The Book of a Thousand Days (2 page)

Day13

While I was washing up tonight, my lady fell asleep on my mattress, not wanting to climb to her chamber. She wears fashionable shoes with the toe long and curled toward her ankle, which are certainly pretty but do make it difficult to clamber up ladders. It wouldn't be proper for me to sleep on her mattress, so I'll finish my story before making my bed of the grain sacks in the cellar. The Ancestors bless her.

After one year with Qadan, Mistress had me take the oath of a lady's maid. I cut my finger, splashed

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drops of blood toward the north and the Sacred Mountain, and swore to serve the gentry and my new mistress however the Ancestors saw fit.

"But I'm still a mucker, right?" I asked.

"You'll always be a mucker," said Mistress.

I was relieved. I know muckers are the simplest of commoners and becoming a lady's maid is a right honor, but I couldn't give up the wild steppes forever, couldn't turn my back on Mama and all she taught. I feel like a mucker from the ends of my hair to the mud of my bones.

After the oath, Mistress escorted me to the city's center and left me at the lord's house. It was near as beautiful as a mountain in autumn with its three-tiered roof covered in red and green enamel tiles. Inside was less welcoming--grand and cold, the floor stones seemingly cut from ice. Everyone was running around, women were wailing, men were yelling. At the time, I thought it was always that way. I hadn't heard yet of the trouble.

Hours I spent sitting in a corner, waiting for someone to be sensible. I could see myself in a mirror, and I stared and thought how plain I looked in my mucker boots and working clothes inside a gentry's house as fine as sugar. I'll sketch it from memory, so it won't be just right.

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[Image: Drawing of a Young Woman Sitting On The Floor]

No one paid me the least mind, and though it wasn't proper, I decided I'd find my new mistress myself. Ancestors forgive me, but what else could I do? I was of no use to anyone just sitting there.

Errand boys rushed up and down corridors, maidens sulked on benches. Some wept. When I asked for directions to Lady Saren's chamber, no one questioned why I wished to go there.

I entered the chamber slowly, squinting. I'd never met any gentry before and was worried that the glory of the Ancestors might be so bright inside her, it would burn my eyes. I was a little disappointed then to find my lady looking much like anyone else, still in her white sleep clothes, her hair in a braid

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with half the hair poking out. Her eyes were puffy and red, her nose wet, her feet bare. She sat on her bed, alone, straight as a tent pole.

The first thing I wanted to do was comb her hair straight and plait it tight, dress her and set her up like a proper lady, let the glory of her divine ancestors shine in her properly. But I had to stand there, quiet, and wait for her to look up and see me. It isn't allowed for a commoner, of course, to speak to gentry first.

The flats of my feet were aching by the time she saw. And in all that time she hadn't moved.

"Who are you?" she asked. There was something about her manner that reminded me of a little girl, though I learned since that she's sixteen years.

"My lady, I'm Dashti. I'm your new maid."

"You can't be, they're all hiding from me because they don't want --" She considered me. "What is your name?"

"Dashti, my lady," I told her again.

She hopped off her bed and grabbed my wrist, but tight. Her swiftness and force startled me. "Swear you'll serve me, Dashti. Swear you won't abandon me. Swear it!"

"Of course, my lady, I swear." I didn't know why she grabbed me and yelled. I'd already taken the oath and learned to write letters and everything.

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"All right," she said, wandering around the room as if looking for something. "All right then."

I led her back to the bed and had her sit while I combed the muddle of her hair and bound it in a braid, every hair crisscrossing so the smarts wouldn't wander out of her head. She scarcely moved as I washed her face and hands and underarms and feet.

I looked in her wardrobe for clothing and found two dozen deels. They were like the long-sleeved robes over tunic and trousers that any commoner wears, but they resembled my own deel as much as a worm resembles a snake. Before coming to the city, the only cloth I'd seen was leather, fur, or felt. Qadan taught me the names of other cloths--brocade, satin, damask, silk. My lady had them all, I'd dare guess, and embroidered and fine, layers stitched upon each other, trimmed and as colorful as a summer sunset. You must think I fib, claiming any person could have such clothes and so many, but I swear by the eight Ancestors that I speak true as truth.

When she was dressed and combed and cleaned, the beauty that is Lady Saren really began to show, and I think she felt it, too. Once she even said, "Thank you, Dashti."

Those words made me feel combed and cleaned myself.

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Then her honored father entered, and she stiffened and began to whimper as if fighting off a fit of sobs. He had one crooked leg. This surprised me fit to staring. I don't mean disrespect, but I'd always thought that gentry would be formed and perfect of limb, lovely and radiant, being the offspring of the Ancestors. But truth be, if her father had worn common clothing, I might've thought him a mucker. Either the Ancestors want it this way, or else Under, god of tricks, was deceiving my eyes.

"Still bleating about it, are you?" said her honored father. He was a man too small for his voice. "Titor and his dogs, girl--it's your mess. Crying about it is like rolling around in your own filth."

He watched her for a moment, and I swear by Titor

and

his dogs that there was a touch of sympathy in his eyes. I'd have sworn it on my mother's memory till he up and slapped her face. It didn't make sense, as though he slapped her more from duty than anger.

Mama used to say, "Hitting is the language of cowards and drunkards," and here a member of the honored gentry struck his daughter for crying.

