10
Kizra knelt beside the bed, her hands folded in her lap. “Kulyari slept until just after the noon gong. She went into the garden and pulled heads off flowers there until Polyapo looked out, saw what she was doing, and scolded her back inside. Then Kulyari hung around the Great Hall. When she thought no one was around, she tried to get into the Arring’s study. Gilli chal says she had a screaming snit when she found out it was locked. She’s back in her room now, trying on clothes, changing her hair, driving the maids till they’re ready to bang her on the head and stand the consequences. That’s it.”
“Polyapo. Do you think she’s involved in this?”
“If I had to guess, no. There’s no tension in her. And she’s not… um…” Kizra sneaked a glance at Allina to see how far she dared go.
Matja Allina narrowed her eyes to slits, her mouth twitched. “And she’s not intelligent enough to hide it.”
“Well, yes.” Kizra got to her feet. “It’s time you should eat something, Matja Allina. You know what Tinoopa said, small meals but frequent. Do you want me to ring the kitchen?”
“No. I don’t want much. A cup of broth and a roll will do.”
“Just a minute, then.” Kizra crossed to the fireplace, took the lid off the brazier, and set on the covered pot of broth. She put a fresh roll in a small dutch oven, then leaned against the bricks of the chimney while she waited for the food to heat.
“Chapa Kizra, come here, help me to sit up. Bring the extra pillows, will you?”
Time passed.
Matja Mina drowsed.
Kizra went back to watching what was happening in the court below. To wondering what her dreams meant. To speculating if she and Tinoopa would get what Allina promised them. To yearning for release from this tedium. It always came back to that. She loathed being shut away from what was happening. It was as bad as being in jail, at least according to Bertem’s tales. Or Tinoopa’s. Boredom and being jerked about by anyone that had the power to jerk.
And even if I ran, where do I run to? I don’t know who I am or where I belong. I don’t KNOW anything. How can I DO anything…
The day ended finally.
That night Kizra sweated through more nightmares, worse than any night before this. She remembered bits each time she woke:
giant spiders with intelligent eyes and orange pompoms where their ears would be if spiders had ears, relentless, implacable, she shuddered with horror when she saw them…
crashing in a small fast ship, going down and down and nothing she could do about it, dying, all the pain and emptiness of dying…
women dancing, thin, etiolate, all bone and skin and huge dark eyes, eerily unexpectedly lovely creatures that brought with them the anguish of loss (she knew why in the dream but couldn’t remember later)…
a red-haired woman weeping for a lost child, a grief Kizra shared as if it were her own (she knew her in the dream, knew her like a sister, a deeply loved sister, but when she woke, there was only the face and the hair, the long fine red hair)…
two cats died and a man cried out in anguish and rage, a lion man, she shared that anguish till the dream faded…
Nightmare followed nightmare until she dropped into a hard-fisted sleep that left her as tired when she struggled out of bed as she was before she lay down.
Matja Allina’s estate office on the ground floor was small and intimate with a bow window looking out into the Family Garden. She sat in a cushioned armchair drawn up to a swaylegged table, her hands were folded on the table, and she was listening to a dispute over the distribution of cloth.
Polyapo stood beside the door, despising everyone in the room for allowing the dispute to happen.
Sitting on a low bench in the bow window, half-hidden behind a carved and pierced screen of some dark rich local wood, Kizra watched the Ulyinik’s long nose twitch and thought:
if it were up to her, everyone involved in this would be whipped until they knew their place and left to go without cloth until they were naked and properly grateful for anything they were given.
“The promise, Matja Allina. The Daughter’s Promise. I want the bolt for Lahirra’s wedding. Blue cloth, fine blue, not just ordinary tirrk. For all girls when they wed, by your word, O Matja.”
The Weavemistress snorted. “And you got it, Luwlu chal, on Winterstart, you signed for it and carted it off and you know it.”
“Can I help it if N’gwaral gets hisself clawed by some filthy l’borrgha and dies two months later leaving my Lahirra a sorrowing widow? What’s a mother to do? Ignore her child once she’s wed and let everything after go as it goes? The promise is made, when a daughter weds, cloth for her dowry. So Lahirra is going to wed with N’trurr next week. So she’s due another bolt.”
Aghilo slipped through the door and stood beside Polyapo, looking agitated. Kizra rubbed at her chin. I wonder what’s up.
Matja Allina’s eyes flicked to Aghilo, then she returned to her absorption in the speeches of the two women.
“Huh,” the Weavemistress said, “the way the girl goes through husbands, she should open a clothing store. Lahirra has her dower, all she has to do is carry it down two doors when she moves in with N’trurr. And take better care of this one so he doesn’t die on her.”
“Hard, hard, you’re so hard, Nunnikura chal, how’s my little girl to blame, she didn’t send her man out there to get chewed up.” She burst out sobbing and keening, producing more noise than tears.
Matja Allina knocked gently against the table. “Quiet, Luwlu chal. Answer me a question or two, if you please. No, Nunnikura chal, you can speak later if you so desire.”
Luwlu sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve, dipped a curtsey and waited.
“Luwlu chal, how much of the first bolt remains?”
The woman looked sullen, but she didn’t dare protest. “About half,” she said after a long silence while she was pretending to remember, “Matja Allina.”
“It is certainly no fault of Lahirra that her first husband met with an angry l’borrgha and if the time between her weddings were somewhat longer, there would be no question about providing a second dower bolt. Nunnikura, you will measure the length remaining of the first dower bolt and complete it so Lahirra goes to her second wedding with the same gift she had at the first. And, given the tragic circumstances that make the second wedding necessary, you will also add a length of wedding cloth, fine green for the twice married bride, and a length of lace for her wedding shift from my own stores. Do you consent, Nunnikura chal? Do you consent, Luwlu chal?”
Nunnikura Weavemistress compressed her mouth in a straight line; she didn’t approve, but she wasn’t about to say so. She nodded, dipped through a perfunctory curtsy.
Luwlu chal had a discontented look, but she, too, nodded and curtsied her acceptance.
“Then let it be done, Nunnikura chal, and done within the hour. I thank you for your courtesy, y-chala. Amurra Bless.”
“Blessed be,” Nunnikura said. She glared at Luwlu chal who hastily added her Blessed be, then both left the room.
“What is it, Aghilo? You have something to tell me?” Matja Allina’s voice was cool, but there was more than a little fear behind the mask.
Aghilo glanced at Polyapo, unwilling to give her message in the presence of the older woman.
Matja Allina sat back in the chair, dropped her hands on the arms where they were hidden from the other two women. “Ulyinik Polyapo, you will help me greatly if you would see how many supplicants remain outside and have one of the girls you trained so well make a list of names and when possible a short summary of each complaint. Will you do this for me, please? Good. Amurra Bless.”
“Blessed be Amurra.” Polyapo resented furiously being pushed out like this and given what she considered a make-work task, but she knew also that her place here hung by a thread and that thread was the Matja’s good will. So she went.