Servants of the Sands, page 14
“It keeps humanity alive, Gria,” Cafad said. His vision hazed again, irritation surging toward anger. “Without the ha’reye, there would be no water here, no way to survive.”
“But from what you just told me, the only reason this entire area is desert is because of the ha’reye,” Gria pointed out. “They turned good land to wasteland because humans refused to do what they wanted. And humanity is serving them, so it’s in their best interests to keep us alive.”
“It’s more complex than that,” Cafad said, clipping the words tightly as a warning.
“Only because you’ve been living this way for hundreds of years, and it’s set in your heads as the right path,” Gria said, oblivious to the cues.
Seg cleared his throat. “The numaina is not accustomed to ibbit,” he said. “I suggest replacing her drink with water.”
Gria looked up at Seg, frowning. “Oh,” she said. “Azni warned me about that saying. I’m being rude?”
“Yes, numaina.”
“I’m sorry.” Gria set her cup arm’s length away from her. “I didn’t mean to offend, Lord Scratha.”
Cafad set his teeth together to restrain himself from voicing the first reply that came to mind. “I’d prefer water, myself,” he said instead. Once the kathain replaced the cups, he added, not even trying to gentle his tone: “Don’t discuss this with anyone else, Gria. Your status won’t protect you from everything.”
“Are you suggesting someone might kill me for speaking my mind?” she demanded.
Cafad pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think how to condense the multitude of unspoken, unwritten southern laws into something she would understand. At last he settled on: “Numaina... I would genuinely rather not find out.”
Chapter 19
Retiae was slender, with high cheekbones and tawny skin, dark eyes, dark hair—no, Riss corrected herself, a dark wig. Apparently the particular servant caste Retiae belonged to shaved their heads as a matter of course. That was reasonable enough, given the smothering heat, but then to cover her head with a thick wig made no sense to Riss at all.
It was also hard to remember that Retiae was a servant. She moved with a quiet, proud confidence that turned heads—male and female, which was a part of southern culture Riss still struggled to accept. Sexuality was regarded differently here; over the past days, she’d seen women embracing without an ounce of shame, men arm in arm and exchanging tender smiles. Nobody seemed to think it the slightest bit odd. And servants here rarely seemed deferential, as Riss would have expected. They all seemed so... so graceful. As though they considered themselves as noble as Lord Scratha himself.
Comparing herself to Retiae, Riss felt ugly, clumsy, fat, common, and very awkwardly northern. Her own pale hair and skin turned heads here more than at home; but the looks she received were suspicious and questioning, rather than admiring. Idisio scoffed that she was imagining things, when she’d told him about that. But he hadn’t even noticed how people looked at him: with a peculiar mixture of reverence and wariness.
For someone so perceptive, Idisio could be astoundingly oblivious at times.
Retiae stood still, gaze on the floor, hands folded across her stomach, waiting to be told what to do. Riss could have handled giving a servant orders, but this girl was more than a servant. She held a status that Riss simply couldn’t wrap her mind around.
Kathain handled a dizzying array of tasks, from making one’s bed to helping one dress to... more intimate services... but even though they were available to their masters, they weren’t to be considered in any way as whores, which made absolutely no sense to Riss. And this girl wasn’t merely a kathain. She was one of Lord Scratha’s personal kathain—which meant, if Riss understood properly, that the loan was a significant honor. It also meant she wasn’t to ask personal questions, or inquire about Retiae’s past in any way, which left Riss feeling helpless and hamstrung in the matter of getting to know the girl.
Riss was desperately minding her tongue in order to avoid asking just how Retiae—served—Lord Scratha. It was absolutely none of her business, and a rude question under any possible etiquette Riss could imagine. Still, the question burned in the back of her mind every time she looked at the girl.
“Lord,” Retiae murmured, her chin tucking a bit closer to her chest. “What would you have me do?”
Riss shook her head, bewildered. “I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m supposed to ask you to do, Retiae. And don’t call me lord. I’m no more noble than you are. I’ve never had a servant before.”
