I've spent the past two days brushing ink on paper, making copies of lists about supplies and weapons, and looking out the window to ease the cramping in my eyeballs.
Windows are the eyes of the Ancestors. Windows are better than food!
I had a free hour this morning and went back to the kitchens to fetch this book from where I'd hidden it beneath some empty grain sacks. No one in the kitchens can read, so far as I know, but I'd rather not risk it being found. There are things written in here that could get me hanged on the south wall.
The girls cheered to see me and wanted all the details, so I washed pots and described my room and the window and the horsehair blanket. My lady didn't speak a word. She wouldn't even meet my eyes. Sometimes I have to snap a twig to keep from shouting, "Why don't you tell him who you are? Why don't you smile? Why don't you stop worrying about your father and Khasar and the tower and just decide to be Lady Saren?"
I should scratch out those words. Maybe later.
Day 109
Lately all I do is write. I copy pages of notes, lists of food supplies, numbers of weapons. As I fall asleep, the soft sound of a brush grazing parchment continues to murmur in my ear. Already my scrubber hands have begun to heal and my ink stains make me feel like a real scribe. I'm mostly alone, but white-haired Shria comes to take the papers to the khan's chiefs, and twice a day Qacha brings my meals from the kitchen.
Sometimes when I'm sitting on the floor eating with Qacha, I feel about as content as a bird with a good lifting wind. In greeting, we always clasp forearms, touch cheeks, and inhale through our noses so as to breathe in each other's scent. Smell is the voice of the soul, and this greeting is the most intimate. It's common among family and clan, of course, but I've been on my own for so long, I'd forgotten how warm and wonderful it is.
And whenever I can, I return to the kitchen to see my lady and the other girls or walk around the stables and dairy and soak in the cheery summer sun. The window is wonderful, but any walls remind me of the tower.
I haven't seen her khan since I came to this small, clean room.
Day 111
Shria called me to the khan's chamber today. I was startled to see it full, seven of the khan's chiefs present, several shamans, all arguing about Khasar and scouting reports and the state of the city with the refugees near bursting the walls. Three other scribes were there. I joined them by the wall, taking notes of the talk as quickly as I could.
Khan Tegus never looked at me. I'm a mucker maid. I guess I needed to be reminded of that. So, good. Fine.
Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.
Day 112
Shria came flustering for me this morning.
"Come! Quick!"
We raced down the corridors, up another flight of stairs, and into the last of the khan's chain of rooms.
The first thing I noticed was a man lying on the floor and bleeding, bleeding fast. Another man was in the corner, his ankles and wrists tied with sashes, animal scratches on his face. Three men with drawn swords were guarding the bound man, all tense as a gher roof, shaking slightly as if hoping for a reason to stab the bound man through. I stopped on the threshold. I wobbled.
"Here's the mucker girl, my lord,'' said Shria.
The khan pulled me toward the wounded man. "My friend is hurt. Sing for him."
"I... I can't, my lord. A healing song can't stop blood from flowing or close a wound."
"Help him, Dashti."
How I longed for the voice of Evela and the strength of Carthen, for powers as mighty as the desert shamans are rumored to possess, for a way to force that man's body to do my will and heal itself. But I felt as thin as grass. I sat by the man's head, I touched his face. My body shook so hard I thought I heard my bones rattle, and I wondered if my limbs would fall right off.
Sing to him, Dashti,
I ordered myself, but before I could find a tune, I got to thinking of Mama with the fever, her skin as yellow as this paper I write on, her lips dry like a snake shedding its skin. For hours, for days I sang to her. I pushed my soul into the words till my voice rasped to ashes. But she fell asleep, deeper and deeper till her skin went cold.
A shaman knelt beside me, letting his hands hover over the bleeding man's chest. Until I recognized his face, I didn't realize he was a shaman because he was dressed only in a robe and for some reason had removed his tassled hat and belt with nine mirrors.
"I feel a pulsing heat," said the shaman, his eyes closed. "The life heat leaves his body even as his blood does.
His soul is teetering on a threshold, undecided to live or die."
"Help him to live," said Khan Tegus. He was speaking to me and to the shaman and he seemed near crying.
"Tell his soul to live!"
Who am I to tell a man to live? Who am I to claim the powers of the Ancestors? I moved aside so the shaman could have more room to do his holy work. He's climbed the Sacred Mountain and seen the faces of the Ancestors. I have no place beside him.
I sat quietly in a corner, though I was tempted to curse like the horse wranglers and kick a chair. I was so angry at myself for not being smart enough, for not being a true healer, but I just sing the easing songs, the slow and cheery songs, the animal songs.
Later
When Qacha brought dinner to my room, she whispered that the bleeding man is an important chief to the khan.
"And the man who stabbed him?" I asked.
"An assassin. Sent by Lord Khasar to kill Khan Tegus, or so Koke heard."
"What less should we expect from the lord of the realm named for Under, god of tricks?"
"True enough, but Under played a trick back on him today. A shaman was present, and when the assassin attacked, I hear the shaman took fox form and leaped between the khan and the assassin. It seems not even Lord Khasar s warrior would dare to harm a fox."
"Ah," I said, the animal scratches on the assassin's face making sense, and the shaman wearing just his robe. He must've lost his clothes when he changed. Would that I'd been there to see that!
So it seems Under played everyone today. The khan is unharmed, but the assassin's blade still found a true mark. He's a slippery one, that Under. I knelt to the north and prayed thanks that Khan Tegus was protected, but I don't much like depending on the god of tricks.
Day 113
Morning was still as dark as night when someone tapped at my door. I wrapped my wool robe over my sleep clothes, thinking it must be Shria with an errand. Instead I found my lady's khan.
He looked as tired as dawn, and he leaned against my door and just stared at me for a time, eyes half closed. I hadn't realized that I'd stopped breathing until I heard him breathe in deeply. He said, "I know you'll say it's hopeless, that you won't be able to help, but Dashti, will you come with me?"
I didn't ask what he meant as I followed him down the dark corridor. I'd been too startled to think of putting on shoes, and the floor was slippery with cold. The blind walls around us reminded me of the tower, and I spent the walk imagining what those three years would've been like if my companion in the dark had been someone else.
We entered his chambers and the air was thick with the sweet smoke of burning juniper. A shaman woman was doing her wild dance between the bed and the fire, beating a flat drum, the tassels on her hat flying.
"You may rest for a moment, holy one," said Khan Tegus, and the woman stopped spinning and sat in the corner. For a moment, I could see my own face reflected in one of the nine mirrors on her belt. I looked away.
The bleeding man was asleep on a low couch, his chest rising and falling too fast for sleep. Khan Tegus knelt by the bed. I knelt beside him.
"The shamans tell me they've done what they can, but there's no change," said Khan Tegus. "They tell me that when all that blood poured out of Batu, his soul flowed with it. Now it's dislodged from his breast and wavering on the edge of his body."