Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (39 page)

Strong fingers worked into her hair a moment later, massaging her scalp. “You carry much tension and fear,” the teyanain woman said quietly. “This is a sacred place, Lord Alyea. Here is not the realm of Lord Evkit. Here is not his plots and plans. This is the women’s quarters. This is private, this is
safe.
Outsiders are never given access to this room. It is a very high honor, this trust from Lord Evkit, to give you into our care.”

Alyea blinked and twisted her head to stare up at the attendant; by the fine lines webbing around her eyes, not as young a woman as she’d thought, after all. She’d made the mistake of equating short stature with youth.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“Because you are the first female desert lord to survive a Qisani trial for a very long time,” the woman said. Alyea finally realized, with a shock, that the woman displayed no fracturing in her speech patterns. “We honor that, and your alliance with the First Born.”

Alyea let herself relax back into the water, closing her eyes. “Alliance,” she said bitterly, unable to stop herself.

The woman resumed massaging Alyea’s scalp, more slowly, fingers pressing with startling strength. “Alliances come in many forms. The First Born saved your life, and you saved his. That is a bond that does not break with a few harsh words.”

“How do you know that?” Alyea twisted around to stare at the woman again.

The servant firmly pushed Alyea back into a relaxed position. “It does not matter how we know,” she said, her fingers sliding to the base of Alyea’s skull and beginning to work the neck muscles. “There are important things in this world that even the mighty Lord Evkit does not know or understand.”

Alyea shut her eyes, inhaling orange-scented steam. She flexed her fingers under the water, feeling heat easing an ache in the joints she hadn’t even consciously noticed was there.

“I feel as though I don’t know anything at all,” she said. In her mind, the words seemed filled with self-pitying petulance; still, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Let alone anything important.”

“There is a great deal you do not know,” the woman said. She brought her hands up, sluicing water through Alyea’s hair, wetting it down. “Sit up.” She began working a comb through the dark strands, easing out the tangles. “There is a great deal I do not know. So? Nobody knows everything important, even the First Born, even the ha’reye. You can be ten thousand years old and not know everything important.”

Tangles cleared, she began working a thick soap through Alyea’s hair.

“The trick,” she went on calmly, “is to know what is needed at the moment, and not to strain after what is not needed at that moment.”

“Sounds like you follow Comos,” Alyea muttered, then flinched and said, “No offense,
s’a.”

“None taken,” the woman said. “I do favor His view, but I have not been Called to serve any god. I doubt I ever will, but that is a knowing I cannot claim for sure. Many strange things happen in any given life. If you would lie back—”

The hot water came as a relief; she hadn’t realized her torso was becoming chilled until the warmth returned.

“What is needed right now,” the teyanain woman said, working her fingers through Alyea’s hair to rinse out the soap, “is for you to rest, because chasing one’s own thoughts round and round goes nowhere in a very exhausting way. When you are rested, then you may plan with clear eyes.”

“Plan
what,
though?” Alyea muttered, feeling half-asleep already. The teyanain woman’s ministrations felt—maternal, in a way her own mother had never been; strong, reassuring, and supportive.

“That I cannot tell you,” the woman said, smoothing her thumbs across Alyea’s forehead. “You must make your own plans, and you must walk your own road.”

“That’s
refreshing,” Alyea said, stirring from her half-sleep and twisting to look up at the servant. “Everyone else has been pushing me around to suit themselves.”

The teyanain woman smiled and began washing the rest of Alyea’s body.

Alyea lay still for a while, relaxing under the woman’s ministrations. Her aggravation dissipated, self-pity smoothing out into the clearer perception the teyanain servant had spoken of. At last she said, without any particular emphasis, “That was stupid northern thinking there, wasn’t it? Thinking that teyanain women are less complicated than the men. You’re after something too.”

“You are not a stupid northern,” the woman said, not looking up. Her fingers probed along the sole of Alyea’s right foot, unwinding knots with a nudge. “You are a desert lord.”

“So what are you after?”
I’m being rude,
she thought vaguely; decided she didn’t care.

