The Third Scroll (16 page)

“If you would step on this stool, my Lady.” The seamstress checked the dress and for the last time adjusted the fit.

By the time they finished, every gaze that beheld me turned approving. I did enjoy those few moments of splendor and attention, until I realized for what I was being readied.

Upon his return home, Lord Tahar always called for a concubine. And as no others occupied the High Lord’s strange Pleasure Hall, I had little doubt upon whom the honor should fall tonight. The women anticipated his actions, it seemed, as they arranged my hair into elaborate coils despite my protests.

I worked myself into such a state that when Leena escorted me from my chamber, my knees nearly gave out beneath me as I walked, my legs like saplings rattled by wind. I held my head high, determined not to show any of that fear, to bear all I had to bear with dignity.

But she led me into the palace’s Great Hall instead of the High Lord’s bedchamber, and I realized I had forgotten about the feast.

Relief flooded me so thoroughly at this reprieve, that I did not balk when she led me straight to the High Lord’s table and seated me on the bench next to him. The
only
place to sit, it seemed, as no concubine pillows covered the ground behind him. An equally fierce-looking warrior picked at a roasted fowl on my other side, but I had eyes only for the man on whom my fate depended.

“I hope the evening finds you well, my Lady.” Batumar greeted me as one would a favored concubine.

“Fine well, my Lord.” I clamped my hands together on my lap.

A low murmur spread through the crowded room, but I was barely aware of anything save the High Lord’s obsidian gaze as it traveled the length of my dress. When his gaze at last reached mine, I looked away, unable to bear the scrutiny.

I could not look up again until he turned his attention to his brother on his other side. Lord Gilrem paid me no mind, but the man behind him examined me openly.

His face was as lined as the cracked ground at the end of the summer drought. His braided beard shone with oils in the light of the hundred torches that burned bright in their sconces. His protruding eyes did not seem to be connected and moved independently of each other.

When his hand fisted on the table, my breath disappeared suddenly, as if his gnarled fingers were closing around my throat. I tore my gaze away, and I could breathe again. After that, I kept my attention on the hall and the people who had gathered there for the feast.

Warriors sat at the tables with their concubines and ate together. Husbands and wives always sat together among my people, and their children with them, one as families. I did not realize it could be so among the Kadar.

Although Batumar paid little mind to me, I could enjoy neither the meal nor the talk at the table, my mind drowning with the anxiety of the approaching night.
Pain and blood before morning came
, I believed. I had seen Onra with Tahar. Morning would see forever erased the hope that I would one day become a healer such as my mother had been.

To distract my anguished mind, I glanced at the man who sat on my other side, a fearsome warrior but not a Kadar, judging from the exotic lion mane of his hair—locks varying from the color of straw to a brown so dark as to be almost black—and his strange clothes that resembled battle armor. He bowed at once and introduced himself as Karnagh, from a distant country the name of which I did not catch in the clamor of the feast.

A handsome figure he cut, all brawn and thick hair that fell in twisted locks below his waist. And friendly too, not for a moment without a smile upon his face. I tried to remember where I had heard his name before but could not recall.

An empty seat gaped on his other side, and so he had no one else to talk to but me. He sampled every tray the servants brought around, and praised the food.

“Do you mind?” He pointed to the bone of the pheasant thigh I had just finished.

He had been throwing his leavings under the table from time to time, and I assumed he had his hound at his feet. Until I felt a heavy tail fall across my slippers. The tail began to beat the floor restlessly, and I heard a low rumbling growl as Karnagh tossed the bone under the tapestry that covered the table.

And then I remembered where I had heard his name before. He was the warlord Batumar had told me about on the road to Karamur—Karnagh, whose people talked to tigers and took them to battle.
He would not…

I paled at the thought. And even as I tried to convince myself I could not possibly be right, something massive rubbed against my legs under the table.

“Tigra,” Karnagh murmured under his breath, and the beast moved away from me. The man gave me a conspiratorial wink and pulled the tablecloth up enough to allow a glimpse of the largest tiger that lived in all the lands.

I froze in my seat. The beast looked at me as if bored. Lord Karnagh dropped the cloth back. I understood at once why no one sat on his other side.

“Batumar said you would not mind. Everyone knows he is harmless unless he is hunting or we are in battle. I do not know why the womenfolk around these parts always squeal if he comes near. It is fair heartening to find one brave lady in the castle,” he said with a wide smile.

I steeled my spine, not wanting to tremble and disappoint the man. “He does as you bid him?”

Lord Karnagh’s smile stretched wider as he started into the story of their last fight.

He most certainly managed to distract me from my fears of the upcoming night. So preoccupied was I with the beast under the table that could at any moment decide to sample me for dessert, I did not think of Batumar until he rose to leave.