Retiae bent her knees in a bobbing sort of bow. “Lord,” she said. “With all apology for any offense—I am not a servant, lord.”
Riss put a hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Gods! I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t mean to insult you. Look—why don’t you just—there’s a room there, to the side, for you. Why don’t you go relax? Unpack. Make the room yours.”
Lord Scratha had insisted on moving Riss to ‘proper’ quarters, a suite that could accommodate her new kathain. “You’re going to be an ambassador,” he’d told her. “You need to start getting used to the proprieties.”
The size of the suite and the luxury of the furnishings bewildered Riss as much as the presence of her new servant—Kathain, it’s kathain, remember! Two rooms—three, counting the kathain’s room: one outer room for receiving guests, an inner room for sleeping. The two rooms held more furniture than Riss was accustomed to dealing with in an entire household: bed, clothes-chest, night-table, two large trunks—one in each room—chairs, a sideboard, a small cooking table, a low dining table, a high dining table, a reclining couch... The shelves on every wall held a ridiculous array of tiny artistic objects, flower arrangements, tiny paintings and boxes, candelabrum... She couldn’t possibly keep it all in her mind. It was beyond ridiculous. It was frightening.
Retiae bobbed at the knees again, and went away through the curtained-off doorway to her quarters, leaving Riss to stare around the room in bemusement.
Riss hoped she wouldn’t be moved again. The changes so far were overwhelming enough. The elaborately carved northern style chairs were dressed in such expensive, pristine fabrics that she found herself afraid to sit down. And the bed—gods, the bed! Large enough for five adults, and covered in sheets and blankets woven from the finest linen and silks. The pillows were enormous and densely stuffed with feathers.
Not for the first time, she wanted to run away, bolt back to the northlands, and return to the familiar, cramped, dirty life of a stable hand. She cringed just thinking about stepping on the fine, thick carpets with her bare feet, let alone getting into bed and smearing those gorgeous sheets with sweat and filth.
What had Lord Scratha been thinking? ‘Get used to the proprieties?’ How could she ever get used to living like this? How could anyone? It seemed completely beyond belief.
“Lord,” Retiae said softly, peeking out around the curtain. “I don’t wish to disturb you, lord, but....”
“What is it?” Riss motioned the girl to come back out, glad of the company for all that she’d just chased Retiae away. This room felt too big, too quiet, too wealthy.
“It’s nearly time for the afternoon meal, lord,” Retiae said. “I am expected to prepare the room for visitors who may stop by for light conversations.”
“It’s that late in the day?” Riss looked at the sunlight striping the walls, disoriented. The patterns fell differently than in her previous room. The room didn’t have proper windows. None of the rooms here did, for some strange reason, but mirrored tubes refracted sunlight down from above. Riss hadn’t even bothered trying to understand that part, let alone the faint breeze that seemed to constantly circulate here, even in closed-off rooms.
Retiae cleared her throat. “Nobles take meals at a different schedule than you may be accustomed to, lord,” she said diffidently. “A meal before sunup, a light meal before midday, another light meal after midday, tea towards late afternoon, and a heavier meal after sundown. And sometimes a light tea after dinner.”
“That’s a lot of meals,” Riss observed. “What if nobody stops by? What if they stop by and I’m not here?”
“The afternoon meal is the only appropriate time for unplanned visits,” Retiae said. “Other mealtimes require formal invitation and prior planning. As for being elsewhere, there are not many places you could be, lord, given the limited number of residents at the moment. In a more populated Fortress, you would have at least two kathain: one to remain behind and direct callers as required.” She bobbed at the knees, looking apologetic. “If I may prepare, lord?”
“Yes, of course, go ahead,” Riss said. “Tell me if I can—” She stopped herself from saying help with anything. “Thank you, Retiae,” she finished, rather glumly.
