The Hada~d'in~Mozan
The greatest offspring of Void and Light was Daystar, and by his
shining all was better known and the songs had new shapes. And in
this new light Daystar found Bird Mother and together they engendered
many things, children, and music, and ideas.
But all beginnings contain their own endings.
When the Song of All was much older, Daystar lost his own song and
went away into the sky to sing only of the sun. Bird Mother did not die,
though her grief was mighty, but instead she birthed a great egg, and from
it the beautiful twins Breeze and Moisture came forth to scatter the seeds of
living thought, to bring the earth sustenance and fruitfulness.
— from One Hundred Considerations out of the Qar's Book of Regret
A
STORM SWEPT IN from the ocean in the wake of the setting sun, but although cold rain pelted them and the little boat pitched until Briony felt quite ill, the air was actually warmer than it had been on their first trip across Brenn's Bay. It was still, however, a chilly, mis¬erable jouney
Winter, Briony thought ruefully. Only a fool would lose her throne and be forced to run for her life in this fatal season. The Tollys won't need to kill me-/ // probably drown myself or simply freeze. She was even more worried about Shaso soaking in the cold rain so soon after his fever had broken, but as
usual the old man showed less evidence of discomfort than a stone statue, That was reassuring, at least: if he was well enough for his stiff-necked pride to rule him, he had unquestionably improved.
By comparison, the Skimmer girl Ena seemed neither to be made mis¬erable by the storm nor to bear it bravely-in fact, she hardly seemed to notice it. Her hood was back and she rowed with the ease and careless¬ness of someone steering a punt through the gentle waters of a summer¬time lake. They owed this Skimmer girl much, Briony knew: without her knowledge of the bay and its tides they would have had little hope of escape.
J shall reward her well. Of course, just now the daughter of Southmarch's royal family had nothing to give.
The worst of the storm soon passed, though the high waves lingered. The monotony of the trip, the continuous pattering of rain on Briony's hooded cloak and the rocking of the swells, kept dropping her into a dreamy near-sleep and a fantasy of the day when she would ride back into Southmarch, greeted with joy by her people and… and who else? Barrick was gone and she could not think too much about his absence just yet: it was as though she had sustained a dreadful wound and dared not look at it until it had been tended, for fear she would faint away and die by the road¬side without reaching help. But who else was left? Her father was still a prisoner in far-off Hierosol. Her stepmother Anissa, although perhaps not an enemy if her servant's murderous treachery had been nothing to do with her, was still not really a friend, and certainly no mother. What other peo¬ple did Briony treasure, or even care about? Avin Brone? He was too stern, too guarded. Who else?
For some reason, the guard captain Ferras Vansen came to her mind- but that was nonsense! What was he to her, with his ordinary face and his ordinary brown hair and his posture so carefully correct it almost seemed like a kind of swagger? If she recognized now that he had not been as guilty in the death of her older brother as she had once felt, he was still nothing to her-a common soldier, a functionary, a man who no doubt thought lit¬tle beyond the barracks and the tavern, and likely spent what spare time he had putting his hands up the dresses of tavern wenches.
Still, it was odd that she should see his thoughtful face just now, that she should think of him so suddenly, and almost fondly…
Merolanna. Of course-dear old Auntie 'Lanna! Briony's great-aunt would be there for any triumphant return. But what must she be feeling now?
Briony abruplly felt a kind of panic steal over her. Poor Auntie! She must be mad with grief and worry, both twins gone, the whole order of life over¬turned, but Merolanna would persevere, of course. She would hold together lor the sake of others, for the sake of the family, even for the sake of Olin's newborn son, Anissa's child. Briony pushed away a pang of jealousy. What else should her great-aunt do? She would be protecting the Eddons as best she could.
Oh, Auntie, I will give you such a hug when I come back, it will almost crack your bones! And I'll kiss your old cheeks pink! You will be so astonished! The duchess would cry of course-she always did for happy things, scarcely ever for sad. And you'll be so proud of me. "You wise girl," you'll say to me. "Just what your father would have done. And so brave…!"
