"He's just ignorant, Brigida. Here, now, maestra. To enter past the warded gates, you must be purified. For you, immersion is enough. When the mansa accepts you formally, there will be other rites, and lessons in the proper rituals."
My ancestors had a similar ritual. Stripping off my clothing and dunking myself in heated baths I could manage. I unbuttoned my riding jacket as they worked on the fastenings of my riding skirt.
"We can bring you new clothing, something more… suitable, maestra."
"I'd rather keep-"
"Yes," they agreed, as if expecting nothing else from an outsider like me. When I was naked, they looked me over much as they might examine a broodmare, studying its conformation. "Your hair, maestra."
I unpinned it.
"Ah! Ah!" they exclaimed as my tresses fell free, and on the other side of the curtain fell a silence, voices stilled, ears listening. "What lovely hair, maestra! A true glory!" Their voices rang within the stone, and I wondered if they were speaking so loudly to make sure the men across the way could hear their praise.
Only a curtain separated that side from this. I was vulnerable. How easy it would be for someone to brush past that curtain and thrust themselves onto this side. I ventured a toe in the water, thinking I could hide in the pool. It was blessedly warm.
"No, maestra. Here is a brush and soap. Clean yourself first."
I dipped the brush into a bucket of hot water and scrubbed until they were satisfied.
"Maestra! The bracelet! The locket, too. You must enter with nothing."
I removed both.
"Is the bracelet a gift from your mother?"
"No." I would not tell them that I had only two things left of my mother: first, the warning she had spoken that had taken root in my head; second, a single memory not of her face but of a strong arm carrying me, of her body smelling of sweat and steel. I descended steps into the water, to my knees, to my hips, to my breasts. The water lapped around me, stirred by a similar descent on the far side of the curtain, and I thought, that is him entering the pool naked like me, and I ducked under to let the water swallow me because it was easier than thinking of his body.
Like all the pure elements and like mirrors, water offers a conduit into the spirit world that lies intertwined with our own.
What lies in the spirit world we cannot see; we haven't the vision to perceive it. Some can reach into the spirit world and draw out filaments of its essence. In this wise, blacksmiths handle fire, potters earth, bards and djeliw the air that gives breath for songs and tales. As for the cold mages, no one outside the Houses understands the source of their power. It exists, as the great ice sheets exist, covering the northern reaches of Hibernia, covering the lands north of the Baltic Ice Sea, covering the Helvitic Alps. Reaching, so Kehinde at the inn had speculated, across the northern pole of the world to join with another vast shelf of ice that smothered the north of the continent we called Amerike which lay beyond the western ocean, the continent that had given birth to trolls instead of humans. How my father would have wished to converse with Godwik, who had also seen the face of the ice!
A shining face, masked and unkindly. The cold sun, glinting on the ice, blinds. A sharp deadly voice says, We need a new weapon for the war. A courier who can walk between the lands.
I came up gasping for air, my heart thundering as if I had woken from a nightmare twisted out of my memories and fears.
"Again," called the women.
From behind the curtain, I heard a splash as Andevai came up, his attendants calling to him as mine had called to me:
"A " "
Again.
With a gasp, I dropped beneath the surface, eyes open.
Diviners pour water on a flat surface and see true visions within.
I saw Bee, striding down an unknown street on her short legs in a haste of anger and weeping, her mouth moving in full furious spate. She was yelling at someone, but it wasn't a street after all; it was a canal of rushing light, and she was walking all unaware into the mouth of a golden dragon whose fire flowed like water to obliterate her.
I flailed to the surface, except that the air seemed still and sticky, as though it were not air at all. As through a long tunnel resonant with echoes, I heard female voices speaking far away.
"Poor Esi was very disappointed. It's all she's talked of this year, a betrothal for her with Andevai. She%ould never accept being second wife to an outsider like this one, so I wonder why the mansa did not have his nephew take this one as his third wife and let Esi marry the young man? That would have solved the problem."
"Prohibited in the contract, so I heard. That the girl could not be brought in as a secondary wife. It is Kena'anic custom, I believe, that states a man may marry one woman only."
"That can't be true!"
"It's said a Kena'ani woman may marry more than one man, if she chooses. What would you think of that, eh?"
Their laughter swept like waves.
"When I was young, maybe! It's just as well, for Esi's sake, that she was not allowed to marry Andevai. Youth is handsome, but youth fades. His upbringing, his people, will always drag him down. Sss! Why do you think he was sent to the duty of this contract? If harm comes of the binding, better it fall on him than on one of the precious lads."
"Maybe. Maybe not. The high magisters say little, but you know it's whispered Andevai has as cold a reach as they've seen in three generations. Maybe they thought he was the only one strong enough. Is she still under?"
I was still under, arms flailing and groping upward, and yet my hands never broke the flashing surface. My lungs were empty. There was no floor to push off of, nothing under my feet, only an abyss of black water like my future into which I was sinking.
Drowning.
I am six years old and the water closes over my head and my
mother's strong hand slips out from mine as she is wrenched away by the furious current. No amount of clawing at the rushing liquid aids me. I have to open my mouth for a breath of air, but all that rushes in is water, filling my lungs and dragging me down into the depths.
The spirits that guarded the House did not want me. They were dragging me down into my worst memory, the one I had tried so hard to block out.
We are drowning in the Rhenus River, and I have lost both Papa and Mama.
"Daughter," a male voice says urgently. His powerful arms push me up.
I breached, heaving and coughing, and there I stood in the tiled pool, the water up to only my shoulders as I shook in the grip of memory, blinded by tears.
"Once more," they said.
I was afraid.
After that I was always afraid of deep water, which is shameful for the Kena'ani.
But I had no choice.
I pretended that a mother's bracelet ringed my wrist, giving me my mother's courage. I pretended that my papa was waiting with his stories and his cheerful smile. He would never let anyone harm me. I took in a huge shuddering breath and dropped down under the water.
And came up again, water streaming down my face. I glanced around, fearing it had been too easy, that I had drowned in truth and emerged as one of the rephaim into my stone tomb.
The sleep of the dead was not likely enlivened by men singing crude songs about male anatomy and sexual prowess or its particular lack, which I heard from beyond the curtain separating life and death or, at least right now, woman and man. I was warmed through from the heated water bin shivering in my
heart as I dripped up onto the stone. Yet, after all, memories cannot kill you. My companions roughly toweled me dry, although my thick hair remained damp. It had to be combed out wet, no easy task, although they seemed happy to fuss over my hair as they plied me with questions.*'
"He'll not have approached the marriage bed until the mansa has accepted you into the house."
A pause, pregnant with intention. I cleared my throat. When they saw I didn't mean to answer this impertinent comment, they went on.