Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [149]
"You'll weep," Drucilla said quietly.
It was truer than she knew. "What will become of me?" I asked.
She shrugged. "His lordship the Mahrkagir will send for you, when he is ready. It may be days, or weeks. Months, even. In your case . . . well. I do not think he will forget."
My blood ran like ice, and beneath it, somewhere, the awful stir of desire. "And then?"
"You will weep, and perhaps wish to die." It passed for compassion, in this place. "If you do not, if you survive . . . there are ways. Some few of us share what skills we have. And there are others, other . . . patrons, Drujani warlords and others, his lordship's guests." With a sweeping gesture, she indicated those women who enjoyed small luxuries. "It is another way to keep despair at bay. Not my way, but I have heard you bear the marque of one dedicated to your goddess of pleasure."
I nodded, understanding. "How is it arranged?"
"His lordship sometimes chooses to share his concubines among his allies. If they hunger for more . . ." She shrugged again. "The Akkadian attendants take bribes, sometimes. They have little loyalty for this service." She told me why, then.
Well and good; so the zenana was not impermeable, and I might hope to gain favor in the form of scented oils or dice or sweetmeats—or better yet, raw opium—if I chose to make myself available to any number of Drujani warlords. I kept my mouth closed, and listened to all that Drucilla had to tell me, which was a good deal.
I daresay it was a relief to her, who had not surrendered fully to despair, to speak to someone who had not yet abandoned all hope. LaterI learned that she took it upon herself always to speak to newcomers to the zenana. Most of them—of us—were victims of the slave-trade or conquests of war; some few were even tribute-gifts. Drucilla was an exception. Adventurous and independent, she had travelled from her homeland to see the sights of Hellas; falling in love with the country, she had set up shop as a physician in Piraeus. It was there that a Skotophagotis and a company of Drujani had taken fancy to the notion of a female chirurgeon as they set sail for Ephesium. And they had simply taken her.
It appalled me more than I could say, that the incursions of the Skotophagoti had grown so bold, that we had known naught of it in Terre d'Ange. Drucilla had cried out for aid. The Hellenes had turned a deaf ear. The Ephesian ship's captain had ignored her cries, though she pounded on the door of her cabin until her hands bled.
"Though they have bled more, since," she added with a crooked smile.
"The Mahrkagir?" I asked.
Drucilla nodded and looked away, knotting the folds of her shawl. "He wonders what I will do, when I have no fingers left to administer to the ailing. Fortunately, he does not remember to wonder it often. He is quite mad, you know."
"I know." I did. "Do you know why?"
"Perhaps." She bowed her head, loose locks of brown hair hiding her face. "He survived the purge, after the rebellion; Hoshdar Ahzad, do you know of it?" I merely nodded, not wanting to distract her flow of words. "He was an illegitimate son, bastard-born; his mother was a common street-whore, whom his father brought into the zenana and raised to concubine status." Drucilla raised her head, pointing toward a far wall, where the Skaldi lad Erich slumped. "It happened there. I had the story from Rushad . . . you know Rushad? One cannot be sure, speaking in zenyan, but he knows; he had it from his old Akkadian master, who commanded here years ago, until the second rebellion . . ."
A simple story, when all was said and done. The Mahrkagir, a boy of four or five, had survived the slaughter, struck a blow on the head and left for dead. Bleeding from a gash to the temple, eyes fixed wide, he had watched as the women and children of the zenana—lesser wives, concubines, his own half-brothers and -sisters—were ravished and slain,