Briony nodded and drowsed, thinking about that day to come, so easy to imagine in every way except how it might actually come to pass.
They reached the hilly north Marrinswalk coast just as the rising sun warmed the storm clouds from black to bruised gray, rowing across the empty cove to within a few yards of the shore. Briony bunched the home¬spun skirt Ena had given her around her thighs and helped the Skimmer girl guide the hull up onto the wet sand. The wind was stingingly cold, the saltgrass and beach heather along the dunes rippling as if in imitation of the shallow wavelets frothing on the bay.
"Where are we?" she asked.
Shaso wrung water out of his saggy clothes. Just as Briony had been clothed in Ena's spares, he wore one of Turley's baggy, salt-bleached shirts and a pair of the Skimmer's plain, knee-length breeches. As he surveyed the surrounding hills, his leathery, wrinkled face gaunt from his long impris¬onment, Shaso dan-Heza looked like some ancient spirit dressed in a child's castoff clothing. "Somewhere not far from Kinemarket, I'd say, about three or four days' walk from Oscastle."
"Kinemarket is that way." Ena pointed east. "On the far side of these hills, south of the coast road. You could be there before the sun lifts over the top."
"Only if we start walking," said Shaso.
"What on earth will we do in Kinemarket?" Briony had never been there, but knew it was a small town with a yearly fair that paid a decent amount of revenue to the throne. She also dimly remembered that some river passed through it or near it. In any case, it might as well have been
named Tiny or Unimportant as far as she was concerned just now. "There's nothing there!"
"Except food-and we will need some of that, don't you think?" said Shaso. "We cannot travel without eating and I am not so well-honed in my skills that I can trap or kill dinner for us. Not until I mend a bit and find my legs, anyway."
"Where are we going after that?"
"Toward Oscastle."
"Why?"
"Enough questions." He gave her a look that would have made most people quail, but Briony was not so easily put off.
"You said you would make the choices, and I agreed. I never said that I wouldn't ask why, and you never said you wouldn't answer."
He growled under his breath. "Try your questions again when the road is under our feet." He turned to Ena. "Give your father my thanks, girl."
"Her father didn't row us." Briony was still shamed that she had argued with the young woman about landing at M'Helan's Rock. "I owe you a kindness," she told the girl with as much queenly graciousness as she could muster. "I won't forget."
"I'm sure you won't, Lady." Ena made a swift and not very reverent courtesy.
Well, she's seen me sleeping, drooling spittle down my chin. I suppose it would he a bit much to expect her to treat me like Zoria the Fair. Still, Briony wasn't entirely certain she was going to like being a princess without a throne or a castle or any of the privileges that, while she had been quick to scorn them, she had grown rather used to. "Thanks, in any case."
"Good luck to you both, Lady, Lord." Ena took a step, then stopped and turned around. "Holy Diver lift me, I almost forgot-Father would have had me skinned, stretched, and smoked!" She pulled a small sack out of a pocket in her voluminous skirt and handed it to Shaso. "There are some coins to help you get on with your journey, Lord." She looked at Briony with what almost seemed pity. "Buy the princess a proper meal, perhaps."
Before Briony or Shaso could say anything, the Skimmer girl scooted the wooden rowboat back down the wet sand and into the water, then waded with it out into the cove. She swung herself onto the bench as gracefully as a trick rider vaulting onto a horse; a heartbeat or two later the oars were in the water and the boat was moving outward against the wind, bobbing on each line of coursing waves.
Briony stood watching as the girl and her boat disappeared. She sud-denly felt very lonely and very weary.
"A reliable thing about villages, or cities for that matter," said Shaso sourly, "is that they will not walk to us." He pointed across the dunes to the hills and their ragged covering of bushes and low trees. "Shall we begin, or do you have some pressing reason for us to keep standing here until some¬one notices us?"
She knew she should be grateful his old fire was coming back, but just now she wasn't.
His vinegary moment seemed to have tired Shaso, too. He kept his head down and didn't talk as they walked over the cold dunes toward a path that ran along the beginning of the hills.
