catalogued my supplies as I catalogued my injuries—both would greatly influence the outcome of my escape. Itchy and new, the skin on my back still pulled as I moved, but I could walk without much pain. And I had to walk only as far as the next port. I could finish healing on the ship.

  But I would not sail home, not yet. I would journey to Karamur first to find my mother’s grave and to find out how she had died exactly. As great a healer as she had been, as strong as the spirit had worked within her, I could not imagine her succumbing to a simple traveling illness. Now that I knew the Kadar better, I suspected foul play.

  Onra popped in to bring me a handful of healing herbs at the last moment. I was tying them into my bundle after we had said our last tearful goodbye, when suddenly the horn sounded at the War Gate.

  My whole world stilled, then restarted again with a great rush. The few warriors in the hall ran outside, and after a while I could make out some of the shouting in the courtyard, even through the sudden pounding in my ears.

  “Lord Tahar returns!”

  Fear locked my muscles in place until I realized that I need not worry about Lord Tahar’s feast. I was no longer considered a maiden.

  Warrior Hall had large windows with wooden shutters, unlike the small holes high up the wall at Maiden Hall and Pleasure Hall. I rushed to an open window so I could see the servants in the courtyard, running back and forth between the kitchen and the Great Hall as they prepared for the feast. Tahar had not sent a runner. He was arriving in a rush, wholly unexpected.

  His arrival turned out not to be the only one nor the biggest surprise of the day. Soon the horn sounded for the second time. Unfamiliar warriors marched into the courtyard. Their long swords hung from wide leather belts elaborately decorated with gold.

  The Palace Guard.

  Had Lord Gilrem returned for vengeance? Would he remember me kindly? If he set me free…

  But even as I stood in the window, I knew he would not help me. He had refused his aid when his warriors were upon me. He had not taken me with him when he had walked through the War Gate, even as he knew I would receive the punishment for his leaving. He had not given me the crystals he had promised for his freedom, not that I had expected them. To Gilrem I was a lowly slave woman, beneath his notice.

  A couple of the Palace Guards headed straight for Warrior Hall, so I grabbed my bundle and slipped out the back door, held my breath as I ran behind the warriors’ latrines, then kept my head down as I crossed the courtyard and hurried straight to the kitchen.

  The weather had turned warmer in the past few days, the gift of Yullin, the servants said, but I was certain the favor came from the spirits. At least I would not freeze in the hills. As soon as night fell, I would slip away.

  I found Talmir stuffing partridge with bits of bread and herbs, a whole row of them waiting for his attention. Steam rose from a pot nearby and filled the air with the scent of rosemary.

  I pulled into a dark corner behind him. “I wish I had gone last night.”

  He tied the bird’s legs with string and set it aside, then grabbed the next. “Wait until after the feast. There will be mead tonight enough, unmeasured, in honor of the High Lord Batumar. You can slip away while most of the warriors are asleep.”

  “The High Lord?” Unease settled into my limbs.

  “He is preparing for the war, visiting the most important warlords of the land.”

  I asked him again about the hill I had to scale, the villages, the harbor where I would have to find a ship willing to take me.

  As I memorized every detail, a servant woman rushed by Talmir with a steaming pot of soup and scalded her wrist, crying out in pain. I rushed forward without thought.

  Lenya stepped into the kitchen at the same time, two warriors behind her. The sad look on her face spoke to me before she ever opened her mouth. I wish I had not found you.

  “We have been looking for you all over. The High Lord asked for you,” she said aloud.

  Run now! a small voice urged in my head; then I looked at the warriors. They might have ignored Kumra for my sake, but they would not disobey an order from Lord Tahar and their High Lord.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the dark corner where my bundle waited, ready for the journey. I would come back for it and leave this place no matter what I had to do.

  Talmir nodded as if reading my thoughts.

  Kind spirits, do not desert me now. I turned and followed Lenya, the warriors behind us, escorting us all the way to Maiden Hall’s door.

  Only Kumra waited for us inside, the maidens probably at the feast already. Her hair more elaborate than ever, she wore a gown of flowing peach silk embroidered with gold thread, cuffs and hem covered with black pearls. But I could no longer find beauty in her, for I knew the darkness of her heart.

  Her eyes settled on my long braid, uncut despite her order. Rage simmered in her eyes as she tossed a bundle of clean clothes at me, servant’s clothes but unsoiled and well-repaired. In silence, she watched me dress. Even when I turned, I felt her gaze on the skin of my back like I had felt the sting of the whip.

  “You will come back to me. He will not keep you.” Her voice dripped with hatred. “And if he does, know this: he has killed every woman he had ever chosen. All his concubines are dead.”

  A chill ran down my spine as I followed her through the small door to Pleasure Hall and to Tahar’s Great Hall from there, to Lord Tahar’s table—the place I had sworn I would never stand as long as there remained breath within me.

