The sound of the door swinging open woke Kevla early the next morning. She blinked sleepily, wondering why she was gazing directly at an old harvesting rake, and then memory came flooding back. She bolted upright, then sagged in relief when she saw Sahlik standing in the door.
Harshly, Sahlik said, “Get up, girl. You’re to come work in the kitchens now.”
Kevla felt the smile bleed from her face. There was no reprieve in Sahlik’s grim mien. But Sahlik had always been kind to her, had been the one who arranged for her and Jashemi to meet….
Kevla got to her feet. Her rhia was wet in places, and even as she looked down at it and realized with shame what the wetness was, Sahlik said, “You’ve soiled yourself, girl.”
“I’m sorry,” Kevla whispered. She felt her face grow hot. “There was no pot, and the door was locked…May I be permitted to bathe and change?”
Sahlik laughed without humor. “You are forbidden the use of the caverns. I’ll send up a clean rag and some water. When you are done, come immediately to the kitchens. There’s a beating in it for you if you are late.”
She closed the door, but Kevla didn’t hear the latch falling into place. Her stomach roiled. She choked the vomit down, knowing it would go badly for her if she added that to the mess she had already made. She gritted her teeth against the nausea and grief that welled up inside her.
A few moments later, one of the new five-scores brought up a basin of water and a clean rhia. Kevla remembered the girl. What was her name…Shara? Sharu, that was it. Kevla had attempted to make pleasant overtures to her, but the five-score had regarded her with terror. Now, though, Sharu gazed curiously at Kevla, with no sign of awe as she placed the items down the floor. Stories of Kevla’s fall from grace had already begun their inevitable spread.
“Thank you,” Kevla managed to say. Sharu stared, and then closed the door.
The water was clean at least, although the rhia was little more than the rag Sahlik had described. It had been repeatedly torn and remended, and there were deep stains in it that would never come out. Shaking, Kevla washed her groin and legs, willing herself not to think of the cool water of the caverns and how good it felt against her skin. She slipped into the stained garment with grim resignation.
It was still better. Whatever working in the kitchen entailed, it was still better to be here, at the House of Four Waters, with a remote possibility of seeing Jashemi, than to be anywhere else.
By nightfall, Kevla thought with longing of dancing on the street corner and crying her mother’s skills.
There was no softening of Sahlik’s demeanor. She put Kevla to work immediately, and it proved grueling. Kevla was forced to stand for hours in the hot sun, collecting the droppings of the sandcattle, horses, and sa’abahs. She spread them out to dry, and gathered the dried droppings to use as fuel for the cook fires. She was permitted to go into the caverns only to haul buckets full of water. She stirred, scrubbed, chopped, ground and carried until her arms burned with pain. Twice, she was permitted to stop and eat, and the meals were meager: dried bread, heels of cheeses, fruits that were overripe and unfit to serve the higher-caste servants or the lord and lady.
Through it all, Kevla caught Sharu watching her intently. She was too exhausted and broken-hearted to try to be friendly.
Every time she tried to steal a few moments to sit and rest or rub her aching limbs, Sahlik was there, barking orders and dragging her to her feet. By the time she ate what passed for an evening meal and was brusquely dismissed by Sahlik, it was all she could do to stumble out of the kitchen and crawl up the stairs to her room. She almost fell to the floor. Curled up on the hard stone, she fell asleep within minutes.
Such was her life for the next several weeks. She moved dazedly, doing what was asked of her, moving to the next thing, then collapsing, exhausted, in her tiny room. Sahlik continued to behave as if Kevla had never been anything other than the lowest-ranking of the House’s servants. The girl saw nothing of Yeshi, Tahmu, or Jashemi, and turned away whenever Tiah or Ranna came to the kitchen to select treats for their mistress. She thought she could feel no worse, but when Tiah and Ranna came accompanied by Sharu, the five-score Kevla had thought to befriend, she had to bite her lip to keep scalding tears of disappointment from flowing down her dirty cheeks. The little five-score, who had once been so timid, was now elevated to Kevla’s former status.