Briony had at first wished to pursue the question of why they were going to Oscastle, Marrinswalk's leading city but still a bit of a backwater, and what his plans were when they reached the place, but she found her¬self just as happy to save her strength for walking. The wind, which had first had been steadily at their backs, now swung around and began to blow full into their faces with stinging force, making every step feel like a climb up steep stairs. The heavy gray clouds hung so low overhead it almost seemed to Briony she could reach up and sink her fingers into them. She was grate¬ful for the thick wool cloaks the Skimmers had given them, but they were still damp with rainwater and Briony's felt heavy as lead. Her court dresses, for all their discomforts, suddenly did not seem so bad: at least they had been dry and warm.
After perhaps an hour Briony began to see signs of habitation-a few crofters' huts on hilltops, surrounded by trees. Some had snioke swirling from the holes in their roofs, or even from crooked chimneys, and Briony broke her long silence to ask Shaso if they could not stop at one of them for long enough to get warm again.
He shook his head. "The fewer the people, the greater the danger some¬one will remember us. Hendon Tolly and his men have no doubt begun to wonder whether we might have left the castle entirely, and soon they will be asking questions in every town along the coast of Brenn's Bay. We are an unusual pair, a black-skinned man and a white-skinned girl. It is only a matter of time until someone who's seen us meets one of Hendon's agents."
"But we'll be long gone!"
"We have to hide somewhere. Do you really want to tell the Tollys they
can stop searching the castle and all the rest of the surrounding lands and concentrate on just one place-like Marrinswalk?"
Thinking of a troop of armed men beating the countryside behind them made Briony shudder and walk faster. "But someone will have to see us eventually If we go to Oscastle or some other city, I mean. Cities are full of people, after all."
"Which is our best hope. Perhaps our only hope. We are less likely to be noticed somewhere there are many people, Highness-especially where there are people of my race. And that is enough talk for now."
They followed the track down the edge of a wide valley. When they reached the broad river that meandered at its bottom, Shaso decided that they could at least take time to drink. They also encountered a few more houses, simple things of unmortared stone and loose thatching, but still so scattered that Briony doubted any man could see his neighbor's cottage even in full daylight with a cloudless sky. A goat bleated from the paddock behind one of them, probably protesting the cold day, and she realized that it was the first homely sound she had heard for hours.
They passed by several small villages as the hours passed but entered none of them, and reached Kinemarket by late morning, crossing over at a place where the river narrowed and some work by the locals had turned a lucky assembly of stones into a bridge. Kinemarket was a good-sized, pros¬perous town, with the turnip shape of a temple dome visible above its low walls. Shaso decided he should stay hidden in the trees outside town while Briony went to buy food with a coin from the purse Turley had pro¬vided-a silver piece with the head of King Enander of Syan, a coin so small that Briony felt sure almost half of its original metal had been shaved off. She was guiltily aware of having once declared that not only should coin-clippers be beaten in the public square, but that those who helped them pass their moneys should suffer the same punishment. It seemed a lit¬tle different now, when someone else had already done the shaving and she needed the coin to buy food.
"Here-rub a little more dirt on yourself first." Shaso drew a line of grime on her face. She tried to back away. "Go, then, do it yourself. You've a head start on it, anyway, from the morning's walk."
She rubbed on a bit more, but as she made her way up the muddy track toward the town gate, hoping to lose herself in the crowd of people going to the market, she began to fear she and Shaso had given too little thought
to disguising her identity. Surely even the oft-mended homespun dress and a few smears of dirt on her cheeks would not fool many people! Her face, she realized with a strange sort of pride, must be better known than any other woman's in the north. Now, though, being recognized could be deadly.
And although she tried not to meet their eyes, the first folk she passed on her way to the gate did look her over slowly and mistrustfully, but she realized after a moment that this man and woman were doing so only be¬cause most of the other travelers were dressed and clean for market: Briony was a dirty stranger, not a typical stranger.
