Dead Rivers - Freedom's Gate Part 14

"That answers your question, doesn't it?" I said to Tamar. "There are shamans here. There are some who worship the djinni. As long as you want to keep worshipping them."

"I wonder if it will mark me," Tamar said, raising her eyes to mine. "You know. As a- blossom."

"Zhanna's not a 'blossom,' " I said. "If she was ever a slave, I haven't heard anyone talk about it."

Thinking it over, I thought that Saken and Erdene had never been slaves; I was quite sure Ruan had been, once, and Maydan. I wasn't sure about Jolay and Zhanna, and I couldn't have said why I was so certain of Ruan and Maydan. Ruan's cruelty, and her clear lack of a close friend, made me think that she hadn't been born here. Maydan, though, it was just a hunch. I shook my head; Lauria the escaped slave would not know this. "Follow your heart, Tamar. I don't think anyone honestly cares. Except for maybe Ruan, and who cares what the h.e.l.l she thinks?"

Tamar smiled at that and glanced at my cup. "Oh dear," she said in a slightly mocking tone. "You've spilled your k.u.miss, haven't you? I'd better go get you some more..."

"Don't you dare," I said.

She gulped hers down and shuddered. "Ah. Well. Having done my duty, I'd better sneak off to bed before someone refills my cup."

A shadow fell over us, and we looked up to see Janiya.

"Do you two know how to cook?" she asked. Without waiting for us to answer, she said, "It doesn't really matter. Saken will explain the basics to you. You two will cook dinner for the sisterhood tomorrow evening. You'll need to start at around noon, I expect, since you haven't done it before. Good night."

"This chest holds sacks of rice." We stood in the supply tent; Saken pointed to a big wooden chest with a hinged lid. "This chest holds sacks of lentils." She opened the lid briefly so that we could peer in and look. "Spices are in here." Another chest, this one smaller, and when she opened it, we saw smaller sacks of tightly woven linen. "Flour's in here." Another big wood box. "Game has been scarce, so probably no meat tonight. Here." She set a big iron pot at our feet. When I looked in, I could see lines etched inside from years of use. "Rice up to this line, then water to here. Bring it to a boil and cover it with the lid. It'll be done when all the water's absorbed. That doesn't take long, but it takes a long time to come to a boil, so leave plenty of time." She set out another pot. "This one's for the lentils: lentils to this line, water to here, two handfuls of spices, and start it cooking when you start the rice."

"This doesn't sound like it'll take all that long," I said. "Why did Janiya tell us to start at noon?"

"She'd also like you to make bread." Saken took a big pottery bowl, scooped in flour, and added a little water, stirring until she got a stiff dough. "It's going to take you awhile to make as much bread as we'll eat. Scoop out a ball, roll it, pat it flat and thin, and then cook it over a flat griddle. You want it cooked but still soft. You can snack on your mistakes; it'll take you awhile to get the hang of it, don't worry about that." She demonstrated quickly, patting out a little round circle and baking it briefly on the griddle.

"There. Fill these three baskets. When bread's available, everyone always eats a lot of it. Have fun! Oh, and come get me if you have any questions."

It was a long, long afternoon. We sat close to the hot fire in the hot, dry sun, patting out little b.a.l.l.s of dough and stacking the cooked pieces on a plate. The first couple came out much too brown, and we snacked on them, as Saken had suggested; the crunchy brown bread crackled in my mouth, and I ached to cook up the whole batch just like that and eat it all, just for a little variety. "Do you suppose they'll toss us out into the desert if we don't add the spices?" I asked Tamar. "I am so very tired of the spices the Alashi cook with..."

Tamar laughed. "I know. I'm tempted, too. Maybe I'll burn another piece of bread..." I burned one instead, and we shared it.

We finished the bread and moved it into the supply tent to wait for dinner. I fetched down one of the pots Saken had pointed at earlier, and Tamar scooped rice out of the sack into the pot. She returned the scoop to the chest, and gasped.

"What is it?" I moved over quickly, half expecting a mouse or some vermin in the food.

"Shh!" Tamar glanced toward the door of the supply tent to make sure no one was in there with us. Then she pulled back one of the sacks to reveal what she'd seen. Honey. A single gla.s.s jar of dark amber liquid, sealed tight with beeswax and oiled linen.

