Eona - Alison Goodman [136]
I picked up one of the washing cloths from the pile and held it modestly across my groin, then collected the pot of soap. “Vida, you bring the rest of the cloths.”
Eagerly, I slid open the door to the baths, the heavier heat settling against my skin. Although it was humid outside, I still longed for the cleanliness that came only from hot water. A long wooden partition down the middle of the room separated the men and women’s bathing areas, but it did not reach the roof, and steam had collected near the high ceiling in a soft haze. At the far end was the women’s bath, a large sunken pool with pale drifts rising into the still, thick air.
But first, the washing station. I crossed to the narrow trough that stood along the wall with a series of low stools and small buckets in front of it. A terra-cotta pipe trickled continuously into its catch, the sound like a tiny waterfall.
I chose a middle stool, placed the pot of soap beside it on the wooden floor, then picked up a bucket. One deep scoop the length of the trough filled it with water on the satisfying side of hot.
Vida closed the dressing room door. “Shall I wait until you are finished, my lady?”
I lowered the bucket to the floor. “No, join me.”
Vida smiled and bowed.
With full buckets and plenty of soap, we got to work. Vida picked the remaining pins from my heavy, oiled hair, the remnants of Moon Orchid’s careful styling finally gone. Then I returned the service, freeing Vida’s hair from the intricate Safflower braids into a frizz of kinks.
“That feels good,” Vida said, digging her fingers into her scalp. She giggled as she felt the volume of hair around her head. “I must look like a wild woman.”
I crossed my eyes and held out the thick tangle of my own hair. “Or a madwoman.” Vida’s giggle broke into a snort.
We dumped buckets of water over each other, the streaming heat slowly softening the days of collected grime. I worked up a lather from the rough, grainy soap that smelled of sweet grass, and massaged it from my toes to my crown, scrubbing with a cloth and sluicing with water until the suds that ran off my body was no longer gray. Beside me, Vida did the same, softly humming an old folk song that I vaguely remembered from the salt farm. We hummed the chorus together, breaking into laughter as our different versions ended in a clash of notes.
“Shall I wash your back, my lady?” Vida asked.
“Yes, please.” I shifted around on my stool, then felt the wet, sodden warmth of a cloth against my back, and the gentle pressure as Vida worked it along my shoulders and spine. I sighed as tensions melted under her firm scrubbing. It had been more than four years since I’d had the pleasure of “skinship”: that sweet, gentle bond of physical freedom and camaraderie that came with bathing among other girls and women. I had not realized how much I had missed it.
Eventually, we were both clean enough to enter the bath. I led the way down the three steps, the water rising from ankle to knee and then hip in delicious stings of heat. I sank down and found the stone sitting-step along the edge. Vida waded in and, with a sigh, sat opposite me.
“Thank you for this, my lady,” she said.
“You must be excited to see your father again.”
She nodded, lowering her strong shoulders farther into the water. “And you must be excited to be reunited with your mother.”
I shrugged. “I have not seen her since I was six. I will be a stranger to her, as she is to me.” I paused, then finally gave voice to my thoughts. “Perhaps there will be no feeling between us.”
Or perhaps she’d not had enough feeling to keep me, so long ago.
Vida shook her head. “She is your family. There is always a bond.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I cannot remember what it is like to have a family.”
Vida tilted her head. “But you have had people who have cared for you? Who care for you now, like Lady Dela and Ryko.”
“I’m not sure Ryko would still want to be in that count,” I said dryly.
But