Slaves of the Mastery (7 page)

‘Who are you?’ asked Kestrel.

‘Who am I? Don’t you know?’

‘No.’

‘I’m the Johdila Sirharasi of Gang, the Pearl of Perfection, the Radiance of the East, and the Delight of a Million Eyes.’

‘Oh.’ There seemed nothing else to say.

‘I’m on my way to be married.’

‘Who to?’

‘I don’t exactly know.’

‘So how do you know you want to marry him?’

‘I have to marry him, whether I want to or not.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

Kestrel could see that no one had ever talked to her like this in all her life. On her face was a look of astonishment, as if a curtain was being swept aside, to reveal a vista on a new and
exciting world.

Lunki saw this too, and was alarmed.

‘Baby, take care, won’t you? We don’t know anything about her.’

‘Then she can tell us.’ To Kestrel, ‘Tell us.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Who you are. What you’re doing.’

‘My name is Kestrel Hath. I’m looking for my family.’

‘Why? Where are they?’

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t have to look.’

Again, Kestrel saw the shock of surprise on her face. She thought to herself, she’s a princess, she always gets what she wants, no one’s ever answered her back before.

‘You’re really not afraid of me?’ the Johdila asked.

‘No,’ said Kestrel. ‘Why would you want to hurt me?’

‘I don’t. I did to start with. But not any more.’

‘So we can be friends.’

Kestrel meant nothing very much by this, but the word made a great impact on the young princess.

‘Friends? I’ve never had a friend.’

She studied Kestrel with close attention, wanting to understand her.

‘Why do you wear such ugly clothes?’

‘So no one will look at me.’

The Johdila puzzled over that. Then,

‘I’ve decided to keep you,’ she announced.

‘You can’t keep me. I’m not a pet.’

‘But I want to.’

‘Then you must ask me.’

‘Ask you? But what if you say no?’

‘Then you don’t get what you want.’

‘But that’s – that’s –’ She clearly wanted to say, that’s not right, but something in Kestrel’s face made her hesitate. ‘But that will make
me sad.’

‘Not for long.’

‘Can I keep you? Please?’

Kestrel couldn’t help smiling. She felt so much better, now she’d eaten. And the Johdila did look so comical, with her pretty face all puckered up and ready to cry.

‘Maybe I’ll stay just until I’m well again,’ she said. ‘If you’d like me to.’

The Johdila looked in wonder at Kestrel’s smile.

‘What do you want me to give you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why are you smiling at me?’

‘You’re funny. You make me smile.’

The Johdila considered this gravely.

‘Is that how friends smile? For no reason?’

‘Yes.’

So the Johdila smiled back.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Kestrel, caught unawares by the radiance of her smile. ‘How lovely you are!’

O
zoh the Wise took the sacred chicken from its basket, and carefully dusted its feet with powdered chalk. Nearby, his royal master the Johanna of
Gang, the Lord of a Million Souls and the father of the Johdila Sirharasi, stepped down from his royal carriage, lowered his enormous body into a camp-chair, and emitted a long loud groan.

‘Be quiet, Foofy. You’ll disturb the chicken.’ This from his wife, the Johdi of Gang, Mother of the Nations. Though known affectionately to her people as ‘Little
Mother’, she was as large as her husband, her girth made even more imposing by the stiff heavily-ornamented tent-like garments she wore.

The Johanna groaned because he was hungry. He slept poorly while travelling, and when not sleeping, he thought about food. At home if he woke in the night, which he never did, he could call for
any food he wanted. On this journey, if he woke in the night, which he did every night, he must go hungry. His wife had introduced a strict rule that no breakfast was to be served at court until
the day’s signs had been read. After all, as she had pointed out, if the reading called for a day of fasting, and they had already eaten, who knew what the consequences might be?

The royal augur held the sacred chicken over the sign mat, which he had unrolled on a level patch of ground. The chicken was white and fat and fluffy, with sticky-out feathers all round its mad
pink eyes. Ozoh was thin and bald and bare, at least from the waist up, so that everyone could see the intricate blue-green patterns that twined all over his body, the proof of his claim that one
of his grandmothers had been a snake. Below the waist he wore the traditional baggy pantaloons of Gang, so no one knew whether the markings extended over his bottom; but many wondered.