"This isn't where the honey is stored," Tamar whispered. "The honey is kept in the yurt; I've seen it. If anyone knew about this honey, it wouldn't be here." She extracted it delicately, closed the chest, and set the jar of honey on top. "We could share it between us."

Desire for the honey rose up like tears, and I caught my breath; my mouth watered. Without a word, I grabbed the plate of bread and took the top piece, ripping it in half. Tamar's eyes glinted, and she had started to peel loose the wax seal when something occurred to me. " Wait," I hissed.

Tamar froze and looked at me. "What's wrong?"

"What if this is a test?"

She pulled her hand back slowly. "A test like being sent out for the karenite?"

"Yeah, exactly." I put down the bread and looked in the chest with the rice, as if it might hold a clue to whether we were being tempted deliberately. "When we were slaves, if something like this came our way, we grabbed it. Because we were stealing from our owner-someone who was already stealing our freedom from us." Tamar nodded. "But here-here, if we take the honey for ourselves, we're stealing from our sisters. Maybe Janiya planted it where she knew we'd find it, to see what we would do."

Tamar's eyes went wide. "I think you're right." Her face fell and she glared at the honey. "But I want some."

"Let's offer it up with the meal. Share it with everyone. We'll get some, then."

Tamar nodded. We set the honey aside and filled the rice pot at the stream, setting it on the fire to simmer. My suspicions were more or less confirmed when I saw Janiya watching us carefully from her spot in the shade. I grudgingly stirred spices into the lentils, despite being tempted to forget. We sat down to wait in the shade for dinner to be done.

"Maybe we should ask Janiya before we bring out the honey," I said.

"No," Tamar muttered. "She could just say no. It's bad enough that we have to share it."

When the sisterhood gathered for dinner, we brought out the plates of bread, and then-with a smile and a flourish-the jar of honey. "We found it in the rice!" Tamar said. "Just wedged in between two sacks."

"We figured it must have been put there by accident," I said. "Since it wasn't set aside for anything and it wasn't being saved for anything, we thought we could all eat it tonight."

There was a great deal of enthusiasm for that plan. Tamar and I managed to grab generous dollops of honey before it was all gone, and when all the loose honey had been eaten, we finished out the jar with our fingers. We probably should have made more bread; as it was, all the bread got eaten with the honey, rather than with the rice and lentils. Well, if this was all some sort of test, it wasn't surprising that Saken had had us make bread. It had been intended to be eaten with the honey, a.s.suming we were honest and pa.s.sed the test.

The meal done, we took the pots down to the river to scrub them out. Janiya approached a few minutes later, a big smile on her face. "You pa.s.sed," she said, and tossed each of us a blue bead.

"What was the test?" Tamar asked. She feigned ignorance well.

"Whether you would share the honey, or eat it yourselves. When slaves steal, they are stealing only from their master. When a member of the sisterhood steals, she steals from her family. You showed that you understand this." Janiya nodded to each of us, and headed back to the main camp.

We threaded the beads on our thong and retied them: two beads now. They clicked against each other on the string. I wondered how many more we had to earn. I slipped the thong back over my head, and continued to scrub out the pot.

"I don't deserve this," Tamar said.

I glanced at her; her face was hard and sad. "Why do you say that?"

"I would have eaten the honey without a second thought. The only reason I didn't was because you convinced me it was a test. That was the only reason."

"Then I don't deserve it, either, because the only reason I didn't eat the honey was that it occurred to me that it was a test."

Tamar was silent for a while. I could hear the sc.r.a.pe of sand against the inside of the pot. She dumped water inside, swirled it around, dumped it out, and checked the inside for food particles with her hand.

She took another handful of sand and scrubbed some more. "I think we should tell Janiya," she said.

"When we're done cleaning up. Confess to her. It's not fair."

"Don't be ridiculous," I hissed. "What if she takes back our beads?"

"You said yourself you didn't deserve yours, either."

I dunked my pot in the stream with a bit more vigor than was probably necessary, swirled the water, and dumped it out. Rinsed it again; it was clean.

"Fine," I said, finally. "You want to, we'll go together and you can tell her."