Retiae bobbed again and set about her work. Unpacking the contents of a large chest in one corner of the room, she quickly transformed the low, round table into an astoundingly beautiful sight. From the carefully draped white covering to the small silver teapot perched atop an equally tiny silver tray, from the precise placement of the cups to the spray of white flowers she’d found somewhere—gods only knew where, the flowers appeared while Riss had been looking elsewhere. It was a presentation fit for a king. Two pale blue sitting cushions, carefully brushed off and fluffed, gave an exotic slant to the matter.
“That’s amazing, Retiae,” Riss said, staring. “I watched you do all that and I still don’t know how you did it.”
Retiae flashed her a shy smile. “I’m kathain, lord,” she said. “This is part of what I’m trained to do. And I enjoy it, lord.” She ducked her head, expression sobering. After packing away the unused things she’d taken from the trunk, she went to the cooking table to heat water. “If I might, lord,” she added a few moments later, “You may want to... make your own preparations, perhaps? Just in case someone stops by?”
“What do you—” Riss stopped and looked down at herself. She was in trousers and a loose shirt, a sensible enough choice that morning. But now, with midafternoon heat creeping in, the shirt displayed more than one sweat stain, and the trousers had a previously unnoticed tear. “Oh. Thank you.” She took a step toward the bedroom, then hesitated. “I don’t—Retiae, I don’t really have much else. There’s that dress I wore to the Conclave dinner, but that’s a little overly formal for an afternoon meal, isn’t it?”
“I believe there is a selection of appropriate clothing for you in your room, lord. In the wardrobe.”
Riss stared at the girl, astonished all over again. “In my size?” she demanded. “How long has Lord Scratha been planning this?”
Retiae ducked her head, but Riss caught the flash of a smile. “I believe Lord Scratha was acting on impulse, lord,” she said. “But—well, it’s a relatively simple matter, when taking your laundry, to measure the fit. And adjusting the seams throughout your pregnancy won’t be difficult. Household servants are accustomed to planning ahead.” She cleared her throat. “There should also be an ewer of water near your bed, if you feel the need to wash up, lord. You need not worry about being ready before any visitors arrive—I can entertain anyone who drops by for a short while.” A bit belatedly, she added, “It is better for a noble lady not to rush. Lord.”
“You don’t have to call me that every other sentence,” Riss said. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t call me that at all. I’m truly not noble-born.” She tried not to think about that entertain anyone comment, and what it might involve. Gods, not in my sitting room, please! There seemed no polite wording for that sentiment, so she left it alone.
“Lord Scratha is not noble-born either,” Retiae said.
“He’s not?”
“No, lord,” Retiae said. “His status as the only surviving desert lord sworn to Scratha Fortress is what gains him the right to his position, nothing more. No disrespect meant, lord.” She ducked her head and bit her lip, color rising sharply to her face. “Lord Scratha is an entirely worthy Head of Family.”
“Right. Of course. Yes. Uhm—I’ll just—go change. Be right out,” Riss said, and escaped to the inner room before she could start blurting out all the new questions clamoring through her mind.
Chapter 20
Desert sunsets, in Azni’s opinion, made even the glorious evenings of a Bright Bay summer pale into blandness. The colors seemed more vivid here, with sharper separations and greater variation in hue. Clouds hovered immediate and solid, so close she fancied that a good stretch from atop her perch high atop a column of rock would have her hands buried in fluffy damp.
Fancies were safer here, at the edge of Scratha land. Ha’reye were lazy creatures, and this one had retreated into the equivalent of a doze—a bit resentfully, perhaps, but that was only her own, very human interpretation of the matter. Before leaving, Deiq warned her: Don’t expect it to think like a human. Don’t put human motives or emotions on it. Above all, don’t confuse it with petty requests or foolish demands. Leave it alone, let it be, as much as possible. Sit on Scratha. Make him be quiet for once in his life.
She hadn’t needed that warning, but Deiq, as usual, assumed her—a flawed desert lord, a foolish Aerthraim—to be ignorant. His arrogance was infuriating at the best of times. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to deal with him again anytime soon.
Or ever, come to that. A lifetime of not seeing that smug, all-knowing smirk he affected sounded lovely.
