The Book of a Thousand Days (12 page)

It was a bold sight, camels and wagons and dozens of traders swathed in the brilliant white cloth of the desert lands. They uncovered their cargo to excite interest in buyers, and I caught glimpses of dye pots, porcelain bowls, bolts of silk, casks of honey, bags of sugar, skins of wine, and bricks of incense. The incense and the scented woods wafted a heavenly scent over us, and I walked as though in a dream. Performers rode atop the cargo, their heads bare and painted faces smiling. Later they'll show off their talents in the market to attract buyers to the goods. Acrobats, contortionists, storytellers with wild, strange accents--I wish I could see them perform.

We followed the caravan up the streets, past the wooden houses, merchant stalls, and animal pens, toward the city center where the buildings are made of stone. It wasn't long before my heart was going as fast as a rabbit's stomp. I was wondering if her khan would be in his house, if we'd see him that very hour. If he'd welcome her back, if he'd take her in and marry her at once. And what would happen to me then?

The streets were clean and straight, as different from the crooked, narrow lanes of Titor's Garden as

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my lady's face is from my own. And as I ached for a way to tell her where we really were, she said, "This is Song for Evela, isn't it?"

"Yes, my lady."

Her face wrinkled as though she were pained.

"Khan Tegus isn't plotting to kill you," I said. "I spoke with him in the tower, remember? He is goodness from boots to eyebrows, my lady, I could tell that, plain as plain. The tower sits heavily on you still, that's all. And the whispers --"

"I don't hear any whispers," she snapped. "I'm fine. I'm not afraid."

She walked tall, her hand on Mucker's back, her other arm in mine. She was trying to be brave, I could see. And it twisted my heart.

She didn't say another word for all those long, straight streets. Perhaps she felt buried in all that life. I certainly did. There were people everywhere--cooking in the street, shouting and chasing, throwing wash water out the window, fighting and kissing and eating and just talk, talk, talking. The smells! And the noise, like having your head stuck inside a wasp's nest. I'd forgotten that people were so loud, that they move around so much. They were beautiful, their eyes, their hands, their voices and laughs. It was many blocks through the city before I realized I'd

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been crying and I didn't even know why. Is that strange? I think Mama would understand. And maybe Khan Tegus.

Her khan's house was fat and square, with a roof five tiers high made of yellow and blue enamel tiles, grander even than my lady's house had been. How can anyone believe such a claim? And yet it's true. A throng of guards stood at posts all around, and more clustered about the gate. We tried to enter, but they stopped us and a little man in a deel too long for his feet asked us our business.

"Tell them who you are," I said.

"No," said my lady.

I spoke in her ear so the little man wouldn't overhear.

"Please, my lady. Tell them you are Lady Saren of Titor's Garden, betrothed of Khan Tegus. Tell them so you can be fit up like gentry and live as you should."

"No. And I forbid you to tell anyone who I am." She was looking around now like a hunted thing. "Lord Khasar would find me, or Khan Tegus would --"

"He won't hurt you, my lady! He'll protect you."

Her eyes were wet, her chin quivered. "What if he's not safe, as I once thought? No one is, but you." She gripped both my arms with her hands, like a bird clutches a branch.

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"I can't look after you forever," I whispered. "I don't have money or work, and I don't have status or clan. We're barely surviving, my lady. And come winter, we'll freeze and die without a gher. You're an honored lady. You need more than a mucker maid can give you. Please, tell them who you are."

My lady took a breath, turned to the little man, and said, "I'm a mucker."

Ancestors forgive me, but I think I cracked in half then. I turned my face into Mucker's neck and I cried and cried like a roof in the rain. I was so tired. Not just of walking or feeling hungry, or washing and keeping my lady. I was just tired of being Dashti, of breathing, of being alive.

Forgive me, Mama.

"What's going on here?" A white-haired woman approached the little man. I found out later that her name is Shria. "Who are these girls blocking the way?"

The little man cleared his throat as if to signal us to leave. I took a deep breath and felt my heart stutter and my sobbing dry up, and I knew I couldn't be broken any more than I was. There's some comfort in that. Mucker was lipping the laces on my boot, and I thought, I can get by, and I can find a way to keep my lady alive, but I promised poor Mucker he'd have a stable and a brush down at the end of our journey.

So I wiped my cheeks and told Shria, "I bring a

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gift for Khan Tegus. This is the best yak I've ever known. His name's Mucker."

The little man started to protest. "We don't buy animals from --"

"No, not buy. I want the khan to have him. It's an honest gift from a mucker girl."

It was a right stupid thing to do, I know, and as I sit here writing, I can't believe I was so thick-skulled as to give away our only possession. With no animal or tent, in a few months' time winter would whack us dead like a yak's tail slaps a fly. I might've traded him for employment at the least. But in that moment I only thought how much I loved that yak, what warm and happy company he had been for me when I thought all the world was dead, and how he deserved a stall like the kind her khan's house was sure to have. And a little I thought of her khan. He gave us My Lord the cat, who was the best cat who ever breathed. And though Khan Tegus never came back for us, I'd heard the sound of his soul through his voice, and I believe he's the kind of person who deserves the best yak in all the realms.