One day, while she was tending the fire, Sahlik did something completely incomprehensible. The elderly servant positioned herself so that no one could see what she was doing, then deliberately poured a cup of hot eusho on Kevla’s hand.
Kevla cried out, staring in shock at Sahlik. Before she could say anything, Sahlik said sharply, “You clumsy girl! Look what you’ve done! Go see Maluuk right away. If that blisters you’ll be of no use here at all.”
Wide-eyed, Kevla clutched her burned hand and backed away from Sahlik, who continued to glower at her. Then she started running, pushing her way though the crowded kitchen and racing over the courtyard to the healer’s small hut.
The scald was minor. What hurt more than the injury was the knowledge that Sahlik had intentionally inflicted it. Was the head servant trying to kill her? Kevla began to cry as she ran. She tried to stifle the sobs, but she might just as well have tried to dam the Four Waters with a walking stick.
She slowed as she approached the healing hut. She dragged her arm across her wet face and sniffed hard. Swallowing, Kevla straightened, composed herself, and opened the door.
“Maluuk, I—”
The words died in her throat. Standing there waiting for her was Jashemi. She stared at him, and then her legs refused to hold her. It was as if the last few weeks of pain, shame, and exhaustion caught up with her in the span of an instant. He caught her before she fell and carried her over to the table. Still weak, she did not protest.
“Kevla, I am so very sorry. I take full responsibility. Let me see the burn. Good, she didn’t hurt you too badly. I will put something on it.”
Kevla felt as though his words were coming from leagues away. Their meaning registered only slowly. She watched him as he removed the stopper from a jar and scooped out a fingerful of gray, pleasant-smelling ointment. He applied the salve with a delicate touch, and the pain subsided at once.
“Sahlik…she did this to me so I could meet you?”
Jashemi gave her a quick glance. “Of course. Did you think she simply wanted to hurt you?”
“I—I didn’t know what to think,” Kevla said, her voice thick. “I had thought that Yeshi liked me, and when she…then Sahlik was so mean to me….”
He paused in his treatment to look at her gravely. “My mother discovered us together,” he said. “It is my fault. I was careless. I should have made sure that never happened.” He finished applying salve and began to bind the wound with a clean cloth. Suddenly, his mouth twisted in a smile. “It seems as though I am always apologizing to you.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kevla couldn’t help smiling in return. “You are a most unusual khashimu.”
“And you are an unusual….” He paused. “Girl,” he said. Kevla felt her cheeks flush. “Now, you need to finish tying this. Your story will be that you came to the hut and neither Maluuk nor Asha was here, so you treated yourself.”
She complied, holding her arm against her body to better secure the bandage.
“Where are they?”
“Someone has been injured by the river. I saw them go and told Sahlik that we had a chance to meet.”
“Why has Sahlik been so cruel? It seems as though she has been particularly hard on me.”
Jashemi’s face hardened. “My mother has a little spy. One of the five-scores we brought home from the raid. Shari, I think her name is.”
“Sharu,” Kevla corrected. “I tried to be kind to her.”
“Of course you did. For several weeks, Sharu was in the kitchens, watching to make sure you were treated as badly as possible. Mother was satisfied and rewarded Sharu by making her a handmaiden. Now that she is no longer in the kitchen, Sahlik does not have to be so harsh with you.”
“Thank the Dragon for that, at least,” Kevla said softly.
She had not intended her words to be interpreted as criticism, but she saw Jashemi wince. When he spoke again, his voice was serious.
“Because of my carelessness, you lost your position,” he said. “I don’t want anything else to happen to you, but I can’t lie to you. If we continue to meet, someone could find out.”
Their eyes met, and she realized what he was saying. He was asking if she wanted to keep seeing him. He was not ordering, as was his birthright. Kevla realized that every moment of true happiness she had experienced at the House of Four Waters had occurred when the two of them were alone together. It had been good to be Yeshi’s handmaiden, yes, but she had to be constantly on her guard. Over time and repeated encounters with Jashemi, she had learned to let the line between master and servant blur. There was a warmth in her heart for this boy that she had never felt with anyone else: a sense of safety despite the danger, an oasis of peace in a desert of apprehension.