“First you relax,” the woman said, easing Alyea’s foot back into the hot water and fishing the left one out. “That is our way, men and women together. That is the teyanain way. First we give you due respect, clear your head to think properly. There is no honor in dealing with one in such an exhausted, fragile state. Then we talk, and you think, and you give your answer from your strength, not your weakness.”

“That seems like the hard way to do things,” Alyea commented, watching the woman through half-shut eyes. She winced as the woman pressed too hard on a tender spot. Although the dark head remained bent, the servant seemed to sense the flinch: direct pressure changed to a series of circular motions that eased away the tension more gently.

Still not looking up, the woman answered, “It is the right way to do things, and so the easier way. A decision made in weakness and haste is usually reversed with sleep and the return of reason. A decision made from a place of rest and calm is not turned around so quickly.”

Alyea let her eyes slide shut, thinking about that. “That would work,” she said, testing, “for a long-term plan, not a short-term victory.”

“Teyanain always plan for long term,” the woman said, a hint of laughter in her voice now. “So: rest. You are safe, Lord Alyea. This is sacred time. On my honor, on my blood. Rest. We will talk when you are ready to hear what we have to ask.”

“What about Deiq?” Alyea asked without opening her eyes. “If he decides to take off somewhere, I’ll have to go with him, won’t I?”

“The First Born will not go until you are ready to go,” the woman said, “because even Lord Evkit cannot command his way into these rooms, and it would be very unwise for the First Born to attempt to do so. He knows this. He will wait.”

“Not patiently, he won’t,” Alyea muttered.

“The First Born has much more patience than you think,” the woman said. She lowered Alyea’s foot into the water. “He has had a very long time to practice. He will wait as long as is needed. If you would please stand now? And step out—”

Cold air slicked down her skin along with the water sluicing onto the floor. Alyea shivered and looked down at the servant woman, who held up a thick grey towel with a grave expression.

“I would not ask you to kneel, so I must ask you to dry yourself,” the woman said. “I apologize for the lack of proper attention. We rarely have such tall visitors.”

“No apology needed,
s’a,”
Alyea said, smiling as she took the towel and began mopping water from her skin. “I haven’t felt this taken care of in a very long time.”

“That is good to hear,” the woman said. “That does honor to our family. Thank you for those kind words.” She reached behind a pale drapery and withdrew a thick grey robe, folding it over one arm as she returned to Alyea’s side. “And now, would a meal or a bed be more to your liking?”

“A meal,” Alyea said fervently. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not in the least,” the woman said, handing over the robe. As Alyea put it on, the woman went to one side of the room. Drawing aside another of the drapes revealed an arched tunnel, just high enough and wide enough for Alyea to pass through; still, she ducked reflexively as she followed the slight teyanin woman into the adjoining room.

She sat on a smooth wooden bench in front of a thick wooden table, both polished as much by careful artisans as by the pressures of being used by generations; she ate from plates of fine wood shaved so thin that she could almost see through them; she drank from the tiny half-eggshell cups more exquisitely crafted than any she had seen before.

The food was as simple, and as amazing, as it had been on her previous visit to the teyanain fortress. A more pungent, rosemary-scented oil had been used this time, drenching the bread, rice, and beans in spicy, creamy intensity. The servants brought out a side dish of small game birds, roasted to crackling perfection; then another side dish of thinly sliced sand-pear fruit, and after all that cleared away, a small plate of the most intensely flavored black mountain figs imaginable, drizzled with a light honey.

She was left alone to eat, the teyanain servants withdrawing silently with each dish as it emptied and returning to refill her cup with fine, cold, clear water from a silver jug. With the figs came thopuh tea, strong and vibrant, that chased away her sleepy contentment and brought her all the way awake again.

On her second cup of thopuh tea, when the last empty plate had been cleared away, the older servant moved without haste to sit on the bench across from Alyea. The movement subtly put her at an equal status, rather than a servant role; Alyea blinked and studied the woman with more care.

“Now you have rested and you have eaten,” the woman said, folding her hands together on the table and returning Alyea’s gaze with composure. “Do you wish kathain, or sleep, or perhaps a walk? Name your wish, you will have it next.”