High overhead, predator birds wheeled in long, slow circuits. Desert beetles began clacking and chittering as they spilled out across the cooling sands, taking advantage of that brief time when the scorching heat died but the frozen chill of night hadn’t yet set in. Fist-sized horse beetles ate fingertip-sized sand beetles. Groups of tiny red ants swarmed a proportionately enormous rock beetle, reducing it to chitin in the space of a few human breaths. In the shade of a gigantic sage bush, sand snakes and blood spiders hunted tiny grey voles and tinier speckle-coated mice.
She looked south. That dark smudge still clung to the horizon. Worrisome, whether storm or smoke. She’d have to see about finding a distance glass and take a look from the top of the guard tower when she returned to Scratha Fortress. For now, she let it go and focused on immediate impressions: the rock beneath her rump cooling slowly, steadily, as the land around her scurried into rapid-moving life. Normal life. That was reassuring. There was enough water for sage bushes and mice, for birds and beetles.
That was good.
Farther in, closer to the Fortress itself, smoke would be turning invisible in the darkening air, torches would be flaring in courtyards and lanterns in the inside rooms. Chickens and messenger-birds would be crying out for the evening meal, and the cooks would be finishing up dinner for the human occupants of the Fortress.
Closer to the Fortress proper, there would be life. There would be moisture in the air and in the ground. As there was here, in the fifty-mile-wide neutral zone that buffered Scratha and Sessin Families from the boundary feuds F’Heing and Darden delighted in. Life went on around her with blithe indifference to the silence so close at hand. Azni even thought she might be breathing easier here than on Scratha lands, which might have been unrecognized tension easing, or merely another fancy. But on Scratha lands proper—
—nothing.
Since seeing Sela across the boundary, Azni had explored a good ten miles of neutral zone, astonished—and increasingly frightened—over the delineation: a quarter-mile, a half-mile at most, for all water to fade from the land, replaced by unnaturally desiccated desert.
It hadn’t been this dry on her way in. Desert, yes; but not this... this dead. And the wells, like the one at the campsite, were uniformly dry. They offered a muddy trickle at best.
Cafad wasn’t going to be happy with this news. He would, more than likely, provoke a confrontation with Scratha ha’rethe. He would be far from quiet, in any sense of the word.
Azni wondered if Deiq had known that the water was vanishing from the land, and he simply hadn’t said anything. He was leaving, after all, so what did the concerns of a handful of inconvenient humans matter?
It seemed almost too much cruelty to ascribe to him, but he did have a history of savage indifference to the concerns of tharr and desert lords alike. A long and remarkably bloody history, one small chapter of which destroyed a double handful of the most brilliant healers ever to serve the Aerthraim ketarch.
His presence alone would have made Aerthraim Family refuse to attend Scratha Conclave, Azni guessed. But then again, her presence would have the same effect these days—
Even at the farthest edge of Scratha lands, she needed to be careful about brooding. Time to distract herself with movement. Blinking to reset her vision in the fast-darkening twilight, she stood up to begin working her way down the narrow, steep path.
“Azni,” someone said softly from below.
She jerked round, loose gravel turning underfoot, and almost fell. Just in time, she caught herself, sharply aware of how close the edge lay, and steadied her stance.
“Don’t come up,” she said, at a movement below. “There’s only room enough for one.”
“I know. Come down, Azni. Please. We need to talk.”
She stood still, staring at the lean form waiting at ground level, then shrugged and scrambled down to join him, her light pack shifting and swinging against her back. “What do you want, Irrio?” she said. “You’re supposed to be well and truly off Scratha lands. And where are your trainees?”
“Sleeping,” Irrio replied with the ghost of a laugh. “Come on—there’s an abandoned village not far away, well into the neutral zone. Not the one you were thinking of just now—a different one. In better repair.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, striving not to show her annoyance. For proper desert lords, reading each other’s surface thoughts was so commonplace as to be unremarkable. Only her years of isolation and her—handicap—made it an irritant. “It’s abandoned? From what? Disease?”