He was letting her decide. She could choose safety, or she could choose him.
“Then we must make certain that doesn’t happen,” she said.
Knowing that Sahlik’s abuse was a sham helped Kevla to accept it more easily. She cringed when berated, and Sahlik spared no opportunity to harass the girl. But there was no physical violence after the “accidental burn,” and Kevla’s duties suddenly became much less demanding. She ate better, and was able to rest for longer periods of time.
Yet it was still hard work. Her body grew strong from the physical demands, her slender build becoming more defined with muscles and her blossoming womanhood. Some of the young men she encountered on her errands stared at her growing chest, straining against the confines of her rhia. Sahlik made a point of complaining loudly when Kevla asked for a different garment, but the next morning Kevla was handed several fresh rhias, none of which clung quite so revealingly as her older ones.
She saw Jashemi infrequently, and it was always an unexpected delight. Their moments together were tense and exciting, the thought of discovery adding a sharp tang of adventure to an experience the two found both necessary and painfully happy. At the same time, she had never felt more comfortable in his presence.
One night, after a particularly grueling day, Kevla’s body ached more than usual. She had quarreled with some of the five-scores over the preparation of a dish, and although she knew she was correct, Sahlik had sided with the other girls. Kevla understood the necessity of the pretense, but somehow, today she was sick of the act.
Her newly large breasts were tender and her belly hurt as well. Perhaps she had eaten something that disagreed with her. Her head ached. For no reason, she sat down on the stone floor of her small room and wept angrily.
It was all so awful, so unfair! She had tended Yeshi well. She had kept Yeshi’s secrets, and this was how the khashima repaid her. It had been so long since she and Jashemi had played Shamizan that she was certain she’d forget the few rules.
Has there ever been anyone more wretched than I? she thought, misery overwhelming her. She stretched out onto the stone, felt its coolness against her hot, tearstained cheeks, and fell into an unhappy slumber.
Kevla opened her eyes to discover that she was surrounded by flames. They leaped up, walls of fire, forming an enclosure that trapped her inside their circle more firmly than if they had been made of stone. Smoke swirled around her, but it did not sting her eyes, nor make her gasp for breath. She turned, slowly, seeking a break in the enormous sheets of flame, and then screamed as she saw something more frightening than fire.
It seemed made of fire itself, all hues of red and yellow and orange. It moved with the same sinuous grace as the flames that surrounded it, but it seemed unaffected by their licking tongues. Slowly, it lifted its serpentine neck, reared up on its massive, scalyhind legs. Two membranous wings unfolded and beat the air, setting the flames to dancing wildly. It opened its mouth. For an instant, Kevla caught sight of teeth as long as her arm, and a flickering, forked tongue. Then fire spewed forth. Its massive tail raised and then came crashing down on the burned earth. The ground trembled and Kevla fell.
The Dragon lowered its horned, wedge-shaped head until it was mere inches from Kevla’s face. She wanted to scream, close her eyes, turn away, but she remained transfixed, as the bird before the snake. She stared into its glowing yellow eyes.
It opened its mouth, and Kevla braced herself for the exquisite agony of its fiery breath. Instead, the monster spoke, and Kevla understood the words. Understood, but could not comprehend their meaning. The noise of the Dragon’s voice shattered her ears, reverberated along her bones, dropped her to the ground in agony.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?”
Kevla was brought awake by the sound of her own scream. She bolted upright, gasping for breath. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. Her rhia clung to her, and she realized that she was soaked with sweat.
The light of the full moon spilled in through the small window, silvering and softening the harsh angles of the stacked-up tools. Kevla wiped at her wet face, shivering with fear and mortification.
Even her dreams, it seemed, mirrored her fall from favor and the shame inherent in her very existence. The dragon in her dream had to be the Great Dragon, who lived in the heart of Mount Bari. According to legend, the Dragon sent his flames in the form of molten stone coursing down the steep sides of Mount Bari when the people of Arukan forgot their traditions and laws.
