Reluctant Concubine (12 page)

Resentment welled inside me, at Lord Tahar who had kept me as a slave and now gave me away like a measure of wheat, anger at the spirits who had abandoned me once more. I looked at the High Lord who would either take my body tonight or my freedom forever, or likely both, without a thought to my wishes.

I might have met him only that night, but I knew him all the same. He was a man who lived by his strength and probably despised compassion. He led his nation to war season after season. His people cared little about the ideals that were most important to mine. I had known his Palace Guard, and I had known his brother, and what I knew about them told me a lot about the High Lord. I had despised him before I ever set eyes on him, and now that he owned me, I despised him more.

The servants served the feast, tray after tray brought to the High Lord’s table after the small offering on Rorin’s stone altar. A servant woman stepped forth to sing, her bittersweet song of home and returning bringing tears to my eyes.

When she retreated, the oldest of Lord Tahar’s captains rose from the table to entertain the High Lord with gory battle tales. He spent much time on bragging about the number of enemy killed and the fierceness of the Kadar.

His eyes sparkled with excitement, his arms moving at times to demonstrate a crucial bit of swordplay. He moved with the agility of a seasoned warrior, his body fit and trim, although he was probably a grandfather, his hair already graying. He sat amid applause when the story ended but rose again after some cajoling to tell another.

He straightened his doublet and looked at the expectant faces around him. “At the beginning of time, the god Rorin fought a battle with some of the lesser gods who connived against him. And the sparks that flew from his sword in the fight became the stars in the sky. And thus was the world created.”

He drew a long swallow of mead before he went on, his voice ringing across the hushed hall. “After the fight, Rorin, for he was not without mercy, took the daughters of his enemies as his concubines. And as he claimed them one after the other, their virgin blood dripped down onto the land, and from this were born the first people of the Kadar.”

I shuddered at the thought of a nation born of blood. No wonder they thirsted for it still.

“No greater warriors lived than they. Their fame spread in the world, far from their homeland. So blessed were they with skill and courage that kings from distant nations came to ask for their help in battle. In the whole world, there were none their equal.”

The men around the table all nodded in agreement. Some even stomped their feet.

“But one day, their legendary exploits came to the attention of Noona, the dark sorceress.”

Faces around the table turned somber at the mention of the name. Charms jingled as the concubines grabbed for them.

“She worked with her minions to thrust into servitude the people of Torzab. She thought to make them her slaves and use their children in her sacrifices, but although many of them fell, others resisted her magic. And so she came to the Kadar High Lord, Brathar, to ask for his help in taking the land by force.”

I held my breath as I listened to this new tale I had not heard before, and I saw the people around the table holding theirs with me, for the captain told his story well, his voice rising and falling as the events required.

“But Brathar, wary of the sorceress, refused to help her and thus invoked her wrath. She called upon the darkness and brought forth great magic, and with it she stole the High Lord’s heart, and, as it was in his heart, his courage. And she cursed the House of Brathar, and from that day on one great ill after the other befell it, until most of his battles were lost, his sons killed, his concubines sick with a mysterious disease.”

Charms jingled anew as the concubines offered quick prayers to the goddesses.

“But Lukeeh, a powerful soothsayer, appealed to Rorin, and after much fasting and many sacrifices, the god told him that Noona had cursed the ground upon which the Kadar walked, so they drew the curse into themselves through the soles of their feet. Their afflictions would continue from generation to generation until they all perished.

“Lukeeh reported this to the High Lord and offered a solution. The Kadar must leave the land if they were to live.”

He paused again for another swallow of mead, then wiped his drooping mustache on his sleeve. “But if they all left, Noona would feel the breaking of the curse and follow them. So Lukeeh offered to stay behind.”

A couple of warriors around the table nodded in appreciation of such self-sacrifice and courage.

“And thus came our people to Dahru, a deserted island, through the Gate, and rebuilt our nation. And so we grew in wealth and fame to be greater than ever before.”

He sat down amid the men’s cheers.

