On Fire's Wings - Christie Golden [53]
“‘Almost,’” said Yeshi, “is a very big word.”
Kevla was asleep when the door to the women’s room burst open. There were startled shrieks as the women groggily realized that their sanctuary was being intruded upon by three men, all with torches.
“Which one is the Bai-sha?” their leader demanded.
Tiah and Ranna pointed to Kevla, who shrank back before the accusation. Gulping, she tried to appear calm.
“I am Kevla Bai-sha. Who asks for me?”
They did not reply. Instead, the leader jerked his head in Kevla’s direction and the other two grabbed her and hauled her to her feet. She was wearing nothing but a light sleeping rhia.
“Stop!” she cried, “put me down! I am handmaiden to the khashima, you must—”
“It is by the khashima’s orders that we are here, Bai-sha,” one of the men snarled.
Kevla’s heart sank at the words. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that Ranna looked stricken at what was happening to her. Even Tiah seemed upset.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded as they dragged her down the stairs. A foot caught on a step and she winced.
“You are no longer to serve the great lady,” one of the men said. “You are to stay in the kitchen. You will sleep in a small room, alone.” They half carried, half dragged her up another increasingly narrow set of stairs.
“There must be a mistake!” she stammered. “I have not displeased the great lady. Please, let me speak to her and—”
The man clutching her right arm shook her so violently that her head snapped back. “You are never to directly address the khashima again! Do you understand?”
Terrified now, Kevla only nodded. The stairs came to an abrupt end and the guard in front hauled open a heavy wooden door. They flung her inside. She stumbled and fell, hitting hard stone and cutting her hands and legs on sharp edges. She eased herself up to a sitting position and when the blow came it almost knocked her unconscious.
“That,” said one of the men, leaning so close to her that she could smell his stale breath, “is from the khashima. She told me to tell you that it is but a taste of what you will experience if you speak to her son again.”
He slammed the door shut, and Kevla was plunged into darkness.
For a moment, she huddled on the stone floor, trying to understand. She hurt all over, but her face hurt the worst. She reached to touch her mouth gingerly and winced as her fingers touched and probed. Then the import of the man’s last words fully descended upon her.
There was only one conclusion. Yeshi had seen her with Jashemi. She had been so offended at the thought of her son with a lowly Bai-sha that she had ordered Kevla banished. Suddenly, Kevla couldn’t breathe and her body went cold.
This was what she had dreaded; that she would lose her enviable position and be turned away in shame and disgrace. This was the fear that had tempered the pleasure of her time with the young lord, the shadow to the bright light of their moments together. Their secret meetings were forbidden, and she had known it. Now, she would have to pay.
Even so, somehow, the thought of never being with him again made her heart hurt worse than her battered body. She began to sob, loudly, violently, each paroxysm of grief and loss racking her body painfully. She pounded fists into the stone floor, welcoming the ache. She kicked and screamed and begged with the unseen, unfeeling khashima. And when at last she drifted into an exhausted slumber, her dreams were haunted by the image of Jashemi on one of the river rafts, drifting farther and farther away from her even as he extended his arms to her, crying out for rescue.
Chapter Eleven
The sound of the door swinging open woke Kevla early the next morning. She blinked sleepily, wondering why she was gazing directly at an old harvesting rake, and then memory came flooding back. She bolted upright, then sagged in relief when she saw Sahlik standing in the door.
Harshly, Sahlik said, “Get up, girl. You’re to come work in the kitchens now.”
Kevla felt the smile bleed from her face. There was no reprieve