"The Three grant you good day," said the woman. She held her gape-mouthed child tightly, as though Briony might steal it. "And a blessed Or-phanstide to you, too."
"And you." The greeting startled her-Briony had almost forgotten the holidays, since it had been on Winter's Eve that her world had fallen com¬pletely into pieces. There certainly hadn't been any new year's feasting or gifts for her, and now it must be only a tennight or so until Kerneia. How strange, to have lost not just a home but an entire life!
She did not turn to watch the man and woman after they passed, but she knew that they had turned to look at her, doubtless wondering what kind of odd thing she was.
Go ahead and whisper about me, then. You cannot imagine anything near so strange as the truth.
Worried about attracting any kind of attention at all, she decided not to continue to the market, but passed through the gate and briefly into the bustle of the crowd on the main thoroughfare before turning down a nar¬row side street. She stopped at the first ramshackle house where she saw someone out in front-a woman wrapped in a heavy wool blanket scatter¬ing corn on the puddled ground, the chickens bustling about at her feet as though she were their mother hen.
The householder at first seemed suspicious, but when she saw the silver piece and heard Briony's invented story of a mother and younger brother out on the coast road, both ill, she bit her lip in thought, then nodded. She went into her tall house, which crowded against its neighbors on either side as if they were choristers sharing a small bench, but conspicuously did not ask Briony to follow her. After some time she reappeared with a hunk of hard cheese, a half a loaf of bread, and four eggs, not to mention several children trying to squeeze past her wide hips to get a look at Briony. It
didn't seem a lot of food, even for a shaved fingerling, but she had to admit that what she knew about money had to do with much larger quantities, and the prices with which she was familiar were more likely to be the ac¬counts for feeding an entire garrison of guards. She stared at the woman for a moment, wondering whether she was being dealt with honestly, and re¬alized this was perhaps the first person she had ever met in her life who had no idea of who she was, the first person who (as far as this woman knew) owed her nothing in the way of respect or allegiance. Briony was further shocked to realize that this drab creature draggled with children, this brood-mother with red, wind-bitten face and mistrust still lurking in her eyes, was not many years older than Briony herself. Chastened, she thanked the young woman and wished her the blessing of the Three, then headed back toward the gate and the place outside the walls where Shaso waited.
And, it suddenly came to her, not only had no one recognized her, it was unlikely anyone would, unless they were Hendon's troops and they were al¬ready looking for her: in all of Marrinswalk only a few dozen people would know her face even were she wearing full court dress-a few nobles, a mer¬chant or two who had come to Southmarch Castle to curry favor. Here in the countryside she was a ghost: since she could not be Briony, she was no one.
It was a feeling as humbling as it was reassuring.
Briony and Shaso ate enough cheese and bread to feel strengthened, then they began to walk again. As the day wore on they followed the line of the coast, which was sometimes only a stone's throw away, other times invisible and completely absent but for the rumble of the surf. The valley walls and trees protected them from the worst of the chilly wind. They slipped off the road when they heard large traveling parties coming and kept their heads down when they couldn't avoid passing others on the road. "How far to Oscastle?" she asked Shaso as they sat resting. They had just finished scrambling up a wet, slippery hillside to go around a fallen tree that blocked the road and it had tired them both.
"Three days or more," Shaso said. "But we are not going there."
"But Lawren, the old Earl of Marrinscrest, lives there, and he would…"
"Would certainly find it hard to keep a secret of your presence, yes." The
old man rubbed his weathered face. "I am glad to see you are beginning to
think carefully." He scowled. "By the Great Mother, I cannot believe I am
so tired. Some evil spirit is riding me like a donkey."
"The evil spirit is me," liriony said."I was the one who kept you locked up for all that time-no wonder you are tired and ill."
He turned away and spat. "You did what you had to do, Briony Eddon. And, unlike your brother, you wished to believe I was innocent of Kendrick's murder."
"Barrick thought he was doing what had to be done, too." A flood of pain and loneliness swept through her, so powerful that for a moment it took her breath away. "Oh, I don't want to talk about him," she said at last. "If we're not going to Oscastle, where are we going?"
