The sun has dropped below the mountains that tower either side of us, and my legs are aching from a day of hard trekking down that valley. Windblown snow cloaks everything. The temperature is plummeting, we should be finding a safe camp for the night. Except nowhere looks like a good place to camp.
But somewhere feels like it … something twinges at the edge of my senses. It beckons with memories of warmth and laughter. Memories not my own.
Praseep’s leading the group, and he chooses this moment to change direction, and we begin to steadily climb. Steadily up to where I feel that beckoning. My breath catches as the echoes of our steps begin to ripple across the thick snow. Above us, the slope is settling down to rest, relaxing with the loss of the sun. I don’t want another avalanche.
‘Is it safe, my brother?’ asks Princess Rishala.
Praseep turns, his face smooth. ‘It is safe, Your Highness.’
‘Thank you. Proceed.’
The skies are purpling with dusk when we reach the source of the beckoning. An almost sheer face of ice. This doesn’t make sense. But instead of stopping, Praseep kicks forward at the wall in front of him.
It collapses around him, tiny icicles tinkling as they fall, exposing an entrance in the rockface. A cave. He sweeps back his hood to expose his shaggy black hair, shaking the snow off his cloak. And he walks in.
The rest of them follow, swallowed by the mountain. They bring out three lights, like the ones from this morning, so the corridor we walk down is brightly lit. It heads straight into the mountain before doubling around and stepping up into a large chamber. It’s noticeably warmer than outside. I catch Danam’s eye. ‘Like the tombs,’ I mouth to him, and he nods.
I herd the gotals to a side enclosure, and feed them more of the fodder.
‘They’ll need water,’ I say to Grumpy, who still follows me.
He grunts and gestures behind me. At last I solve a few of today’s bazillion riddles – how we’re going to be washed. And why Praseep and Aji must be involved.
Their eyes glitter like ice as they work and I swear the stones in their necklaces pulse. I watch them, mind whirling. The things they can do … They produce two more of the hot, fuelless fires like Aji used to make the tea. The other guards haul in armfuls of snow from outside, and place them in a side room of the cave where a huge hollow has been carved into the floor. And somehow Praseep controls one fire – I can feel it’s his – and the flames leap into the piled snow and melt it. Then the flames go far beyond that, until the side room contains a steaming bath of clear water, glowing with the still-burning fire within.
The stories had never mentioned fire magic. Is it only Praseep and Aji who can do this?
Aji uses her fire to make more tea. She doesn’t give any to Danam this time. Wise choice. Once Danam’s had a bad experience with food, he barely has to taste it to be vomiting again. Take yakan butter for instance, after that hot week four summers ago … In fact, that’s probably where his issue with the tea stems from.
When Aji brings a mug to me, I thank her and she nods. It isn’t a smile, but it’s something. Maybe it’s a sort of thanks for not throwing up my butter tea kind of nod. It’s promising, anyway. If I’m going to get us away from these people, I need to convince them to relax their suspicion of me.
Praseep tests the water with his hand, and his firelight winks out. He calls to his sister. ‘Your Highness, the bath is ready.’
I’m all prepared to be called forward, but instead Princess Rishala inclines her head and moves into the small room herself, pulling a curtain across for privacy. Seriously? She doesn’t need a bath anytime in the next moon. No wonder they’re all so clean. No wonder they see us as lesser beings, as Dirt-People.
And maybe if they were more welcoming I’d stop thinking of them as Ice-People.
When Princess Rishala comes out again, no joke, she looks exactly the same as when she went in. She hands some clothing to a guard who begins to wash it in another bowl, so I guess she’s changed her old white and pale blue clothes for some extra-fresh new white and pale blue clothes. She smells like night-flowers.
I smell like yakan dung and frozen latrines.
Praseep goes in next, coming out later with wet hair and another pile of clothing.
No one else moves. Vilpur looks at Danam, and then at the Princess.
‘Oh,’ she says, standing up. ‘Yes. Perhaps you go next, Vilpur. We can make an exception.’
It’s the most hesitant I’ve seen the Princess. I snort and slump back against the rock wall. It seems there’s a pattern to who bathes when here, just as there is at home. And I guess Danam, as the Princess’ future Cloud Dragon, should have outranked Vilpur and the guards. But then what would be the state of the bath water?
I guess I’ll find out, because if there’s one person at the bottom of the rankings here, it’s going to be me.
I’m right, of course. Praseep and Princess Rishala are already eating a wonderful-smelling meal of fried bread and a stew made from dried meats when Danam gets his chance in the bath. And when he exits, clothed now in the pale colours of the Ice-People and cheeks scrubbed so hard they shine, it’s finally my turn.
Grumpy gestures me towards the bathing room. I stand and peel off my heavy cloak. His face blanches. Grumpy stares at me like he’s going to re-enact Danam’s tea-hurl. I do my best to sweep past him, though the ground is strewn with packs and supplies, so it’s more like I pick my way carefully.
I’m not saying the cave was as noisy as a midsummer Dragon party before I stood up, but there was a hum of chatter. By the time I’m at the entrance to the bathing area everyone – and I mean absolutely everyone – is silent. You could hear a snowball sigh outside.
