Reluctant Concubine (3 page)

An evil land of backward people, where men wore women’s clothes and women wore men’s, where the sun shone without warmth, where a person could be bought and sold like a basket in the market.

My teeth chattered by the time we stopped in front of a hammered-iron door, bolted into the stone wall of an enormous building. The trader shouted for entry. We waited until a bent old man opened the door, holding it with gnarled fingers that were blackened at the tips. No eyelashes shaded his small eyes, his gaze sharp like the knar eagle’s, his mouth thin as a blade.

As he looked me over, my heart banged against my ribs, wanting to run away in panic and leave the rest of my doomed body behind. Then the man shuffled back and closed the door in our faces.

He does not want me.
I nearly sank to the ground with relief. 

The light feeling of having escaped a fate too horrible to contemplate lasted only a moment, for I realized what would happen next. I would be taken back to the market to be sold on the block with the others. Panic plowed into me with renewed strength, and I sank to the cold stones of the street.

But the door reopened, and a stunnningly beautiful woman appeared, in a sky-colored gown, tight on top but widening below the waist like the graceful bell of the lulsa flower. Rich embroidery decorated the cloth so thickly that I could hardly make out the underlying material.

She stood as delicate as the reeds of the bay, with large ebony eyes and skin like flower petals. A slender chain of gold encircled her slim waist, and from that hung a multitude of tiny figurines, chiming in magical harmony as she moved, small replicas of flowers, forest animals, and birds. On the woman’s head, a golden veil streamed from two brooches of precious gems.

“She is the healer?” Even her voice sounded like music.

The slave trader nodded with a sly, self-satisfied look.

The beautiful woman inspected me briefly, then held out a bag of crystals without asking about the price. This time, the man did not bargain.

I moved forward, my eyes misty with gratitude that she bought me. Her delicate, serene features reminded me of my mother. Once I told her of the misunderstanding, I knew she would return me to my people. I bent to kiss the hem of her gown, but before I could reach it, she kicked me.

Blinding pain seared through my head; then I heard the crack of my own skull as I bounced against the doorframe. I saw nothing but darkness, hearing her screech from far away as she called for her servants.

Rough hands closed around my ankles. My mind floated as if in a dream. They dragged me over the cold stone floor for hours, it seemed…

Then blessed darkness and peace.

I awoke on a pallet in a cavernous room that spun around me for a several nauseating moments. I closed my eyes. Opened them again. The walls settled.

Moonlight peeked in through rows of small holes high up near the ceiling—nine rows, hundreds of fist-sized holes in each, most covered in glass. Braziers stood against the wall here and there, coal glowing in them, pushing off heat. But still, goose bumps covered my skin.

Silence filled the room, barely ruffled by the delicate sounds of shallow breathing. Dozens of girls slept on the other pallets on the floor around mine—all younger than I.

I sat up. Pain throbbed through my body, my forehead aching the most, worse than when I had fallen from a numaba tree on my first climb. I lifted my fingers to my temple, and they came away sticky with blood.

I could not see any water jars in the room, so I grabbed the hem of my tunic and used my own spit to clean the wound, then dabbed a few drops of moonflower tears into the gash.

My legs folded as I pushed to stand, so I stayed on my hands and knees. My whole body shook, but I crawled among the sleeping girls, toward the giant door that stood an eternity away.

When I reached the door at last, I pushed against it gently, then a little harder, then with all my strength. The wooden panel refused me freedom with no more apology than a soft creak.

I sank against it and thought for a long time about my mother, our hillside, and the numaba trees. Then I crawled back to my bed of rags and cried myself to sleep.

* * *

Morning came too fast for night to have sufficiently eased the pain. The little windows showed only a dim light outside when a smaller door on the other end of the room, one I had not seen in the dark, flew open and banged against the wall.

The woman who had bought me strolled in, dressed in an embroidered red silk gown, followed by two servant women with torches. She gazed over the neat rows of girls as they stood with their heads bowed, then she walked to the middle of the room.

