| |
In the Beit Amiya – the House of Vessels – the low-roofed, many-chambered building in which the Vessels of the Jagasti dwelled, Tiyana stood beside a rectangular pool of clear water. The pool lay at the center of an inner courtyard surrounded by the plain, white-washed walls of the building. Flat stone benches lined the sides of the pool, and flowering shrubs splashed the courtyard with color. Its water welled from a spring sacred to Ateti, the Jagasti who was the Goddess of lakes and rivers.
At Tiyana’s side, a shamasha – a servant-girl recruited from Khambawe’s sprawling slums – used nimble fingers to undo the tiny clasps that held the strands of her costume together. Clad only in a length of plain white cloth knotted around her waist, the shamasha worked carefully. Tiyana had forgotten the girl’s name; in the Beit Amiya, shamashas came and went like shadows. In the eyes of the Amiyas, the shamashas were little more than slaves. This one was younger than most, with narrow hips and a chest still flat as a boy’s.
One by one, the diamond-studded filaments fell away until Tiyana was naked. Holding the scanty costume as though it were a spiderweb, the shamasha laid it into a lacquered box no larger than her fist. The Mask of the Goddess had already been returned to its place in the temple common to all the Jagasti. By the time the girl turned back to Tiyana, the Amiya had already slipped into the pool and submerged herself.
She stayed under long enough to allow the fresh, spring-fed water of the pool to dissolve the salty rime of the sea. But she could not wash away the misgivings that had begun well before she saw the shadowy bulk of the Fidi ship looming over her.
Nama-kwah had warned her of impending danger. Was the Goddess telling her the threat lay in the coming of the Fidi? Tiyana doubted that. She was not a scholar, but based on what she had learned of bygone times, she knew Fidi had never presented any hazard to the Matile. They were nothing more than strangers from an unimaginably distant land, strangers who until now had been nearly forgotten.
Yet the goddess had given Tiyana her one-word warning at almost the exact moment of the Fidis’ arrival ...
Tiyana tried once again to contact Nama-kwah. But the silence from the Goddess was so emphatic that she wondered if she would ever hear the Jagasti’s voice again. That possibility was too terrible to contemplate, so she stopped thinking about it.
Abruptly, Tiyana kicked her legs, propelling herself back to the surface. She used no ashuma this time; the magic power was far too precious to waste on such mundane matters as bathing.
For a long moment, Tiyana floated face-up on the surface of the pool, allowing the fully risen sun to beat down on her bare skin and burn away her many misgivings. Then she swam to the side of the pool and climbed out of the water. She was refreshed in body, but still troubled in spirit.
The shamasha handed her a chamma striped with the green and blue colors of the sea – Nama-kwah’s colors. After draping the garment loosely over one shoulder, Tiyana dismissed the girl with a curt gesture. As the shamasha quietly disappeared into the shrubs, Tiyana sat down on one of the benches and gazed at the pool, as though the answers she was seeking could be found in its depths.
“Tiyana.”
Startled, Tiyana turned in the direction of the voice she had heard. She smiled when she recognized the man and woman coming toward her.
The woman, whose name was Yemeya, was one of the four Callers who had sung in the ceremony. She had removed her long headcloth, and sunlight glinted from the ornaments of amber and gold woven into her thick braids. With Yemeya was Keshu, Amiya of Halasha, the Jagasti of iron, the blacksmith’s craft, and war. Keshu wore white cotton trousers decorated with strips of shells. Above the waist, he wore only bands of leather ornaments across his broad, muscular chest. His dark face was solid and broad-featured, as though forged by the god he served, and his hair was braided into dozens of short, unadorned spikes.
“You looked as though you were still dancing on the waves,” Yemeya said as they drew closer.
Tiyana raked a hand through her short hair, which had been cropped close to her scalp to accommodate the Mask of Nama-kwah. Now, she would allow her hair to grow until the time for First Calling came again.
“Maybe I was,” she said. “And, I hope, more successfully.”
They all shared a chuckle at that bit of self-deprecation.
“Well, Tiyana, no one in Khambawe should be happier than you that the Fidi ship came here today,” Keshu boomed as he sat beside her on the bench. With easy familiarity, Yemeya sat by Tiyana’s other side, bracketing her, but not close enough to crowd her.
“Why do you say that?” Tiyana asked.
“You couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to explain away the mess you made of your Calling.”
Tiyana stared at him speechlessly and open-mouthed for a moment. Then she began to laugh. Keshu and Yemeya joined her, and they rocked and hugged each other until the mirth finally let them go. They would savor this moment of levity while they could. Only in the courtyard of their House were the Amiyas and others, such as the Callers, able to allow such a break from the disciplines to which they had dedicated themselves since childhood.
“Can you imagine how it would have been if that ship had come during one of my Callings?” Keshu said when he could speak again.
That started a fresh wave of laughter, for the Calling of Halasha involved the handling of fire and molten metal in an extremely dangerous manner. When the mirth subsided once again, Yemeya asked a serious question.
“Tiyana – what happened out there?”
Tiyana did not answer immediately. Keshu and Yemeya were her best friends, and ordinarily she would never have hesitated to confide in them. This time, however, she sensed that she could share Nama-kwah’s cryptic warning with only one other – her father.
“That is for the Goddess to say, not I,” she finally told her friends.
Yemeya and Keshu both nodded their understanding. Then they each clasped one of Tiyana’s hands. Keshu carefully concealed his emotions as he felt Tiyana’s hand in his, for his feelings toward her extended far beyond friendship. And he could not let her know of those emotions.
Not now – not ever.
As the Amiyas and the Caller sat silently gazing into the pool, the angle of the sun’s rays turned the water blood-red. If that change of color was a portent, it went unnoticed.