Forget who they were.
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?
Kevla could hear the bellowing voice in her head even now and she put her hands to her ears, as if the voice were real and could be shut out by something as paltry as human flesh and bone.
Perhaps the dream meant that the Great Dragon was as displeased with Kevla as Yeshi. Perhaps the Dragon felt that Kevla had no right to presume to a friendship with a khashimu, heir to the most powerful Clan in Arukan. She was born of a halaan. She was Bai-sha, her father unknown to her, one of her mother’s clients. She recalled the Dragon’s ferocity in the dream and shuddered.
And then, as she moved to sit up, she saw more evidence of the Dragon’s displeasure.
Blood was all over her thighs.
Kevla went through the motions of her day, but she almost felt as though she was standing outside her body. The only thing that brought her back to living in her own skin was the sensation of torn rags stuffed inside her, to absorb the telltale bleeding. Twice, she had to change them, and fought back tears of misery as she looked at the sodden, scarlet fabric.
Until the moment that the blood had begun flowing from her sulim, she had been cloaked in the safety of childhood. Kevla had dreaded being sent away from the House of Four Waters for disobedience, but now that fate was almost certain. She was now a viable female, able to conceive and bear children, and would no doubt be part of some negotiation with another clan; of the same value as a cart of vegetables or a brace of sandcattle. Or, she mused darkly, perhaps less, as she was Bai-sha.
Kevla shrank from the image. Her mother had never painted the joining of male and female as anything pleasant, and until this moment, Kevla had never given much thought to the subject. Now, it loomed over her like a grim shadow.
She thought she could bear even that, even lying in the darkness while a stranger roughly violated her body, if she could stay in the House of Four Waters. If she could play Shamizan with Jashemi now and then, who never made her feel worthless, and whose delight in her company was genuine.
She felt Sahlik’s eyes on her and once even heard the head servant whisper, “Child, are you unwell?”
Telling Sahlik would only hasten the inevitable. The onset of womanhood varied from girl to girl, she knew. Perhaps, if she kept her bleeding secret, she could stay longer. So she looked up into the concerned face of the maternal woman with eyes that she knew looked dazed and haunted and murmured that nothing was wrong.
The seemingly interminable day finally crawled to a close. For the first time since Yeshi’s commandment, Kevla hastened to return to the privacy of her room. Once there, she removed the soiled rag, replaced it with a clean one, and stared at the mute condemnation of the bloody cloth. What should she do with it? While she was working in the kitchens, Kevla had managed to excuse herself and change the cloths in private. When she returned, she bided her time until she could toss the rags into the fire. But here, there was no such option.
She would not start crying again. She bit her lip hard and willed her eyes to stop stinging, willed the lump in her throat to dissolve. She would have to hide the rags until such time as she could dispose of them.
She would also have to hide the water with which she scrubbed her thighs and sulim in a futile effort to clean herself. As she stretched out to try to get some sleep, Kevla thought that if Yeshi ever wanted to see her wretched and miserable, all she needed to do was poke her head in at this moment, and the great lady would be mightily pleased.
She slept, and again the Great Dragon appeared in her dreams, with its accusatory cry, “DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?”
The next day, the flow was still strong, but Kevla felt less pain. But she could not forget what was going on, nor the dreadful dreams that seemed so real. She had dreamed before; everyone dreamed. But never anything like this.
This time, when she retreated to her room, she staved off sleep as long as she could, frightened of the Dragon and his censure, but eventually her eyes closed of their own accord.
Again, Kevla stood in the center of a wall of fire. She was as terrified as she had been previously, familiarity with the scene making it no less horrific. Again, the Dragon reared up and spouted flame; again, it pressed its face close to hers. But this time, it reached out with a huge, scaly foreleg. Claws clamped on her shoulder and it shook her.
“Kevla!” it cried. “Kevla, wake up, you’re dreaming—”
She bolted awake with a vengeance, squirming and clawing against the foreleg that grabbed her shoulder, that clamped down on her mouth to stifle her screams—
“Kevla, hush, it’s me, Jashemi!”