Tamar was silent. When she had finished scrubbing her pot, we dried them out and carried them back to hang them up in the supply tent for tomorrow. Then we went to find Janiya. She was near the fire, listening to one of the other sisters singing a long, complicated ballad. "We have something to tell you,"

Tamar said.

"Yes?" Janiya looked both of us over; she wasn't smiling now.

"We guessed," Tamar said rapidly. "That the honey was a test. We knew. That's the main reason we didn't eat it. Do you want your beads back?"

Janiya's lips quirked up, and for the first time I noticed that she had not one, but two dimples, one in each cheek. She grinned and then finally laughed out loud, just a little chuckle, not a mean one.

"I'm glad you came to me," she said when she had mostly regained control of her features. "The fact that you came to me to say this proves that you deserve the recognition for honesty. In fact, it demonstrates other things I like to see, too-like a trust that as the leader of this sisterhood, I am sensible and fair, and not as capriciously cruel as a Greek master of slaves." My heart leapt, and sure enough, out of her pocket came two more blue beads. She handed one to each of us, and then patted Tamar on the shoulder. "Quit worrying, new sisters, and go to bed. You've had a very long day."

I dreamed that night of running. Again, I was surrounded by waving gra.s.s on the dark plain, and I knew that Sophos was following me. Kyros, I thought, but the part of me that knew I was dreaming knew that I couldn't scream, because I would wake up the sistersa I bit down on my fear, and kept running, though my legs slowed as if they were tangled in a net, and my chest felt as if it would burst from fear. I can never run fast enough to escape. I can never run far enough to escape. I can't call for help.

There's nowhere left that's safe ...

I reached out, desperately, toward the blackness above me, and with a twist of strength that came from some mysterious place within, I ripped a hole in the night sky, thinking, There, I can hide there...

But beyond, there was a flash of light, and then a sudden rush of wind that lifted me up and blew me back to awareness. I woke with a gasp, but knew that at least this time I hadn't screamed. My ears were very cold, as if the rush of wind had been something real. My heart was pounding.

I ran my fingers over my three beads as I lay in the dark, trying to calm myself, and thought about that strange wind. At least tonight I didn't have to remove myself from the tent to placate my irritable tent-mates, but it still took me a long time to fall back to sleep. As I hovered on the edge of sleep, I thought I heard a voice whisper, " Gate," and then darkness swallowed me again.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Saken fetched me from grooming the horses to tell me that the felt was done. I must have looked at her blankly because she laughed and said, "Come on, you need to be there." I put down the brush and curry comb and followed her back to the main part of camp.

The felt was still bound with the straps that had been used the last time it was unrolled and rerolled, though the more delicate strips of cloth that had been tied by Jolay had worn away or snapped off as the rolled-up felt bounced and tossed over the ground behind someone's horse. Now Janiya unbound the straps and kicked out the reed mats so that the felt unrolled completely. Saken, Ruan, Jolay, and Zhanna each took a corner and peeled it carefully back from the mat. It stayed together, a solid black ma.s.s.

Janiya stepped up behind the felt and took careful hold of it. "Bound with our hair; bound with our flocks.

Bound with our horses, bound with our water. Bound with our labor, bound with our rest." She took a deep breath, and yanked back on the felt with all her strength, trying to tear it. The felt stayed whole.

"Bound like our sisterhood-may it never be rent!"

Even I could recognize a cue for wild cheering when I heard one. One by one, the sisters stepped forward and took a turn trying to tear the felt. When it was my turn, I didn't try that hard-if it could be torn, I really didn't want to be the one who did it. Then Saken strode forward with the same scissors we'd used to cut everyone's hair, along with three pieces of leather that she used as a guide for where to cut. Within a few minutes, the felt was in pieces; everyone else began to gather them up. Tamar and I hung back, and after a moment Saken came over with three pieces for each of us.

"What do I do with these?" I asked.

"You sew them into a vest," she said. "Everyone in the sisterhood wears a black vest made of the felt.

We sew our vests, and then we decorate them. I'll show you my vests from other summers, if you want some ideas."

Tamar and I sat down with her; she had a spool of black thread and a needle. "Do you know how to sew?" she asked. We both nodded. "This shouldn't be too hard for you, then." She put her own three pieces together: the biggest piece formed the back, and the other two formed the left side and right side.