"Landers Port." He levered himself up to his feet, showing little of his old murderous grace or speed. "A grand name for a town that never saw King Lander at all, but only one of his ships, which foundered off the coast on the way back from Coldgray Moor." Shaso almost smiled. "A fishing town and not much more, but it will suit our needs nicely, as you will see."
"How do you know all this about Lander's ships and Coldgray Moor?"
His smile disappeared. "The greatest battle in the history of the north? And me master of arms for Southmarch? If I did not know any history, then you would have had a reason to hang me in irons in the stronghold, child."
Briony knew when it was a good time to hold her tongue, but she did not always do what was best. "I only asked. And merry Orphanstide to you, too. Did you enjoy your breakfast?"
Shaso shook his head. "I am old and my limbs are sore. Forgive me."
Now he had managed to make her feel bad again. In his own way, he was as difficult to argue with as her father could be. And that thought brought another pang of loneliness.
"Forgiven," was all she said.
By late afternoon, with Kinemarket far behind them and the smell of smoke rising from the cottages they passed, Briony was hungry again. They had sucked the meat from the eggs long before, but Shaso had kept back half the bread and cheese for later and she was finding it hard to think about anything except eating. The only rival to food was imagining what it would be like to crawl under the warm, heavy counterpane of her bed back home, and lie there listening to the very wind and rain that were now making her day so miserable. She wondered where they were going to sleep that night, and whether Shaso was saving the last rind of the cheese for their dinner. Cold cheer that would make.
Look at me! I am a pampered child, she scolded herself. Think ‹›/ Barrick',
wherever he is, on a cold battlefield, or worse. Think of Taiher in a stone dungeon. And look at Shaso. Three days ago, he was in chains, starving, bleeding from his iron manacles. Now he is exiled because of me, walking by my side, and he is forty years or more my elder!
All of which only made her more miserable.
The path they had been following for so long, which had never been anything more than a beaten track, now widened a bit and began to turn away from the coast. The cottages now were so thickly set that they were clearly approaching another large village or town-she could see the life of the place even at twilight, the men coming back from the rainy fields in their woolen jackets, each one carrying some wood for the fire, women calling the children in, older boys and girls herding sheep to their paddocks. Everyone seemed to have a place, all under the gods' careful order, homes and lives that, however humble, made sense. For a moment Briony thought she might burst into tears.
Shaso, however, did not stop to moon over rustic certainties, and had even picked up a little speed, like a horse on the way back to the barn for its evening fodder, so she had to hurry to keep up with him. They both kept their hoods close around their faces, but so did everyone else in this weather; people going in and out of the riverside settlements scarcely even looked up as they passed.
The path wound up the side of the valley, the river now only a murmur in the trees behind them, and Briony was just beginning to wonder how they would walk without a torch on this dark, rain-spattered night, when they reached the top of the valley and looked down on the marvelous lights of a city.
No, not a city, Briony realized after a dazzled moment, but at least a sub¬stantial, prosperous town. In the folds of the hills she could see half a dozen streets sparkling with torches, and more windows lit from within than she could easily count. Set against the great, darkness behind it the bowl of lights seemed a precious thing, a treasure.
"That is the sea, out there," said Shaso, pointing to the darkness beyond Landers Port. "We have worked our way around to it again. The track is wide here, but be careful-it is marshland all about."
Still, despite the boggy emptiness on either side, they walked quickly to take advantage of the fast diminishing twilight. Briony was buoyed by a sudden optimism, the hope that at the very least they would soon be put¬ting something in their stomachs and perhaps getting out of the rain as
well, It was an altogether different matter, this unrelenting drizzle, when one had only to cross a courtyard or, at worst, Market Square-and she had been seldom allowed to do even that without a guardsman holding his cloak above her. But here in the wilderness, with drops battering the top of her head all day like a fall of pebbles and soaking her all the way to her bones, the rain was not an inconvenience but an enemy, patient and cruel.