I duck into the little room and pull the curtain shut. Outside the silence is broken.
‘Your Highness,’ says Vilpur. ‘Did you see her tunic?’
I scowl. A bit of colour never hurt anyone. These Ice-People need to loosen up. I eye the murky bathwater doubtfully. It’s not like I haven’t bathed in communal water before, but I’m used to doing it a tad earlier in my household. Father first, then First Brother, his wife, then me. After me come First Brother’s children, of which Danam is the third of four. Then we water the vegies with the icky leftovers.
I’ve got to look on the bright side here. Although seven people have bathed in this water before me, six of them were practically already clean. So really, if I think about it, I only have Danam’s filth to deal with. I quickly strip off my clothes, toe the water and grimace. It’s lukewarm, no longer anywhere even close to steaming. I wish I could do what Praseep and Aji did.
I bite my lip.
Who says I can’t?
I think about what I saw, what I felt, when the water was heated. On the fourth attempt, shivering naked, I manage to make a small fireball. I douse it into the water like I saw Praseep do, and before long the water is steaming. I step in eagerly, almost scalding myself with the heat I’ve made in the centre. I barely care about the grime factor now. I’m grinning. I want to cheer. I can’t imagine why Danam didn’t do this when he was in here. Think how Mera will laugh when we make baths for her all through the winter!
Part of me wants to not wash well, just to spite the Ice-People. But the sensible part of me – yes I have one – knows I don’t like smelling myself right now either. There’s a bar of soap to the side of the bath, but no cloth. I grab sand off the base and scrub myself hard, all over, hair and skin and hair again. This soap doesn’t smell like night-flowers, but nor does it smell of dung and latrine.
A vast improvement.
The scent of dinner is everywhere, and it makes me quick. I could eat an entire yakan. When I’ve scrubbed all over a few times, I hop out and grab a small towel from a niche carved into the stone wall. Next to it a few more niches are neatly arranged with piles of whites and pale pastels, boredom and conformity. I sort through and find a fresh pair of pants (the washed grey of shadow on snow) and a woollen undershirt (palest purple like the rising dawn). The wool of the underclothes is soft against my tingling skin. Then I unfold a tunic, soft and white. It looks like it would fit me.
It would be so easy to just put it on.
But my hands work swiftly. I fold it up, shove it back on top of the pile and pull back on my own tunic. It’s pretty fresh, and anyway it reminds me of Mera. I run my fingers through my hair to release the worst of the knots, and square my shoulders.
When I walk out, I’m greeted by a pale scene. Everyone in clear whites, pastel blues, soft tans, like the seasons of a mountainside. My tunic is everything these people are not. I hide a smile.
The Princess and Praseep are nursing mugs of tea, Vilpur and Danam are eating, and Aji and Princess Rishala’s guard are off to the side, playing some sort of game with small brass figurines.
Vilpur looks up when I enter, and almost chokes on his meal. Princess Rishala slops her tea over Praseep and he doesn’t even notice, he’s staring at me so hard.
‘Could you not find a tunic to fit you?’ asks the Princess’ guard.
I make myself smile. ‘This one reminds me of home.’
Grumpy definitely looks like he’s reciting a chant under his breath, and Vilpur’s hermit features are anything but calm. These people …
Princess Rishala finally nods her head. ‘It’s just a tunic.’
Vilpur stares at her, before seeming to remember his station and dropping his eyes. I hover, uncertain.
Finally Aji stands, and her hawk-face broadens into a smile that cuts through the tension. ‘Well, you do clean up nicely. Did you let out the water?’
‘Um, no. Should I have?’
‘Please do.’
My stomach grumbles, but I turn back around and go into the bathing area. Despite steaming invitingly, the water looks foul. I’m glad no one else gets to see what I bathed in, what I helped create. I roll up my sleeve, squat by the side, and reach down to grab the leather plug at the bottom. The water gurgles away, scum and dirt draining down to who knows where.
Aji meets me as I come out of the little doorway. I blink, trying to block the view of the draining bath and its revolting contents. What does she want?
She peers easily over my shoulder with her keen hawk-eyes. ‘Oh.’
What has she seen? I look around hesitantly. At the bath, at the last of the greasy water vanishing down the hole. How embarrassing.
‘It drained without freezing,’ Aji says, giving Danam a knowing look and nodding, lips pursed in thought. Danam’s too busy inhaling his stew to notice.
‘What is it?’ asks Praseep.
‘The water was hot enough to drain completely, Your Highness.’
‘Oh,’ he echoes. He also looks at Danam, and when he speaks again his voice is level and sounds like the dead winds of old tunnels. ‘Well, that was well done.’ It looks like he’s dredging deep within himself to find the smile he gives to the Princess. ‘Everything’s going to work out.’
The Princess smiles at him and at Danam, sunshine on a snowy mountain. Vilpur bows his head serenely towards him. It looks like my tunic has been overshadowed by a draining bath …
I’m too hungry to care right now. I edge towards the bare remnants of the meal. I collect some stew into a bowl and top it with a (now cold) fried bread, fill another mug with butter tea, then hover for a moment before deciding I’d better stick with my friends.
I move back next to the gotals, and pick up a hunk of stew with my bread.