I ignored that last bit about the “deserted island.” Everyone knew the Shahala came to Dahru first and the Kadar after us.

Although my body did not wish for it, I both ate and drank at the feast, still hoping I might get a chance to return to the kitchen for my small bundle and run away that night. Those thoughts so preoccupied my mind that I barely noticed the time passing, the High Lord standing to leave. I looked up only when his guards were suddenly around me.

I followed them to the same quarters Lord Gilrem had occupied before. The High Lord strode into the inner chamber while his guards settled into the outer room.

They were not the same men who had been here with Lord Gilrem, but I stayed as far away from them as I could, not trusting any. When High Lord Batumar motioned to me to enter his chamber, I did so, hoping he would ask me to heal some old injury, then send me on my way.

Kumra’s finery still decorated the chamber. The servants had cleaned the place for the High Lord and left trays of more food and drink, and a bowl of water to wash. He did look at the basin, then tugged off his tunic.

Old scars and new covered his skin, but he did not ask me to take the pain of any. In silence, he threw water into his face, his hair, onto his chest. I looked away, my mouth dry, my heart beating wildly in my chest, my glass phial clutched tightly in my fist. With every drop of blood within me, I feared him.

When he finished, he sat upon the bed and kicked off his boots. The furrows on his forehead deepened, exhaustion bracketing his crooked mouth. Even his scar seemed more pronounced.

He blinked his eyes closed briefly, looking like a battle-worn warrior and not at all like the most powerful lord of the land. He lay back on the covers, his great mane of hair spread upon his pillow.

I froze, but he did not even look at me.

I stood by the door, as far from him as possible.

“Serving me means no disloyalty to your Lord Tahar,” he said after a long moment.

“My loyalty is to the Shahala.”

He did turn to me then, his eyes darkening. “So you refuse a new master and pledge to stay loyal only to your own people?”

“I have no power to refuse a new master, as you well know, my lord,” I answered him, then lifted my chin. “But I shall stay loyal to my people until my dying breath.”

He watched me for several heartbeats before he turned away again. “You will not come to harm at my hands today,” he said and went to sleep.

My knees shook with sudden relief, but I did not waste time by waiting for them to stop. I turned to the door and opened it as quietly as I could. The guard outside shook his head, pushed me back inside, and closed the door behind me.

Defeat constricted my throat as I slid to the floor. If the High Lord had come the next day, I would have been gone. I could feel the soft shirl moss of the hillside under my feet, the breeze rushing through the woods, could almost hear the chowa birds and their song of freedom.

The spirits had seemed to desert me completely. Maybe they
had
decided to visit punishment on me for my great-grandmother’s sin. Maybe they could not forgive that the woman whose blood ran in my veins had tried to become a sorceress. 

I knew but one thing: I still had my own spirit, the one my mother had breathed into me at my birthing. And I would not let the Kadar steal that spirit. Not the Kadar, and not their High Lord, Batumar.

You will not come to harm at my hands today.
He had spoken the words without effort, straight like truth. I believed him, though the promise seemed strange. Not at his hands, he had said, but he did not promise not from anyone else in his command. And not today, but he did not pledge not ever. His words stood as much a warning as a promise. You have nothing to fear, he had said, as long as you do not go against my people or my will. 

But his will included taking me to his far-off Pleasure Hall in Karamur and keeping me there as his slave. And against that will I had to match my own.

I had left behind childhood when I had stepped on the slave ship. And I had changed more at the House of Tahar, had gained some strength of body and spirit. I hoped it would be enough for what awaited me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

(The Road to Karamur)

The weather had been growing milder for some time, but the day of our departure brought blustery northern winds.

After a morning meal of cold meats, boiled eggs, cheese, and bread served in the bedchamber, Batumar’s great procession assembled and flowed to the harbor of Kaharta Reh that seemed deserted compared to the day when I had arrived. Trade and other travel had slowed for the coldest season.