"What's this thing here?" he asked, looking at me now, taking in my rough boots, my wool deel, my leather sash. "Why is one of your maids dressed as a mucker? Are you a mucker? Answer me, girl."

17 .

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I answered him. "Yes, my lord, I was born on the steppes, and when I came to my lord's city last year --"

"That's enough, I don't want the whole story. You're nothing to look at, are you?"

I thought that was a useless question. I'm right aware of the red birth splotches on my face and arm, not to mention my dull hair and lips thinner than the edge of a leaf. Mama said that beauty is a curse for muckers. She once told me about Bayar, her clan sister, who looked like Evela, goddess of sunlight. And what happened to Bayar? A lord fell for her beauty, got her with child, then left both girl and baby in the mud and never returned. That's gentry's right, I guess, but it was a bit hard on Bayar.

"I remember now," my lady's father said with a

humph

, "Mistress Tolui said some mucker girl was coming from Qadan's. What a hell you walked into, though it can't be worse than your own home. Muckers survive on grass alone, just like sheep, isn't that right?"

"Well, my lord," I said, not sure how to contradict gentry, "we --"

He slapped his daughter's face again, suddenly and with no cause, like a snake striking. The sound of her cry was sharp and sad enough to break a bird's

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wing. It was then that I began to understand my lady--I think she must've lost her mother long ago, before she was old enough to learn how to comfort herself.

"There she goes again!" he said, his big voice booming out of his small head. "She'd gone quiet, and I've grown accustomed to her crying. Bawl all you want, wench! No one will hear you alone in the tower."

At that, she forced her tears to stop and looked right back at him, as brave as anything I've seen. "I won't be alone," she said. "My new maid is going with me."

"Is that what you think?" He was rummaging through her wardrobe, pulling deels from their hooks and tossing them onto the floor. "You don't deserve a maid, and I won't force one to attend you. So let me hear the maid say she's willing to go."

My lady was clinging to my arm.

"Go where?" I asked.

Her father laughed. "Now I understand." He took hold of one of the deels and ripped the sleeves off. "I, her honored father, have arranged an enviable match with Lord Khasar. He is the lord of Thoughts of Under, the most powerful of the Eight Realms. And does my daughter thank me? And appreciate her responsibility

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to form this alliance? No, she declares she's promised herself to Khan Tegus of the lesser realm Song for Evela. She refuses to marry Lord Khasar. How's that for gratitude? I'm sending her to a watchtower shut up as a prison and we'll see if seven years beneath bricks won't kill her rebellion. So say it, mucker girl, will you lock yourself up with this disobedient child?"

My lady was squeezing my arm so tightly now, my fingers felt cold. One of her cheeks was pink from his slap, her brown eyes red from crying. She reminded me of a lamb just tumbled out, wet all over, unsure of her feet and suspicious of the sun.

She'd be alone in that tower, I thought, and I remembered our tent after Mama died, how the air seemed to have gone out of it, how the walls leaned in, like to bury me dead. When Mama left, what had been home became just a heap of sticks and felt. It's not good being alone like that. Not good.

Besides, I'd sworn to serve my mistress. And now that her hair was fixed and her face washed, I saw just how lovely she was, the glory of the Ancestors shining through her. I felt certain that Lady Saren would never disobey her father lightly. Surely she had a wise and profound reason for stubbornness, one blessed by the Ancestors.

"Yes," I said. "I'll stay with my lady."

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Then her father up and slapped me across my mouth. It almost made me laugh.

I'm right proud of myself for remembering so much! Maybe I got a few words wrong, but that's so near how the conversation went, I'm going to call it truth. My hand aches from writing and my ink grows thin from watering, so I'll finish for tonight.

Day 14

As my lady didn't budge from my mattress last night, I slept as I could on the sacks of barley flour in the cellar, but squeaks and scratches kept nipping at my dreams. When I woke from a nightmare and sat up, two tiny eyes stared back.

A rat. And where there's one, there must be more.

This makes me count numbers and rub my forehead. There's seven years of food for my lady and her maid. We don't have enough to spare for a family of rats. I found four sacks of grain with holes nibbled through and counted six tallow candles missing from a box. What if they eat more? A lot more? How will we survive seven years with rat-spoiled food and no light?

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Day 19

Little time for writing these past days. When I'm not washing and cooking or singing and caring for my lady, I sit in the cellar with the broom and swat at anything with eyes. There are a dozen rats at least.

I don't have arsenic to make rat bread, so I fashioned a trap the best I could. Among our supplies I found some nails, as long as my finger and sharp, too. I drove them up through the lid of a barrel then lay atop the nails a piece of parchment. It looked a solid object to me, and to the rat as well, I suppose. Here's how it must've been:

[Image: A Rat jumping into a Trap]

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I found it this morning, its body stuck inside the spikes with one nail up through its chin. I won't show it to my lady, save her. She is already feeling ill. I sang the song for stomachache but she grew tired of the melody and sent me away. I hear her upstairs rocking on her bed.

Sometimes I think there's something not quite right with my lady. She seems sad, but when I sing the song for sadness, she doesn't respond. Nor does the song for clear thoughts make her think straight. I guess a couple of songs just isn't going to be enough for whatever ails her. Mistress chose me because I know the songs, and now I begin to realize that my duty with Lady Saren will be more than just keeping her fed and clean. Perhaps the Ancestors sent me to heal her.