Alyea lifted her cup deliberately, sipping tea, never taking her eyes from the woman as she reevaluated the situation. After setting the cup down and lacing her hands around it, she said, “You’re not a servant.”

“I never said so,” the woman said. Amusement crinkled the corners of her eyes. “But the name of the work does not matter at this moment. I tend to my guest’s needs, and is that not the call of a servant, in the end?”

Alyea shut her eyes, feeling her face heat.
My guest.
This was worse than she had expected. “I didn’t know Evkit had a wife,” she said thinly.

“Teyanain do not have this northern concept of wife,” the woman said. “We speak of
daimaina:
the one who runs the household and tends to the sworn lord’s needs, whatever they may be or become. If the sworn lord were to change, the daimaina would remain to work with the new lord as desired.”

Alyea blinked, sorting through that notion. “So you’re Lord Evkit’s daimaina?”

“At the moment, I have that honor,” the woman said. “I am not his first, of course; but then, he is the first teyanain lord to outlive multiple daimainas. Generally it is the other way around, so this has taken some interesting adjustments over the years.” She paused, watching Alyea’s expression, then added gently, “Teyanain do not pass down leadership through old age. There is always a great striving to replace the oldest and weakest with the strongest and smartest. Evkit has remained a very strong lord for very many years.”

Alyea took a sip of tea to give herself time to think. The woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners, as though she understood the maneuver.

“I am honored by your care,” Alyea said at last.

“Your thanks to a servant were more sincere and appreciated,” the woman said dryly. “It is no matter, Lord Alyea. Nothing changes with this information. Tell me what you desire now, and we will provide.”

Alyea drew in a breath, set down her nearly empty cup, and said, “I would like to clear the matter of what
you
desire out of the way next, if that’s acceptable, daimaina.”

The woman remained still, her dark eyes flicking minutely as she studied Alyea’s face for a few breaths. At last she said, “If you feel wholly rested and alert, then yes. We will speak. But please, Lord Alyea, there is no hurry at all. Sleep, eat, bathe, as often and as long as you wish. This matter will wait on your readiness. Do not feel any urgency.”

“I’m not particularly good at patience,” Alyea said dryly. “I’d never get any sleep while wondering what’s going on.”

The woman’s thin mouth twitched in a smile. “Yes, I see that in you. This time will do, then.”

She reached out and moved Alyea’s cup to the side. Immediately the younger servant emerged from somewhere behind the folds of cloth with a silver teapot and refilled the tiny cup, set a small bowl beside it, then withdrew again as silently.

The daimaina moved the cup back to rest equidistant between herself and Alyea. She kept her thin hands tenting the cup and said, “There is a teyanain way, the
peh-tenez:
this means an agreement made over tea. Only truth may be spoken during the peh-tenez; there are no lies permitted. There are rules: drinking from this cup will mean you are willing to hear more with each sip. Turning the cup over and spilling the tea out into this bowl is a rejection, an end to the discussion. You may not ask questions; you may only refuse to continue listening.

“With the last sip in the cup, you agree to the proposal, or you turn it over and so reject it. The entire matter is considered sacred, and secret, between the two parties; neither of us will speak of it again in our lifetimes, whether this proposal is agreed to or not. You are a desert lord; so there are certain precautions—a preparation in the tea, a slight adjustment to your memories by an athain—which will prevent you from casually revealing the peh-tenez by way of your mind-speech. Even the First Born will be unable to pry this from you without causing you great pain and possibly death; although he may well try, should he ever suspect.”

The daimaina removed her hands from the cup and sat back, watching Alyea with a bright, alert stare, like a bird watching the first worm of the morning emerge into range.

“There is no offense in turning away, not at any point in this discussion,” the daimaina added, voice soft. “There is no guilt, shame, anger, or negative consequence to refusing. You are not threatened, bribed, or compelled to take one step or another. You may take as long to decide as you need between each point; but once the peh-tenez begins, we do not leave or interrupt until we finish.”