“Let’s go down and join in the celebrations.”
Tessia grinned and fell into step beside her friend. “Yes. I suspect most Kyralians are going to have one very bad hangover tomorrow morning.”
“You can count on it,” Kendaria said. “I hope you still have some pain cures in your father’s bag.”
Tessia flinched as a familiar ache returned. “It was left behind after the last battle.”
Her friend looked at her and grimaced in sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It doesn’t matter, really.” Tessia forced herself to shrug. “I can always get another bag, new tools and more cures. It’s what my father taught me that matters most.” She tapped her forehead. “This is worth something to others; the bag only meant something to me.”
Kendaria gave her a sidelong look. “And I expect you won’t need tool or cures soon, when you find out how to heal with magic.”
Tessia managed a smile. “But that will take a while. If I ever manage it at all. Until then I think I had better stick to doing things the old-fashioned way.”
As the wagon rolled through the gates, Stara looked up in surprise. Though they had entered the familiar courtyard entrance of most Sachakan homes, a two-storey house dominated one side and it was not rendered in white. Smooth white stone, veined in grey, stretched across the longer side of the courtyard.
“It’s one of the oldest houses in Arvice,” Kachiro told her. “Dashina claims it is nearly six hundred years old.”
“There’s no sign of deterioration,” Stara said.
“His family have always repaired and maintained it well. A great deal of the front had to be replaced after an earthquake a hundred years ago.”
Inside, the house had high ceilings and opened quickly onto a large, sunken master’s room. Openings on either side revealed corridors running parallel to the room, and above them were more openings onto second-storey corridors directly above the lower ones.
The usual ritual of greeting followed. She and Kachiro were welcomed by Dashina, and her husband’s friends drew close to take their parts. While the others ignored her, Chavori caught her eye and smiled at her. She nodded politely in reply. He had visited her husband’s house (she hadn’t quite got used to calling it “home” yet) three more times, always bringing more maps. Though he always took the time to show and explain them to her, at each visit he spent less time with her and more time with Kachiro. Her husband had not made any more comments to suggest he might not disapprove if she took the young man as her lover.
Looking around the room, she found her eyes drawn to the slaves. All were women, she realised, and all were young and beautiful. They wore very short wraps and were draped in an excess of jewellery. She thought of Tashana’s story and how her husband had a taste for pleasure slaves. Is that what these women are? But of course they are. They’re all too beautiful to be anything else. For a moment she worried about Kachiro. If Dashina was bedding these women, they could all carry the disease he’d given to his wife, and if Dashina invited Kachiro to . . . but that couldn’t happen. Not if Kachiro truly was incapable, as he claimed.
What a strange place I’ve ended up in, she mused. With a husband I like enough to feel jealousy over, but with no reason to be jealous!
Tashana appeared in one of the corridor openings, then stepped into the room. She crossed quietly to Stara and took her hand.
“Can I steal your wife now, Kachiro? Please say yes.”
He turned and laughed. “Of course. I know she has been looking forward to seeing you again.” He smiled at Stara. “Go,” he urged quietly. “Enjoy yourself.”
Drawing Stara out of the room, Tashana led her down the corridor, which stretched long past the main room. Out of habit, Stara listened for Vora’s steps behind her. The slave walked so quietly, Stara sometimes worried she’d left the woman behind and glanced back to check, which always earned her a disapproving frown. She wasn’t supposed to show so much concern for a slave.
“Are you well?” Tashana asked. “Finding the summer too hot?”
“Healthy and happy,” Stara replied. “And I’m used to hot summers. Elyne is the same, though it rains more and the damp makes the heat more uncomfortable. How are you? Your skin is looking good.”
Tashana shrugged. “Well enough. The spots go away from time to time, but they always come back. I do enjoy it when they’re gone.” She smiled at Stara, then turned through a doorway into a spacious room.
The other wives were sitting on benches covered in cushions. They rose as Stara and Tashana entered. The usual greetings were exchanged, but when they were over the women didn’t return to the seats.