  Kumra bowed with grace, then backed away.

  I kept my eyes cast to the stone floor.

  “Is she the healer your warriors spoke of?” a deep, unfamiliar voice questioned.

  “She is, my lord,” Kumra said somewhere behind me.

  “Tera.” The voice called my name.

  Since he had named me, I could lift my head and look upon his face.

  The High Lord’s dark gaze made me feel like he could see inside my heart. And not only see but take what he wanted.

  He viewed me with a frown of displeasure, his narrowed eyes as black as obsidian, matching his heavy mane of hair. He bore little resemblance to his fair-faced younger brother. His rough-shaven face was as sharp-angled as cut rock. A hideous scar ran from the corner of his right eye to his chin, unbalancing the line of his lips.

  I gaped, for among my people I had scarcely seen any with such a deformity. The best of our healers could hea
l even the worst wounds without a scar.

  I knew I was staring, but he did not even blink. He let me look my fill.

  He was the most fearsome man I had ever seen, and at last I dropped my gaze, only to have it catch on his enormous frame. His shoulders stretched wider in his plain black tunic than those of an average warrior in full battle armor. Power shimmered around him. When he spoke, the Great Hall listened, and all men within.

  “A House is lucky to possess such a healer as she.”

  Lord Tahar replied at once. “She is yours, my lord, if you wish it.”

  So even the Kadar, or at least some of them, had manners. Among the Shahala, when an esteemed guest praised something, a courteous host would offer it to him. A courteous guest would thank the host and protest, indeed refuse.

  But polite manners ended with Lord Tahar’s offer, for the High Lord simply pointed behind him for me to sit.

  I stumbled forward as I reached to the cord around my neck and held tight the empty phial of moonflower tears, as a child might reach for the familiar comfort of his birthing blanket.

  At a feast, behind each warrior sat their concubines, but none sat behind Batumar. I sank onto one of the pillows, not too close but neither so far that I would give offense.

  Kumra reclined gracefully behind Lord Tahar and shot me a look of cold fury, but I had bigger things than her to worry about. Had Tahar given me to the High Lord for the night or forever? Was I given as a healer or as a concubine?

  I sat in the concubines’ place. Surely not a good sign.

  Resentment welled inside me, at Lord Tahar who had kept me as a slave and now gave me away like a measure of wheat, anger at the spirits who had abandoned me once more. I looked at the High Lord who would either take my body tonight or my freedom forever, or likely both, without a thought to my wishes.

  I might have met him only that night, but I knew him all the same. He was a man who lived by his strength and probably despised compassion. He led his nation to war season after season. His people cared little about the ideals that were most important to mine. I had known his Palace Guard, and I had known his brother, and what I knew about them told me a lot about the High Lord. I had despised him before I ever set eyes on him, and now that he owned me, I despised him more.

  The servants served the feast, tray after tray brought to the High Lord’s table after the small offering on Rorin’s stone altar. A servant woman stepped forth to sing, her bittersweet song of home and returning bringing tears to my eyes.

  When she retreated, the oldest of Lord Tahar’s captains rose from the table to entertain the High Lord with gory battle tales. He spent much time on bragging about the number of enemy killed and the fierceness of the Kadar.

  His eyes sparkled with excitement, his arms moving at times to demonstrate a crucial bit of swordplay. He moved with the agility of a seasoned warrior, his body fit and trim, although he was probably a grandfather, his hair already graying. He sat amid applause when the story ended but rose again after some cajoling to tell another.

  He straightened his doublet and looked at the expectant faces around him. “At the beginning of time, the god Rorin fought a battle with some of the lesser gods who connived against him. And the sparks that flew from his sword in the fight became the stars in the sky. And thus was the world created.”

  He drew a long swallow of mead before he went on, his voice ringing across the hushed hall. “After the fight, Rorin, for he was not without mercy, took the daughters of his enemies as his concubines. And as he claimed them one after the other, their virgin blood dripped down onto the land, and from this were born the first people of the Kadar.”

  I shuddered at the thought of a nation born of blood. No wonder they thirsted for it still.

  “No greater warriors lived than they. Their fame spread in the world, far from their homeland. So blessed were they with skill and courage that kings from distant nations came to ask for their help in battle. In the whole world, there were none their equal.”

  The men around the table all nodded in agreement. Some even stomped their feet.

  “But one day, their legendary exploits came to the attention of Noona, the dark sorceress.”

  Faces around the table turned somber at the mention of the name. Charms jingled as the concubines grabbed for them.

  “She worked with her minions to thrust into servitude the people of Torzab. She thought to make them her slaves and use their children in her sacrifices, but although many of them fell, others resisted her magic. And so she came to the Kadar High Lord, Brathar, to ask for his help in taking the land by force.”

