“Yes, I don’t only bray.” I’m so much taller and bigger than they are, with my mother’s height and my brawny shoulders honed in the Fives, that Volua and Galaia take a hasty step back as if to get out of the way of my kick.
Father shakes his head and I can’t tell whether he’s about to correct me for my rude manners or is suppressing a rude comment of his own. I don’t want him to get into trouble, so I nod respectfully at the older woman, hoping she’ll be more cooperative.
“Perhaps you can assist me, Doma.”
She nods in reply, looking as if she’d like to express her opinion of the other two ladies but age has given her the wisdom to remain silent. I want to like her, but I know better. She might be an asp in disguise.
She shows me through a curtained sleeping chamber and onto a shaded portico overlooking a private bathing courtyard tiled with jade. Three walls form a long mural depicting a royal garden party with a queen presiding over the festivities. The depictions of food and drink flowing out of a gigantic double-horned cornucopia are created with actual pearls and jewels. Its casual splendor takes me aback.
The attendant clears her throat.
“I am Jessamy, Doma,” I say in my most courteous voice, and I’m embarrassed when she doesn’t even bother to reply or give her own name.
In formal silence she helps me remove my clothing. The ties and clasps are clogged with dirt and grit; the scarf wrapped over my hair is stiff with dried blood. Unlike the other women with their sneers and pretended surprise, she makes no comment as she sets each disgustingly filthy item into a large brass basin beside my father’s discarded gear. Once I am naked she hands me a shift, then goes inside some kind of steward’s cupboard full of vials and unguents and soaps.
I pull on the shift, woven of a sheer cotton that leaves little to the imagination, but I’m still glad of even this much covering when the other two ladies hurry onto the portico, all smiles and graciousness.
“There you are. Larissa is just collecting a few things for your bath. If you’ll come with us, we will take you.”
Do they intend to escort me to the actual stables? Doma Larissa has not looked away from the shelves and her silence makes me feel I have no choice but to go. The last thing I want is to make my father look bad.
“Are you sure I’m not supposed to bathe in this courtyard?” I ask.
“That pool is for swimming and cooling off and entertainment. You don’t wash there.”
We pass through a gate onto another portico that overlooks the most splendid garden I have ever seen, saturated with the intense colors of flowering vines and shrubs. The fragrance alone is staggering, like pots of incense. My companions hurry me along a winding path. I hate the way they urge me along, like they don’t want me to get my feet under me, like they want me to stumble. They cover their mouths, trying not to laugh, as we emerge onto a polished marble pavement surrounding two bathing pools and an awning furnished with painted screens and embroidered couches. The larger pool is rectangular, tiled in a blue lapis so incandescent it hurts my eyes. In the small pool Kalliarkos reclines at his ease, eyes closed as water is poured over his head by one of a squad of eager attendants, all male. He’s freshly shaved, and his hair has been clipped. Rose petals float around him. Seeing him is like seeing a dream of what I’ve always been told is most desirable in the world.
I know instantly that I am not supposed to be here.
Lady Volua lifts her chin with a gloating smirk. “Your Gracious Majesty, we have brought you a special gift lightly wrapped. I confess the girl has picked up some mud along the way, and I fear not even the strongest soap will scrub off all the dirt.”
Kal opens his eyes.
His double take would be funny if everyone weren’t looking thunderously disapproving. My own furious blush doesn’t amuse me at all. Should I run back the way we came? Or refuse to budge, to show I can’t be bullied?
Of course at that very moment Captain Helias strides into view, escorting in several high-ranking palace stewards for some manner of royal consultation. When he sees me he stops dead. Lady Volua’s glee turns positively radiant as the officials take in the full degrading glory of the scene. All my proud defiance dissolves under the scrutiny of so many censorious eyes. I wish I could sink into the ground and vanish.
Kal looks angrier than I have ever seen him, as if rage has stolen his voice.
Brisk footfalls interrupt our tableau. Larissa enters, carrying a tray, which she sets down on a table beside the pool. Without a word, she whisks a clean towel off the table, snaps it out, and holds it open to conceal Kal from the rest of us as he gratefully stands and allows her to wrap it around him. She then sweeps off her orange calf-length jacket and settles it over my shoulders as an extra layer of modesty.
“Out!” Kal’s curt command stirs them to immediate obedience. All the attendants and officials hurry away into the garden. “Except you, Doma Larissa. If you please.”
The old woman nods, and only now, because she’s no longer wearing the jacket over her sheath underdress, do I realize she wears an ill-wisher’s beads around her neck!
Every well-to-do Patron family keeps an ill-wisher to guard its children, for such a woman can cast the evil eye onto any person who tries to harm her charges. They carry in their bodies the bad fortune that marred their own lives, which is why people fear even to touch them. When Father gained his captaincy he informed Mother that we would now need to employ an ill-wisher, and Mother retorted that the Patron custom of cutting out the tongue of any newly widowed woman who had never borne a child was grotesque and hateful. But she agreed to employ such a woman, Taberta, because it meant she could offer a haven to a person who would otherwise be scorned and mistreated.
“Jes, it’s all right. Doma Larissa is no danger to you. She was my ill-wisher. Mine and Meno?’s.”
Kal’s sweet smile burns through the air, and the old woman offers a proud bow in acknowledgment. Honor shines in her face. What she thinks of me I cannot know but that she cares for him is apparent in the wordless exchange that passes between them.
“I didn’t know you had an ill-wisher,” I say awkwardly, still flushed.
“When I was little, she acted as our nurse because Grandmother did not trust anyone, so I can assure you no harm will come to you if you allow her to help you bathe, not even if she touches you.” He worries at his lower lip, glances coyly at the marble paving, and looks up. “Unless you would like me to help you bathe.”
Doma Larissa gives a negative slice of her hand through the air.
“Perhaps not,” he adds obediently, and I wish my cheeks weren’t burning, but they are, and I can’t help but meet his gaze and remember everything that has passed between us.
We smile at each other as if we two are alone.
Leaves rustle in the garden and whispers float on the air.
A king is never alone. Not really.