I rose to my knees but could not push all the way to standing. My body swayed from the effort; the light in the room seemed to dim. A small hand clamped on my arm and tugged me up, and even as I struggled to stand, the rows of girls before me parted like saplings bowing to the wind. Then that richly embroidered gown came into view, the color of fresh-spilled blood.

I lifted my gaze, finding neither recognition nor emotion in the woman’s eyes, not even when my knees buckled and I fell at her feet.

“You may take this morning to heal yourself.” Her voice was cold and clipped. She turned to the girl who had helped me. “You stay with her and prepare yourself for tonight.”

All the color washed out of the girl’s face as she bent her head even deeper. Faint whispers rippled through the room. Without another look at me, the woman gave instructions to the others, designating a myriad of chores with practiced ease.

Once she moved away, I could no longer hear her, her voice drowned by the rushing blood in my ears that sounded like waves crashing against the shore. The room began spinning again. I closed my eyes to stop it. When I opened them, the room stood empty, except for myself and the girl on the next pallet. Her shoulders shook as she cried, but then she caught me watching, and she wiped her eyes.

“I am Onra.” She swallowed the last sob. “Does your wound hurt?”

She had kind, water-colored eyes, reminding me of the sea at the inlet not far from our beach, the place where Jarim fished. Her hair, several shades lighter than mine, fell down her back in a heavy braid.

I reached to my forehead and felt the gap that still seeped. “I am Tera. Could you please tell me where I can find some clean water?”

She pushed to standing and padded to the door. I tried to follow, but she was already returning before my shaky limbs could carry me halfway across the room. I could have wept at the sight of a full bowl of water, more than I had been given on the ship the entire long trip.

“Thank you.” I drank deeply before beginning to wash my wounds.

I went on to wash the ship’s stench off the rest of my body, but Onra stayed my hand and removed the bowl, only to appear with clean water. She brought me yet a third bowl to wash my clothes. Still, it would have taken many more to wash away all the dirt, more than an ocean to make me feel clean again.

I wished I had something to give in return for Onra’s gift. Instead, I had to ask for more help. “I need to go outside to find—” I did not know the word in her language so I said it in mine. “Ninga beetle. Little bug that lives in water.”

She shook her head. “You have to stay here. New slaves get beaten worst. They say a good beating in the beginning saves lots of beatings later. You can find your bugs maybe tomorrow or after.”

I knew enough about wounds to know I should not wait. “Where do you go for water?”

“The clay jars outside the door.”

“How does water come into the jars?”

“The servants bring it from the creek at the end of the fields.”

“I need to go there. I need the beetles for this.” I pointed to the gash in my forehead.

After a moment, she rose to her feet. “I will go.”

“No.” I reached to pull her back. I wanted no harm to befall her because of me.

Her lips tugged into a sad smile. “I will not see the whip today. Kumra would not ruin my skin before tonight.”

She hurried through the door before I could ask what she meant.

She stayed away a long time, until I worried that maybe she had been stopped and beaten despite her reassurances. But then she appeared with a rag bunched in her shaking hands. She set the cloth in front of me and stepped back quickly, grimacing as I began to unfold the small package.

Her expression, a mix of fear and revulsion, betrayed how little she cared for the beetles, so I thanked her even more for the gift.

Three big ningas, flat as if hit by stone, rolled to the floor in front of me. I pressed my lips together. “I need them alive. I should have told you. I am sorry.”

Onra’s eyes widened as she stared at me.

I rose on shaking legs. “I will go.”

She drew a deep breath and pushed me down onto the jumble of rags that covered my pallet, then walked away again.

“I need small ones,” I called after her, wincing with embarrassment that I had to issue yet another request.

She gave me a tremulous smile from the doorway.

I sat as close as I could to the nearest brazier that still had some glowing lumps of coal, shivering in my wet clothes. I soaked up the heat for a while, then brought a clean bowl of water from outside the door, careful not to let anyone see me.

Onra stayed away longer this time. But she did return with a few squirming beetles, bundled tight in the rag once again. I lifted the first beetle and, watching my reflection in the mirror of the water, placed its pinchers against the edges of my wound, then squeezed its body.