The winter storms had blown away the stench of the harbor. I could smell only the salty water in the air, untainted by the stink of rotting fish and masses of unwashed men arriving from long voyages.

The waves whipped high enough to wash over the quays that reached into the sea like giant wooden fingers. A handful of ships bobbed in the harbor, and I shuddered at the thought of another voyage in a dank cabin.

To my relief, we did not go to the water’s edge, but to a sprawling building. And from this building the warriors led forth the most monstrous animals I had ever seen. I stood frozen to the ground, as I knew what they were—manyinga beasts.

Many times the size of the largest warrior, shaggy brown fur covered the beasts everywhere but their eyes and the end of their agile trunks, on either side of which enormous tusks curved toward the sky. They moved with lumbering steps but obeyed their masters.

The men made the beasts kneel before them with nothing but a pat to the animals’ knees. The warriors strapped some kind of a fur-covered box on the back of each animal, then helped Tahar’s frightened servants secure large bundles of traveling supplies behind the strange boxes. When the servants scurried back to the House of Tahar, the warriors climbed the beasts. And then their manyinga stood.

My throat went dry at the sight.

Many Shahala farmers used lornis, horses the Kadar called them, for working the fields and carrying the crops to town. Sometimes they used lornis to travel, as the largest of them could easily carry the weight of a man. But when sitting on a lorni, a man’s feet nearly touched the ground. On top of a manyinga, Batumar and his warriors sat high up indeed, and I shuddered at the thought of one of their animals bolting.

Only one beast remained on its knees, waiting for its rider. With startled dismay, I realized it must be waiting for me.

My leg bones turned soft suddenly. I did not think I could go a step closer to the monstrous thing, let alone touch it or climb on. I remembered well what Keela had told me about the manyinga, how they could draw a person’s spirit right out of the body. Especially a woman’s.

At the time, her words had seemed silly superstition. Not now, however, that I had seen the beasts.

Then I caught the High Lord’s gaze on me.

A test? If so, why?
Kadar women did not ride.  

But I was not Kadar.

I drew a slow breath. If they were testing me, I would show them the courage of a Shahala. The Kadar knew only the courage of facing one’s enemy in battle and fighting to the death. I would show them the courage of facing one’s fears.

I gathered up every bit of strength within me, pulling all from the deepest secret places of my soul, from my mother’s memory, from the love of my people. I willed my knees to bend and put one foot before the other. I did not look at the Kadar, but straight at the manyinga. Its brown eyes, nearly as big as my head, looked back at me.

Eager for its prey?

My steps faltered, but I pressed on. The animal neither growled nor did it bare its teeth, which had to be enormous, of that I was certain.

I reached the beast at last and did not allow myself any hesitation but pushed my hands into its long fur and grabbed hold as I had seen the warriors do, aware that every eye fastened upon me.

The manyinga’s fur felt coarse and dirty under my fingers. And very real. Not at all like some magical beast.

I filled my lungs with cold sea air. My heartbeat slowed its mad race.

I planted my foot on the animal’s bent knee. It remained still as I climbed to the seat and sat upon the furs, then drew around me the cloak I had been given by one of the warriors at the High Lord’s command earlier. The wind coming off the sea seemed colder up that high.

I grabbed the seat and held tight with both hands, then braced myself for the swaying as the animal stood, but it remained on the ground. A minute passed before I realized the manyinga was waiting for a signal.

As I slid forward in my seat to pat its head, my knees touched the back of the animal’s ears. And with a low sound not unlike the groan of an old man, the beast rose to his feet.

I allowed a small smile of relief.

Contact with the manyinga had not brought instant death as Keela had led me to believe, and now that I sat atop the great monster, neither the height nor the slight swaying bothered me—no worse than the top of the numaba trees. I had climbed much higher in search of moonflowers, had hung on to branches shaking much more violently in the wind.

I finally dared to look around into a sea of astonished faces around me. Then from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a warrior striding from the stables, pulling a wooden contraption behind him, a strange cart, larger than I had ever seen.