I kissed Mucker's nose and sang into his huge ear the song to ease parting, the one that goes, "Roads go straight and roads go on, my heart moves like the sun." A boy came to lead him away to promises of

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oats and that quickly Mucker was gone. I hadn't realized it would hurt to lose that yak, but I nearly gasped at the pain in my heart. Thank the Ancestors, Shria didn't give me the chance to think and mourn because she asked right quick, "Do you girls know kitchen work?"

I showed her my hands. She turned them over, felt for calluses.

"She's a good girl," she said to the little man. "Her face has the mark of bad luck, doesn't it? Even so, I'd bet my shoes she's a good girl."

"What about the other one?" The little man squinted at my lady.

I smelled hope in the air, and I snatched at it. "She's my clan sister, and we've survived in harsher living than most girls could imagine. Why, she's worth two of any city girl you can find."

I guess they believed me because here we are in her khan's house. Instead of placing my lady in a chamber of silk and pillows, as I'd hoped to do, she's sharing my blanket on the kitchen floor by the washing hearth.

Ancestors but I'm tired and kitchen work starts at dawn. I'll pay for this writing time tomorrow.

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Day 54

Though it's middle night, I'll write now because I never have other time. I'm used to recording my thoughts by the ghost light of fire, anyhow.

This kitchen is like a herd of wild horses for how it runs and runs and never stops but to sleep. My lady and I tend the wash fire, boil water, scrub pots, and wash aprons and rags. There are two other scrubber girls that share our fire, and we all sleep together before it, using the dirty rags for pillows, or one another's legs and bellies. I'll tell you somewhat of the other girls.

[Image: Picture of a Girl]

Gal is thirteen and our youngest. Her eyes are pale brown and so sad. She's from Goda's Second

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Gift, and her mother made her flee before Lord Khasar's armies arrived. Because of the mountain range to the west, she had to sneak southeast through Thoughts of Under and the ruins of Titor's Garden before finding safety here. She doesn't know where her family is or if they still live. At night, I hear her cry, but she's camel stubborn and won't let us comfort her. When she doesn't suspect what I'm about, I work close to her and sing the song for heartache. She's got a wicked tongue and quick temper and saves it all for my lady, who is a slow worker.

[Image: Picture of a Girl]

Qacha is eighteen like me, and what's more, she's a mucker! Her mama was in the city of Titor's Garden when Khasar attacked, but her papa survived, and he works in the stables. They have the same half day free each week and spend it outside the city walls,

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talking and hunting for roots and berries. We teach each other new songs and talk about the steppes. How she laughs! She laughs when she wakes, and laughs when they dump another load of washing before us, and laughs when Cook knocks her head with a spoon for spilling water.

I love Qacha like I love sunshine, but I don't seek her company more often than I must. When we laugh together, I see how my lady looks, her eyes cast down, as though she wishes she could curl up and cry.

I don't call her my lady in front of others, of course. Her name here is Sar, and she wears her braid down like all the scrubber girls. We say that she's my clan sister, since we don't look enough alike to claim the same mother. Clan sisters. Ancestors forgive me.

Day 60

This lie is making me feel heavy, as though all the world is under water and I can't run for its weight. I can't be a good scrubber because I'm looking after my lady. I can't be a good lady's maid because I'm scrubbing pots and rags. I'm failing at both and I hate it like I've never hated a thing in my life.

And my lady isn't well. She doesn't cry so often as

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she did on our journey, but she still hangs like a willow in leaf. Always she stays near me, seizing my arm or standing so close our sides touch. She looks about as if everything in the world had teeth and was planning to bite her. She weeps at night more than Gal.

"Is it the work, my lady?" I asked her tonight, when we were cracking soap from the block in the cellar.

"I'm tired," she said. "I don't like Cook. I want to go to sleep."

"You don't have to be a scrubber anymore, my lady. Your khan is the master here. Go to him and remind him of your powerful love."

She turned white and shook like a hare facing a hunter. I patted her face and shook her and prodded her with my toes, but she wouldn't agree, she just stood there, dumb and shaking. Ancestors pardon me, but I dumped wash water over her head.

My lady was angry. "Why did you do that?"

"To wake you up! To make you make sense. Tell me, my lady. Why won't you go to him? Why?"

"I don't want to say. You won't believe me. But I know it, I know they all want me dead. And if one doesn't kill me, the other will. Lord Khasar will come after me. He's a beast and he tears out the throats of goats with his teeth. I saw him."

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"Oh, my lady," I said, and turned my back so she couldn't see my expression. First she claimed Khan Tegus is plotting to kill her with arrows and knives and now Lord Khasar bites goats. In her mind, I don't think she's ever left the tower. She's still seeing things that aren't there.

Day 62

The girls at the next fire wash plates and platters and occasionally help Cook with the stirring. Sometimes they say things about us pot scrubbers, or about my mottled face and my lady's slowness. It makes Gal glare and Qacha hold her laughter. Maybe before the tower, such talk would have made me feel low, but I have no patience for it now. The world is far too beautiful to waste a moment on such nonsense. Even so, we four scrubber girls keep to ourselves.

Except there is one boy who's a cutter--that is, he cuts up vegetables, prepares meat, that sort of kitchen work. Well, he had some free time and he came and helped me scrub pots.

In

his free time

. Then today we caught eyes as we worked and he winked. I giggled about it with Qacha, but I don't know what to think. His name's Osol and he has loads of hair

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and a fine jaw. Maybe he hasn't noticed my skin splotches? How could he not notice? All the same, I keep the left side of my face turned away from him whenever I can.