The beetle sank its black pinchers into my skin, drawing the edges together. With a quick twist, I separated body from head, which would have held the pinchers firmly in place had I not pulled the body away too soon. I could not see enough in the water, my hand obstructing the view. I pulled the half-done pinchers out, wiped the blood, then started over.

Onra, who had been alternating between watching and glancing away in horror, pushed my hand down and picked up the second beetle, only to drop it again when it bit her.

“Like this.” I showed her how to place her fingers farther back on the hard shiny-black wings.

She drew a deep breath, then another, until her hands stopped trembling, then, beetle by beetle, closed my wound.

She had nearly finished by the time a servant woman entered the room with a small bowl. She looked at Onra for a long time with tears in her eyes, then set the bowl down inside the door and left as abruptly as she had appeared.

“Who was that?” I asked.

Onra dropped the last headless beetle on the pile, cleaned up the mess we had made, then padded over to bring us the bowl. She set the food, some kind of grain cooked in milk, in front of me.

“My mother,” she said in an emotion-filled whisper.

I thought of my mother, who had died and was buried somewhere in this land. I was closer to her than I had been for a long time. The thought comforted me a little.

I looked at the closed door. “Can you not go to her?”

“I will, after tonight.” Onra scooped some grain from the bowl with her fingers and lifted it to her mouth, motioning to me to do the same.

I did, and the food tasted better than anything I had had for a long time, although not as good as my mother’s cooking, which was now only a sweet memory.

“What will you do tonight?” I asked after I eased the worst of my hunger.

Onra’s eyes filled with tears. “Kumra chose me for our Warrior Lord, Tahar.”

“Is Kumra his lalka?” I used the word from my own language for wife as I did not know it in hers. “Mate for life.”

She shook her head. “My mother’s people too had that custom, but not the Kadar. Kumra is the favorite concubine.”

“Are you a concubine?”

A fat tear rolled down her face.

I wished I could call my words back. “Forgive me. I do not know your ways.”

She nodded, then pointed toward the room in a sweeping motion. “In Maiden Hall, all of us are slaves. When I reached womanhood, they moved me here from the Servant House for the pleasure of our Lord Tahar. A virgin’s blood increases a warrior’s valor, so he takes a girl often, and always before going off to war. For good luck.” She swallowed hard.

I sat still. “What happens to the virgins afterward?”

“A few who please him much, he keeps as concubines. They move to Pleasure Hall and no longer have to work with the servants.”

“And if you are not selected?”

“I will go to the Servant House.” She looked away. “And after that, any warrior who pleases can have me when he wants.”

I looked at her, stunned, thinking even death was preferable to that fate. “Maybe he will keep you.”

But she shook her head. “Kumra hates me, and Tahar listens to her. Even if he picked me and I moved to Pleasure Hall, I would be dead from some mysterious disease soon. That is Kumra’s way.”

My heart squeezed tightly. “Can we not escape?”

She grabbed my hand and held it, her watery eyes intent on mine. “You must never try. Tahar’s warriors are great hunters. When they catch you, you will die.”

I considered whether that might not be a better fate than this.

“I am scared,” Onra whispered after a moment.

“Is Tahar—”

“Not of Tahar. Of weakening. Of crying and bringing shame to our House. I am just a weak girl. Look at me. I have cried ten times today already.” She dropped her hands to her sides.

I could not understand how she could worry about bringing shame to anyone when unspeakable shame was being done to her. I began to ask but thought better of it. “You will not cry tonight.”

She looked at me with wet eyelashes that clumped together, her eyes begging. I did not know if I could give her what she needed, but I gave her what I could. “You might be a girl, but inside you are as brave as any warrior. Look at the battle you already won today.”

She waited.

“The battle of the beetles.”

The corner of her mouth tugged up as she wiped her eyes. “I will not forget you, Tera, even if I do not see you for a while.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed gently to turn me around, then combed through my hair with her slim fingers. “I will make your maiden’s braid.”