“We thought it would be nice if Tashana showed you around the house,” Chiara told Stara. She looked at Tashana. “Lead the way.”
As the hostess beckoned and moved through a doorway, Stara noted that the wives’ slaves had emerged and joined Vora in following. Women and slaves together made for quite a crowd roaming the corridors and rooms of Dashina and Tashana’s house. This became even more obvious when they left the large, luxurious rooms and entered a plain, narrow corridor, which echoed with their voices and footsteps.
This doesn’t look like part of the house its master and mistress would venture into, Stara thought. It looks more like a part slaves would use. Not that I’ve seen many slave quarters since coming back to Sachaka.
At the end of the corridor Tashana entered a large room containing robust wooden tables and occupied by several slave women, all of whom turned to stare at her and the other wives. Stara nodded to herself. She’d guessed right. But why were they here? She turned to look at Tashana. The woman smiled, then nodded at something over Stara’s shoulder. Turning back to face the slave women, Stara realised that one, a woman with grey in her hair but a sturdy frame, had risen to her feet and was walking towards her.
“Welcome, Stara,” the woman said. Though a slave, she looked Stara directly in the eyes. Neither she nor the other slaves had prostrated themselves before the mistress of the house, either. “I am Tavara. As you can see, I am a woman and a slave. But that is not all that I am.” She gestured at the women beside Stara and those sitting at the tables. “I am a leader of sorts. I speak for these women, and others, who are all bound together by a secret agreement to help other women, in exchange for the help we all need.”
Stara glanced at the wives, who nodded at her, serious but encouraging. She looked at the slaves and saw how they regarded her with suspicion... and something else. Hope?
A secret group, she thought. Of women. Are these the people who saved Nachira? She turned to look at Vora. The old woman chuckled.
“Yes. These are the people I asked you not to ask me about.”
Stara turned back to Tavara. “You have Nachira?”
The woman smiled. “Yes. We took her away from your father’s house and nursed her back to health when it was clear nothing else could save her. Save, perhaps, the death of your father.” The woman grimaced. “But we prefer to avoid such extreme measures.”
“And we didn’t think you’d think fondly of us,” Chiara added.
Stara shrugged. “Quite the opposite, actually. Though...to be honest I’d rather not commit patricide, even if he is a heartless monster.” She met Tavara’s eyes again. “So clearly you have the means to, if you need it.”
“Yes. There is much we can do, yet much we can’t. We were all slaves, to begin with. Slaves are invisible, and so can move about, delivering messages, easily. But we came to recognise that free women are often as helpless as we, sometimes even more so since they are not invisible and cannot roam beyond their homes. Yet they do have some advantages that we do not. Money. Access to some places forbidden to slaves. Political influence, through family or access to powerful ears. We came to trust them and they us.”
“And you trust me?” Stara looked around. “You must do, or else you would never have brought me here.”
“We had Vora’s mind read,” Tavara told her. “She trusts you. That will have to be enough.”
“You read . . .” Stara looked at Vora, who shrugged. “Then you must have a magician in your group.”
“Yes.” Tavara nodded. “And hopefully we still do. She was obliged to join the army and left to fight in the war in Kyralia. You will no doubt see that this means we can’t have your mind read.”
“Yet you’re still willing to trust me.”
“We are.” Tavara crossed her arms. “You should also have realised by now that we know something about you that your husband does not yet know – that you are a magician.”
Stara nodded. “I hadn’t quite got to working that part out, but it makes sense, since you read Vora’s mind.” She paused as a possibility occurred to her. “You want me to read minds for you? I haven’t tried it yet. Not deliberately, anyway.”
Tavara smiled. “Perhaps eventually. We do expect that, if you join us, you will work for us. Although you’ll still have the right to refuse a task, if it is objectionable to you.”
“If I’m too squeamish to commit murder, for instance.”
“Exactly.”