“Nothing’s wrong.” He rose and bowed to me. “I think I have all that I need. Thank you again, Lady Tea.”
It was only after he left that I realized he had not taken my memories of the boy in the hooded cloak.
“Everyone is believed to have two faces—one they show to the public and one they wear in private. The first face is their shaxsiat, or their honor. The second face is their ehteram, their dignity. It is a concept practiced more commonly in Odalia but also adopted by the asha-ka in Ankyo. It is important for a person to interact with others in such a way as to enhance their shaxsiat while still maintaining their ehteram—to increase others’ estimation of them while remaining true to one’s self. It is harder than it sounds. Many actions that elevate people’s opinion of you are not necessarily what you truly wish to do. It is a matter of balancing both faces so you can do what is expected of you and at the same time pursue your personal goals.”
“I did not fare very well with my shaxsiat, then,” I said, bitter. Our meal that night was composed of Odalian delicacies: fried rice soaked in saffron and caramel, called tahdig; kabab koobideh, flavored with turmeric and set on sticks hewn from more driftwood; and doogh, a flavored, sour yogurt. I had not seen her prepare the meals, did not think she was capable of cooking them in such a short time.
“You considered your dignity to be greater than what the royal courts demanded of you, and this imbalance is the reason why they cast you out of Drycht. In the same way, I considered my dignity to be more important than the rules and restrictions that clog the traditions of the Willows, and that is why I find myself in the Sea of Skulls, foraging for bones. But would you do it again, given the chance? Would you sacrifice your shaxsiat to retain your ehteram?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation.
She smiled at me. “Then we are not so different after all.”
21
My asha sister Altaecia was a lot like my sister Rose. She was round and quiet and keen on gardening. She was also Ankyo’s foremost expert on herbs and medicine and was a consultant to many apothecaries operating in Ankyo. She made the best dizi I had ever tasted, and her ghormeh sabzi could silence even Polaire. Unsurprisingly, her ingredients were always fresh, and she was in the know with most of the vendors in the marketplace, so that her roasted lamb, seasoned and cooked for three hours to perfection, went unbelievably well with her sautéd kale, chickpeas, and parsley stew, along with anything else she chose to cook.
Every other week, I would accompany her on what was a typical morning for my sister-asha. Most people visit the marketplace at dawn to find the choicest seafood and cuts of meat, but much of the preparations took place long before the sun rose. Altaecia was hard on vendors who sold rotten food, and it was an easy way to go out of business. Meek and mild mannered for the most part, she changed into a no-nonsense, uncompromising taskmaster when it came to food standards.
We didn’t always visit the Ankyon market. When she brought me to a tall, white building at the edge of the city for the first time, the smell of dirty linen assailed my nose the moment we entered. People dressed in gray frocks rushed past us, carrying an armful of sheets or complicated-looking metal instruments. Patients lay on pallets on the floor, as many as a dozen in every room we passed.
“There is one skill people often overlook in an asha,” she said as she stooped over an old man swaddled in blankets, fast asleep. “And that is the precision by which we can perceive color. Tell me the color of his heartsglass.”
“Green.”
“No. It is octarine.”
“But isn’t octarine just another shade of green?”
“And therein lies all the difference. Ailments give very specific tints, Tea. Green only tells me that the illness is a physical one. Hues, heart rhythms, brightness—they show me the specifics of a disease. I will teach you how to observe and keep track of these differences. You there, Cecely!” She snapped at a woman built like a broomstick. “Didn’t I tell you to change the patients’ bedsheets every day?”
“But, Lady Altaecia, Mistress Mal made it clear that we could only—”
“I don’t care what that khar has made clear!” Althy raged, a veiled tigress. “Tell her that Lady Altaecia demands clean sheets and linen for every patient, and if that happens to cut into her profit, then so be it! Perhaps she needs to be reminded one more time of the cow?”
The woman paled. “I will see to it, Lady Altaecia.”
Many also came to Althy for ailments that normal physicians and apothecaries could not heal, and they were as complex as they were varied. She taught me to prepare ointments and medicine. I pounded pescilla seeds and groundroot for smallworm antidotes or mixed dragon fruit pulp and stingberry juice for high fevers. The variations among the heartsglass colors were difficult to distinguish, and I made many mistakes. But each day I improved.
Two months after we began, Althy regretfully informed me in the middle of our cooking lesson that she would be leaving. We were preparing chicken fesenjan with yellow rice, which also happened to be Polaire’s favorite meal. As was common during these lessons, Altaecia would grill me about the kinds of herbs we used. “You must learn to make this by the end of the day,” she explained, “for I will have very little time to teach you when the week is out. Now, do you remember what nuts we top the stew with?”
“Ground walnuts,” I replied, “paired with pomegranate sauce. What do you mean, ‘you have very little time’?”
“I will be returning to my duties as Princess Inessa’s bodyguard in five days’ time, and so ends my stay in the Willows. What other sicknesses do walnuts treat?”
“Canker sores and bright fever. Unless the patient is allergic to nuts, which means we substitute saffron and twisted barley. You’re to be Princess Inessa’s bodyguard?” It was hard to imagine her as anyone’s bodyguard, with her broad face and glasses and the circle motifs in her hua that only emphasized her roundness. It also occurred to me that I have never once seen her fight.
Althy smiled at me. “I have always been her bodyguard; I merely asked for leave to care for Mykkie and oversee your education. I will still be in the city. The castle is a stone’s throw away, and the princess has always been accommodating when other asha come to visit. Besides, you’ll have your other sisters here to take care of you.”
“But none who cook as well as you do.” I was crestfallen. As much as I was fond of her cooking, I was even more fond of Altaecia herself.
The redhead laughed. “I am sure there will be more than enough to do here to occupy your time. Now—what are the three illnesses that ingesting applecrut and figberry syrup will help alleviate?”
“Stone fevers, diarrhea, and indigestion. Althy, when we visited that charity house a while back, you threatened the mistress with a cow.”