‘Oh! Ha!’ he muttered, and lowered the chicken carefully onto the mat. The whole watching court went still, tensed to see what the chicken would do. Two men watched with particular
attention. Barzan, the gloomy stooping Grand Vizier, standing behind the Johanna on his right side, kept his eyes on the movements of the chicken. The other man, a tall handsome soldier, watched
the royal augur. His name was Zohon, and he was the Commander of the Johjan Guards.

The chicken looked back at them for a moment. Then, moving its head in abrupt jerks, it strutted off the mat towards its dish of corn.

‘Aaah!’ went the court.

A short line of white footmarks had been left on the mat by the departing chicken. The augur looked at them closely.

‘Excellent.’

Everyone relaxed. That meant there would be breakfast.

‘As your mightiness can see, the signs enter through Fang and exit through Yanoo.’

‘They look clear enough to me,’ said the Johanna.

‘Indeed so. Nothing untoward will happen today’

‘That’s all right, then.’

The Johanna started to rise.

‘So long,’ added the augur, ‘as all members of the royal party do their duty with a glad heart.’

‘Ah,’ said the Johanna. He looked towards his wife.

‘What if they don’t?’ asked the Johdi, thinking at once of her daughter, the Johdila Sirharasi, still asleep in her carriage. Sisi was not known for doing her duty, with a glad
heart or otherwise.

‘If they don’t,’ said the augur gravely, ‘there will be consequences.’

‘Oh dear,’ fretted the Johdi. ‘I was afraid of that.’

Happily, Ozoh the Wise understood her well.

‘The Johdila, of course, has no duties,’ he said. ‘Not in the strict sense of the word. Being as yet unmarried.’

‘Oh! Ah. Not in the strict sense of the word,’ said the Johdi, greatly relieved.

‘And in the matter of signs, as your gloriousness appreciates, only the very strictest sense of the word applies.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ said the Johanna again. ‘Bring on the hot buttered pancakes.’

The Johdila Sirharasi did not breakfast in the dining tent with the rest of the court. Her breakfast was carried to her own private sleeping carriage, by two servants wearing
blindfolds. They were afraid of dropping the heavily-laden trays, and so they proceeded very slowly from the kitchen wagon to the Johdila’s carriage. By the time they arrived, the melted
butter on the pancakes had formed a hard yellow crust. This happened morning after morning, but no one thought to improve the arrangements, because the Johdila never complained. She never
complained because she never ate her breakfast. It was eaten later, and in secret, by her maid Lunki. The rule at court was that the servants did not eat until their masters had eaten, and since
the Johdila sometimes went for days without eating, Lunki had learned to take the opportunities that fate placed in her path.

The two servants stumbled their way into the outer room of the Johdila’s carriage, where Kestrel now had a bunk bed alongside Lunki. They handed over their trays, and stumbled out again.
They made no attempt to peek through the blindfolds. Any man who looked on the unveiled face of the Johdila would have his eyes burned out with red-hot skewers.

‘Breakfast, sweetie,’ cooed Lunki through the dividing curtain.

‘Boil me a glass of water, darling.’

Kestrel did not participate in the Johdila’s morning ritual. Instead, she slipped out of the carriage after the departing kitchen servants, and finding a secluded space between the
stationary carriages, she lay down and spread herself out face to the ground. It was harder here among the stamp of grazing horses and the rattle of passing soldiers, but she lay still, reaching
into the ground, until she began to touch the memories of the road. Yes, the dust recalled him. He had passed this way. Her brother, her sister, her parents, the Manth people, had passed this
way.

She heard footsteps. The footsteps stopped. Someone was standing near her, watching her.

She got up off the ground. There, staring at her, frankly curious, was a very tall, very good-looking soldier. He wore a beautifully-cut uniform of dark purple cloth trimmed with gold braid,
closely moulded to his slim waist and his muscular chest. In one hand he carried a slender-shafted hammer, made of silver, which he flicked idly back and forth so that it struck the palm of his
other hand.

‘So you’re the one who saw the Johdila unveiled,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.

‘Is she beautiful?’

‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.

‘You realise that according to the law you should have your eyes burned out?’

‘It’s a stupid law.’

The soldier raised his dark eyebrows and smiled.

‘Well, maybe it is,’ he said. ‘Fortunately, she seems to have taken a liking to you.’

Kestrel said nothing to this. She decided she had better return to the carriage. But the handsome soldier reached out his silver hammer to detain her. She noticed then that the end of its shaft
was fashioned into a fine sharp blade.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No.’