"Will we stay at an inn, then?" she asked, still half-wishing they could stop in the comfortable house of some loyal noble, risks be damned. "That seems dangerous, too. Do you think no one will remark on a black-skinned man and a young girl?"
"People might remark less than you think," Shaso said with a snort. "Landers Port may never have seen the old king of Syan, but it is a busy fishing town and boats land every day from all parts of Eion and even be¬yond. But no, we will not be stopping in a tavern full of gossips and layabouts. We might as well announce our arrival from the steps of the town's temple."
"Oh, merciful Zoria," she said, knowing that going on about it only made her seem a pampered child, but at this moment not caring. "It's to be another shack, then. Some fisherman's hut stinking of mackerel, with a leaking roof."
"If you do not stop your complaining, I may arrange just such a lodg¬ing," he said, and pulled his cloak tighter against the rain.
Full night had fallen and the city gate was closing, the watchmen bawl¬ing curses at the stragglers. In the undifferentiated mass of wet wool hoods and cloaks, the jostling of people and animals, Briony and Shaso did not seem to attract much notice, but she still held her breath while the guards at the gate looked them over and did not let it out until they were past the walls and inside.
The old man took her by the arm, pulling her out of the crowd of late¬comers and down a tiny side-alley, the houses so close that their upper lev¬els seemed about to butt each other like rams in spring. Briony could smell fish, both fresh and smoked, and here and there even the aroma of fresh bread. Her stomach twisted with desire, but Shaso hurried her down dark streets lit only by guttering cookfires visible through the open doorways. Voices came to her, dreamlike in her hunger and cold, some speaking words she could understand but many that she could not, either because of thick accents or unfamiliar tongues.
They had obviously entered the town's poorest quarter, not.a shred of horn or glass in any window, no light but meager fires in the crowded downstairs rooms, and Briony's heart sank. Reeking straw was going to be her bed tonight, and small, leggy things would be crawling on her in the cold dark. At least she and Shaso had a little money. She would settle for no leavings of cheese and bread from the morning. She would command, or at least demand, that he buy them something hot-a bowl of pottage, per¬haps even some meat if there was such a thing as a clean butcher in this part of the town.
"Be very quiet now," said Shaso abruptly, putting out his arm to stop her. They were in the deepest shadow they had yet found, the only illumina¬tion the nearly invisible, cloud-dimmed moon, and it took her a moment to realize they were standing beside a high stone wall. When he had listened for a moment-Briony could hear nothing at all except her own breath¬ing and the never-ending patter of rain-the old man stepped toward the wall and, to her astonishment, pounded his knuckles on what sounded like a wooden door. How he could have found such a thing in the near-perfect darkness, let alone known it was there in the first place, she had no idea.
There was a long silence. Shaso knocked again, this time in a discernible pattern. A moment later a man's low voice said something and Shaso an¬swered, neither question nor reply in a language she recognized. The door creaked inward and light splashed out into the rain-rippled muck of the street.
A man in a strange, baggy robe stood in the entrance; as Shaso stepped back to let Briony step through the man bowed. For a moment she won¬dered if the robe marked him as a mantis, if this was indeed, despite Shaso's own denial, some back-alley temple, but when the gatekeeper finished his bow and looked up at her he proved to be a bearded youth as dark-skinned as Shaso.
"Welcome, guest," he said to her. "If you accompany Lord Shaso, you are a flower in the house of Effir dan-Mozan."
They entered the main part of the house by a covered passage beside a courtyard-Briony could dimly see what looked like a bare fruit tree at its center-which led into a low building that seemed to take up a great deal of space. A covey of women came to her and surrounded her, murmuring, only every fifth or sixth word in Briony's own tongue. They smelled charmingly of violets and rosewater and other, less familiar scents; for a
moment she was happy just to breathe in as they took her hands and tugged her toward a passageway. She looked back at Shaso in bemusement and alarm, but he was already in urgent conversation with the bearded youth and only waved her on. That was the last she saw of him, or of any man, for the rest of the evening.