She sagged in relief, and his hand left her mouth and he moved away slightly. It was then she remembered the Dragon’s accusation. Remembered the blood still flowing from her body.
With a soft cry, she buried her face in her hands.
“Kevla, what is it? I can’t bear to see you so unhappy. What can I do?”
Her heart swelled with affection and gratitude. Whatever had happened to her, she knew she had been blessed in having his friendship for as long as she had.
“I have to go,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.
She heard a swift intake of breath. “You…you are going to leave?”
“She will send me away. The blood and the Dragon have ordained it so.” She risked a look at him.
His face was lit by moonlight, and he looked utterly confused. “I don’t understand.”
“It cannot be coincidence,” she said thickly. “The Dragon has come to me in dreams and—”
“Dreams?” The word exploded from him. “Tell me.”
So she did. He listened silently, attentively. The image of the beggar who had burned in the market came back to her. He had had dreams of the Dragon, too; he had been cursed by the kulis. And he had died horribly because of it.
Finally, when she was done, Jashemi said gently, “Your so-called fall from grace was not due to anything you did. It was because my mother is an angry, unhappy, and jealous woman. When you fully believe that, I think the dreams will stop.”
She gazed deeply into his eyes, black pools of compassion in the dim light. I love him, she thought. I could not love him more if he were my brother, my own blood.
Blood.
She stared down at their clasped hands. “There is more. I am bleeding,” she whispered. “I am an adult woman now, and Yeshi will send me away to be married. The Dragon wants us all to remember our place, and I have forgotten. Even now, with you here, I am forgetting my place. He wants me to leave.”
“I refuse to believe that,” Jashemi said, his voice low and intense. “I refuse to believe that the Dragon would be so cruel. You have always performed your duties well, Kevla. And I know that Father will not permit you to be sent away. If you were going to be forced to leave, it would have happened before now. It was just a dream.”
“It…Jashemi, the dream could have been sent by the kulis!” she whispered fearfully. “I could be—”
He reached and placed a finger over her mouth, silencing her as he had done before, but very gently. “That you are a woman is no shame. That you have bad dreams is no surprise. Do not fear, Kevla. All will be well.”
As he lay in his bed after his midnight visit to Kevla, Jashemi felt no desire for sleep.
He blushed to think of Kevla speaking so freely of her bleeding. It was a deep mystery, one not discussed between men and women. Nonetheless, he was glad she had trusted him enough to tell him, so that he could assuage her fears of being sent away. Of much more concern to him were Kevla’s dreams. He had dismissed them lightly enough when they were talking; Kevla did not need to worry about such things when her waking life was sufficiently trying. But privately, they troubled him deeply.
Troubled him, because on the night when he first spilled his seed in his sleep, he too had begun having disturbing dreams.
Moonlight slanted in through the window. He stared at it, hoping that its brightness would keep him awake.
The brightness of the sun was not dimmed by the rolling, pulsating darkness that loomed on the horizon.
Not dimmed yet, at least.
Jashemi huddled in the cold, his filthy, ragged clothes offering little protection against the cutting knife-edge of the wind. Part of him questioned why he was wearing such poor clothing; another part felt very much at home in the vermin-ridden scraps.
He drew strength from the woman beside him. She was tall, and dressed as finely as he was poorly. Atop her head she wore a circlet of gold. Her hair was long and flew in the wind. When he had first met her it had been black as night; now, there were streaks of gray.
“It’s only been two weeks,” Jashemi said.
The dream unfurled as it always did. It never varied. The great lady whispered the words that always frightened and puzzled Jashemi when he awoke:
“You alone will remember…It may well fall to you…do not forget.”
And as always, Jashemi whispered as she held him tightly, “I won’t.”
And when he awoke at dawn, the brightness of sunlight replacing the subtler illumination of the moon, Jashemi-kha-Tahmu of the Clan of Four Waters asked himself:
“Do not forget what?”