‘I am Zohon, Commander of the Johjan Guards. After the Johanna himself, I’m the most powerful man in all the Sovereignty of Gang.’

He looked round, to make sure that no one was near enough to overhear him, and he lowered his voice.

‘If you help me, I’ll help you.’

‘Help you do what?’

‘The Johdila is being taken to a country known as the Mastery. She’s to marry the son of its ruler.’ Zohon’s lips curled into a sneer. ‘A fine gentleman who goes in
for robbing and burning and taking slaves. His son will make a fine sort of husband for the daughter of the Johanna of Gang, don’t you think?’

‘They take slaves?’

‘The wealth of the Mastery is built on slaves.’

Kestrel saw again the horsemen bursting into the arena of Aramanth, and the screaming people running before their swords. She shivered.

‘How can the Johdila be given to such people?’

‘How indeed?’ Zohon saw the horror on her face, and he approved. ‘The marriage must be stopped.’

There came a bustle all up and down the caravan. The carriages were about to start moving again. A servant passed nearby, carrying the sacred chicken in its cage. Zohon saw the royal augur
following behind, and knew that Ozoh had seen him.

‘We’ll talk later,’ he hissed to Kestrel. And turning aside, he sauntered nonchalantly away towards his men.

When Kestrel rejoined the Johdila’s carriage, she found Sisi out of bed and seated at her mirror-table. This table had six mirrors so placed that she could see herself from every angle.
Lunki stood behind her, and together they were repairing the ravages of the night.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Sisi, spotting Kestrel in one of the mirrors.

‘Just walking,’ Kestrel replied.

‘Walking? In the open air? Your skin will dry out.’

This turned her attention back to her own lustrous creamy skin.

‘It seems so unfair,’ she complained, ‘that I should have to lay my head on a pillow when I sleep. I can’t help turning over in the night, and I know for a certain fact
that it makes wrinkles. Look, darling! That line wasn’t there yesterday.’

‘We can pat it out, sweetie. Lunki will pat it away for her baby.’

Lunki was as deeply engaged in the Johdila’s appearance as the Johdila herself. It was understood between them that Sisi was beautiful for both of them. In a wider sense, Sisi was
beautiful for all the Sovereignty of Gang, as was indicated by her titles, the Pearl of Perfection, Radiance of the East, and the Delight of a Million Eyes.

‘My neck has grown fatter. I’m sure of it.’

‘No, sweetie. It’s only the way the shadows fall.’ Lunki massaged soft oils into her mistress’s skin. ‘Now why doesn’t my baby drink the smallest glass of
milk?’

‘Don’t bully me, darling. I feel as if today will be a fat day.’

The Johdila was so slender and lissom of form that Kestrel found it hard to believe she was the daughter of her parents. Sisi assured her that her mother had been as slender as she was, before
her marriage.

‘It’s marriage that makes you fat. That, and having babies. I don’t think I shall have any babies. Lunki can have them for me. Would you do that for me, Lunki darling? Do say
you will.’

‘No need to worry about that for now, my precious. There’s the marrying to be done with first.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘What sort of man is it you’re marrying?’ Kestrel asked, wondering how much the Johdila knew.

‘Oh, someone or other.’ Sisi’s mind was running along a different track. ‘What is it married women actually do, Lunki?’

‘Do, sweetie? How do you mean?’

‘They must do something that makes them fat.’

‘Ah, well, my pet, it’s not so much what they do, as what they don’t do. You see what a lot of trouble it takes to keep you beautiful. Well, once you’re married, you
won’t need to be beautiful any more, will you?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘So naturally you’ll stop taking trouble. Then before you know it, you’re as fat as a badger.’

‘What’s it like being fat, Lunki?’

‘Oh, it’s not so bad, once you get used to it. You don’t feel the cold so much. And you’d be surprised how much extra time it gives you in the day.’

When the elaborate morning toilet was done, and Sisi’s long hair was braided and coiled, both she and Lunki took one last look at their joint creation, sighed with admiration, and lowered
the veil. All this time the carriage, in common with the rest of the caravan, had been in steady motion. But now the Johdila was dressed, Lunki pulled on the bell-rope, and the long line of
carriages heaved and rattled to a halt once more. It was time for Sisi’s dancing lesson.