Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [151]
Blessed Elua, I thought, let me go as gracefully when my time to die is come.
And regarded the thought with horror.
Then they were gone, and the zenana buzzed with relief. They had gone, I knew from what Drucilla had told me, to the festal hall—to the Mahrkagir's entertainment. Some would return, depending on the lord's mood and that of his men. Some would not. I did not think the Bhodistani woman would, who had set her mind to die. I was not sure of the others, nor the boy.
Too restless to remain still, I got up and wandered the zenana. Since I had naught else to do, I sat for a while beside the Skaldi lad, Erich. "What is your tribe?" I asked him in his own tongue. "Where is your steading?" Wrapped in his own private misery, he rolled on his side, facing the wall and ignoring me. So I sang to him in Skaldic, the hearth-songs of his mothers and sisters, the songs I had learned when I was a slave—when I was first a slave, for what else was I now?—in Gunter Arnlaugson's steading, whence Melisande had sold me. I sang to him until I saw his broad shoulders shake with silent tears, and felt abashed. "Your friend Rushad is missing you," I whispered to him, then. "He does not wish you to die."
Erich the Skaldi made no reply or acknowledgment.
The effort made, I went upon my way, musing upon the strangeness of it all. It might have been day or night; I could not say. The rhythms of the Mahrkagir's whims dictated life in the zenana. If the attendants had not brought food at regular intervals, if they had not interrupted to fetch women and boys for the lord's amusement. . . who could say? There had been a garden, once, where the women of the Drujani prince might disport themselves—now it was barred, the rich soil tilled with salt, dead and barren, and strong timbers blocked the door, shutting out any glimpse of sky. The windows were shuttered. Day, night... it mattered naught. We lived here by lamplight, and the Mahrkagir's whim.
And I sang the songs of my captivity, the songs with which I had once bought passage across the deadly Strait, to a Skaldi lad, blood of my enemies, who was unmanned by the man to whom I'd prevailed upon Joscelin to sell me.
Truly, 'twas strange.
At the carpeted island of the Jebeans and Nubians, I paused. The tall woman who was chiefest among them stared up at me, hostile and demanding. A frayed cloth of intricate pattern sheathed her body, and she wore long pins of ivory thrust in her black woolen hair.
"Selam," I said respectfully, greeting her in Jeb'ez, bowing with my palms together.
She stared a minute longer, then laughed long and hard, saying something I could not understand to the others. "You think to speak Jeb'ez?" she asked me, then, in rude argot.
"Yequit'a," I said; "excuse me," adding in my best grasp of zenyan, "Only a little. I would learn more if you teach me."
All of them laughed at that, and not kindly. "You have opium?”
asked the tall woman, reclining on her couch. "Gems? Kumis? Sweetmeats, maybe?"
"No." I shook my head. "Forgive me, Fedabin," I said, according her the title the scroll granted to the Queen of Saba, "wise woman." "I will not bother you."
"Wait." Her voice stopped me as I turned to leave. I stood as she regarded me, a trace of curiosity emerging in her mask of indifference. "Why do you wish to know this, little one? You come here to die, gebanum? Understand? It is only when that matters, and how much you suffer in between."
"I understand, Fedabin." I inclined my head to her. "I would still learn."
Another of the women leaned over, whispering to the tall one; Kaneka, she called her. Kaneka listened with half-lidded eyes, then nodded, swinging herself upright. "Safiya has a thought," she announced. "For your courtesy, I make you a gift, a gift of knowledge." With one hand, she opened a woven pouch strung on a thong about her neck, shaking three unusual dice into her other palm. "You kneel, there," she said, pointing to the carpet.