The texture of the felt allowed her to sew her vest without hemming the fabric; she sewed neatly, the seam turned inward, holding the two pieces together as she worked. "Do you see how they go together?"

We nodded again. There were a limited number of needles, so we had to wait our turn. When Erdene finished, she gave Tamar her needle and a rod of tightly wound thread. Tamar cut a piece of thread and threaded her needle, and Erdene helped her orient her pieces to put them together properly.

As I started working on mine, Saken laid hers aside for a moment, then went into the yurt and came out with a small bundle. "Here are my vests from previous years," she said, laying them out. She had five vests in all: the four from previous years were each richly decorated with thread. The first one was the most elaborate: a horse galloped past a yurt, and two rivers cascaded from top to bottom. Smaller pictures were scattered around the rest of the vest: a shovel, a bouquet of poppies, a tiny snow-capped mountain, a sleeping cat. Saken tapped the vest and said, "Your first year in the sisterhood, you're supposed to make a design that tells the story of your life until then. I made this when I was fifteen."

"It's beautiful," I said. I'd spent enough time with a needle, under my mother's eye, to appreciate the time and skill required. Tamar nodded, and silently stroked the threads in the horse's neck.

Saken tapped the second vest. "So the next year, since I didn't have to sew pictures, I didn't." The second vest had no pictures on it at all, but designs that marched up and down the back: lines, broken lines, dotted lines, zigzags, triangles, squares, interlocking circles, interlocking swirls. The third and fourth vests had pictures of vines and flowers, and were much simpler than the first two.

"So are we supposed to make designs that show our lives-as slaves?" Tamar asked.

"Yes," Saken said. "You can use symbols, though; you don't have to be able to embroider pictures of people. Like, that shovel on mine?" She tapped it.

"That's actually a symbol for my mother, because she used to take me out hunting for karenite, and those are the times I most enjoyed her company."

Great, I thought. More lies to invent. Well, it wasn't hard to think of images that I could incorporate easily enough: horses, since I was supposed to have been a stable hand. Some symbol of Kyros, since he was supposedly my old owner. Images from the harem. I shivered a little and stroked the black felt. I wondered how I could represent Sophos. Or Tamar, for that matter.

Everyone seemed to have immediately set to work embroidering; I turned my half-finished vest around and around in my hands, thinking. It would be easiest to start with a horse, except that I wasn't certain I could embroider a nice-looking horse. Even the most complicated pictures on Saken's vests were done perfectly, and I didn't want to have to wear a vest with an ugly, badly done horse embroidered on it all summer long.

A wine cup.

I bit my lip, trying to push the image from my mind, but it intruded again: the wine cup, pressed to my lips by Tamar. The drugged wine, blurring my senses, unsteadying me, making me...

Saken had brought over some colored thread to work with. Once I was done st.i.tching the vest together, I cut a white strand, threaded my needle, and started to sew again.

"Shhhh. Shhhh."

Kyros. I opened my mouth but no sound came out; I looked around frantically, but we sat alone by the banked coals of the campfire. It was night; the yurt stood behind me, dark and quiet. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you, of course." Kyros settled down beside me. "How are things going?"

"Well, thank you for sending the djinn to help me find water." I paused, then frantically corrected myself.

"The aeriko, I mean."

"Yes." Kyros stared into s.p.a.ce for a moment. "Have you been successful?"

"It's taking some time to be accepted as Alashi. Also-" I swallowed hard. "Things didn't go as planned at Sophos's."

"The other slave?"

"Well, her. Yes. But-" I bit my lip, finding the words sticking in my throat. "Sophos broke his word. He acted dishonorably. He-he used me, as he would a concubine. I want him punished."

Kyros's face darkened. "I am sorry to hear that," he said softly. "Sophos was always a useful tool, for me. But he will pay the price, oh yes, for you-you are far more useful."

I studied his face, feeling uneasy.

"Honey cake?" he said, and held out a small tray. I reached for a cake, then drew back my hand; the honey cakes were a writhing ma.s.s of snakes. Harmless snakes, I thought, but snakes, not cakes- "Or perhaps some wine?"

"No!" I shouted, swinging my hand wildly to knock the wine cup from his hand. "Stay away from me, no!"

"Shh, shh, shh-"