The women, a mixture of old and young, but all dark-skinned, black-haired Southerners like the man at the door, led her-herded her, in truth-into a sumptuous tiled chamber lit with dozens of candles, so warm that the air was steamy. Briony was so astounded to find this palatial lux¬ury in the poorest quarter of a fishing town that she did not realize for a moment that some of the women were trying to pull her clothes off. Shocked, she fought back, and was about to give one of them a good blow of her fist (a skill learned in childhood to deal with a pair of brawling brothers) when one of the smaller women stepped toward her, both hands raised in supplication.
"Please," she said, "what is your name?"
Briony stared. The woman was fine-boned and handsome, but though her hair was shiny and black as tar, it was clear she was old enough to be Briony's mother, or even her grandmother. "Briony," she said, remember¬ing only too late that she was a fugitive. Still, Shaso had passed her to the women as though she were a saddlebag to be unpacked: she could not be expected to keep her caution while under attack by this murmuring pigeon flock.
"Please, Bri-oh-nee-zisaya," the small woman said, "you are cold and tired. You are a guest for us, yes? You cannot eat in the hada until you are bathing, yes?"
"Bathing?" Briony suddenly realized that the great dark rectangular emptiness in the middle of the room, which she had thought only a lower part of the floor, was a bath-a bath bigger than her own huge bed in the Southmarch royal residence! "There?" she added stupidly.
The women, sensing a lull in her resistance, swooped in and pulled off the rest of her sodden clothes, murmuring in pity and amusement as Briony's pale, goose-pimpled skin was exposed. She was helped to the edge of the bath-it had steps leading down! — and, to her further astonishment, several of the women disrobed and climbed in with her. Now at least she understood why the bath was so large.
The first shock of the hot water almost made her faint, then as she set¬tled in and grew used to it a deep languor crept over her, so that she nearly
fell asleep. The women giggled, soaping and scrubbing her in a way she would have found unduly intimate if it had been Rose and Moina, who had known her for years, but somehow she could not make herself care. It was warm in the bath-so blessedly warm! — and the scent of flowery oils in the steamy air made her feel as though she were floating in a summer cloud.
Out of the bath, wrapped in a thick white robe like those the women wore, she was led to a room full of cushions with a fire in a brazier at its center. Here too an inordinate number of candles burned, the flames wa¬vering as the women walked in and out, talking quietly, laughing, some even singing.
Have I died? she wondered without truly believing it. Is this what it will be like in Zona's court in heaven?
They seated her amid the cushions and the older woman brought her food; the others whispered in fascination at this, as though it were an un¬usual honor. The bowl was heaped with fruit and a cooked grain she did not recognize, with pieces of some roasted bird sitting on top, and Briony could not help remembering the woman back in Kinemarket with her broods of chickens and children. She wondered if that woman in her damp, smoky cottage could even imagine a place like this, less than a day's walk away.
The food was excellent, hot and flavored with spices Briony did not know, which at other moments might have put her off, but now only added to the waking dream. At last she lolled back on the cushions, full, warm, and gloriously dry. The younger women cleared away Briony's bowl and the empty goblet from which she had drunk some watered wine, and the older woman sat beside her.
"Thank you," Briony said, although that did not suffice.
"You are tired. Sleep." The woman waved and one of the others brought a blanket which they draped on Briony where she lay among the embroi¬dered cushions.
"But… where am I? What is this place?"
"The hada of Effr dan-Mozan," the woman said. "My… married?"
"Your husband?"
"Yes. Just so." The woman smiled. One of her teeth was covered in gold. "And you are our honored guest. Sleep now."
"But why…?" She wanted to ask why this house in such a strange
place, why the bath, why all these beautiful dark-skinned women in the middle of Marriiiswalk, but all that came out was that word again."Why?"
"Because the Lord Shaso brought you here," the woman said. "He is a great man, cousin of our old king. He honors our house."
They didn't even know who she was. Shaso was the royalty here.
Briony slept then, floundering through confusing dreams of warm rivers and icy cold rain.