  I held my breath as I listened to this new tale I had not heard before, and I saw the people around the table holding theirs with me, for the captain told his story well, his voice rising and falling as the events required.

  “But Brathar, wary of the sorceress, refused to help her and thus invoked her wrath. She called upon the darkness and brought forth great magic, and with it she stole the High Lord’s heart, and, as it was in his heart, his courage. And she cursed the House of Brathar, and from that day on one great ill after the other befell it, until most of his battles were lost, his sons killed, his concubines sick with a mysterious disease.”

  Charms jingled anew as the concubines offered quick prayers to the goddesses.

  “But Lukeeh, a powerful soothsayer, appealed to Rorin, and after much fasting and many sacrifices, the god told him that Noona had cursed the ground upon which the Kadar walked, so they drew the curse into themselves through the soles of their feet. Their afflictions would continue from generation to generation until they all perished.

  “Lukeeh reported this to the High Lord and offered a solution. The Kadar must leave the land if they were to live.”

  He paused again for another swallow of mead, then wiped his drooping mustache on his sleeve. “But if they all left, Noona would feel the breaking of the curse and follow them. So Lukeeh offered to stay behind.”

  A couple of warriors around the table nodded in appreciation of such self-sacrifice and courage.

  “And thus came our people to Dahru, a deserted island, through the Gate, and rebuilt our nation. And so we grew in wealth and fame to be greater than ever before.”

  He sat down amid the men’s cheers.

  I ignored that last bit about the “deserted island.” Everyone knew the Shahala came to Dahru first and the Kadar after us.

  Although my body did not wish for it, I both ate and drank at the feast, still hoping I might get a chance to return to the kitchen for my small bundle and run away that night. Those thoughts so preoccupied my mind that I barely noticed the time passing, the High Lord standing to leave. I looked up only when his guards were suddenly around me.

  I followed them to the same quarters Lord Gilrem had occupied before. The High Lord strode into the inner chamber while his guards settled into the outer room.

  They were not the same men who had been here with Lord Gilrem, but I stayed as far away from them as I could, not trusting any. When High Lord Batumar motioned to me to enter his chamber, I did so, hoping he would ask me to heal some old injury, then send me on my way.

  Kumra’s finery still decorated the chamber. The servants had cleaned the place for the High Lord and left trays of more food and drink, and a bowl of water to wash. He did look at the basin, then tugged off his tunic.

  Old scars and new covered his skin, but he did not ask me to take the pain of any. In silence, he threw water into his face, his hair, onto his chest. I looked away, my mouth dry, my heart beating wildly in my chest, my glass phial clutched tightly in my fist. With every drop of blood within me, I feared him.

  When he finished, he sat upon the bed and kicked off his boots. The furrows on his forehead deepened, exhaustion bracketing his crooked mouth. Even his scar seemed more pronounced.

  He blinked his eyes closed briefly, looking like a battle-worn warrior and not at all like the most powerful lord of the land. He lay back on the covers, h
is great mane of hair spread upon his pillow.

  I froze, but he did not even look at me.

  I stood by the door, as far from him as possible.

  “Serving me means no disloyalty to your Lord Tahar,” he said after a long moment.

  “My loyalty is to the Shahala.”

  He did turn to me then, his eyes darkening. “So you refuse a new master and pledge to stay loyal only to your own people?”

  “I have no power to refuse a new master, as you well know, my lord,” I answered him, then lifted my chin. “But I shall stay loyal to my people until my dying breath.”

  He watched me for several heartbeats before he turned away again. “You will not come to harm at my hands today,” he said and went to sleep.

  My knees shook with sudden relief, but I did not waste time by waiting for them to stop. I turned to the door and opened it as quietly as I could. The guard outside shook his head, pushed me back inside, and closed the door behind me.

  Defeat constricted my throat as I slid to the floor. If the High Lord had come the next day, I would have been gone. I could feel the soft shirl moss of the hillside under my feet, the breeze rushing through the woods, could almost hear the chowa birds and their song of freedom.

  The spirits had seemed to desert me completely. Maybe they had decided to visit punishment on me for my great-grandmother’s sin. Maybe they could not forgive that the woman whose blood ran in my veins had tried to become a sorceress.

  I knew but one thing: I still had my own spirit, the one my mother had breathed into me at my birthing. And I would not let the Kadar steal that spirit. Not the Kadar, and not their High Lord, Batumar.

  You will not come to harm at my hands today. He had spoken the words without effort, straight like truth. I believed him, though the promise seemed strange. Not at his hands, he had said, but he did not promise not from anyone else in his command. And not today, but he did not pledge not ever. His words stood as much a warning as a promise. You have nothing to fear, he had said, as long as you do not go against my people or my will.

  But his will included taking me to his far-off Pleasure Hall in Karamur and keeping me there as his slave. And against that will I had to match my own.