I dared not breathe or move until I was certain he had left the hall, for fear I would draw attention to myself. He did not call my name.

A short reprieve, then, I thought, and as others rose, I took my leave of Lord Karnagh to return to my chamber, wishing to be alone for as long as I could before the High Lord sent for me. I knew I had but a moment’s delay. To take my body was his right; indeed, I was his possession. And the Kadar liked to take.

I could have never found my way back, but as soon as I stood, Leena appeared by my side.

I barely recognized Pleasure Hall. Steaming water filled the great hole in the middle of the floor, heated through some magical mechanism from below. Silk pictures, finer than any at the House of Tahar, hung on the walls. I turned from the images and prayed that Batumar would never want to do any of that to my poor body.

But why else would he have ordered the pictures to be hung if not to educate me before I went to him? I wished the High Lord’s Pleasure Hall had other concubines so I might have asked how such things were conducted. I seemed alone in the great space, however, save the servants. I did not take that as a good sign.

I remembered the tales I had heard at Lord Tahar’s Maiden Hall about concubines who brought shame to their Lord or displeased him. They were put to the sword, their bodies hung from the whipping post for days for all to see. I heard whispers of Lord Tahar’s father, who had one concubine sewn into a burlap sack with a selection of snakes and tossed into the harbor. Her lover had been castrated, then burned alive.

I thought of the endless row of chambers. It seemed impossible that this many women could have displeased Batumar.

Would
I
?

I was too distraught to appreciate the gossamer night rail that lay upon my bed. I could see the embroidered flower petals of the coverlet clearly through the thin fabric that shimmered in the light of the fire.

Leena moved to unlace my gown, but I sent her away. I would have been too embarrassed to wear such a garment in front of her, let alone Batumar. I smoothed down the thick brocade of the gown—the more barriers between me and the High Lord, the better. I wondered whether it would have been untowardly if I put on my traveling cape.

I sank onto the padded stool to wait in front of the fire, but as time passed and my back ached, I lay upon the bed, snuggled against the small mountain of pillows.

* * *

I awoke to the morning light filtering in through the small windows high on the wall, and to noises made by a servant woman stoking the fire in the hearth. She had a bent back and hair of silver, one of her eyes milky white and almost certainly blind.

“My name is Tilia, my Lady. I am at your service,” she said with a bow as soon as she saw me come awake. She brought my morning meal and apologized for the lack of fresh mosan juice.

“The mist is upon us. May the goddesses save us.” Her aged hands trembled. “It came on early before anyone could go to market. No market now and not anything else either,” she mumbled on as she served me.

“A snowstorm?” I had hoped the season of snow was behind us. Escape would be easier in fair weather.

“Nay, not snow. Not bad weather it is, but great evil, my Lady.”

The honest fear in her voice sent a chill down my spine.

“It will pass by tomorrow, but the streets will be empty until then. Not a soul would walk into the mist, not one. Thick it is like goat milk and foul. Many unwary fools have disappeared into it never to be seen again. They say invisible beasts live in the mist and feast on human flesh.”

She held on to a clump of charms that hung from her belt, and I nearly missed mine.

I ate the boiled eggs and cheese in silence as her words darted around in my mind like frightened mice. She took the tray when I finished my victuals, and other servants came to attend other chores. All had charm belts around their waists now, although I had not seen that custom followed at Karamur the previous night.

By the time I washed and they combed and arranged my hair, the dressmaker stood in the door again and worked with me that entire day with but a few breaks. She did not leave until the servant women came for me in time for the evening meal. It seemed the High Lord’s household ate together every evening when the High Lord resided at Karamur, and not only on special feast days as did the House of Tahar.

“I hope the evening finds you well. Have you yet recovered from our journey?” Batumar asked, once I took my seat, careful of the tiger.

His plain white shirt stretched over wide shoulders, his dark hair spilling down his back. He wore no symbols of his station, yet he looked as regal as a king. Were he dressed as the last beggar, he would have still looked a warrior. His fearsome sword rested on the bench on his other side, ready in its scabbard.

“Yes, my Lord.”

He watched me for a moment; then his gaze moved to the man on my other side. “Lord Karnagh, have you given more thought to our discussions?”

I felt awkward for being in the way of their conversation, although neither seemed to mind.

“An alliance will be easy enough to forge,” Lord Karnagh said after some time. “But bringing armies together would be almost impossible.”

Batumar nodded. “No one will leave their homes undefended. Our armies stand scattered on a host of islands to be trampled one by one, while if we stood together with one force and met Woldrom’s hordes as such…”

The men’s faces reflected their frustration.

“If we could know for certain where Woldrom will attack next,” Lord Karnagh suggested.

“A good spy would be useful. Rorin knows, Woldrom has spies everywhere. Best would be to stop him before he comes this far. Can any of his captains be turned against him? Has any the power to bring him down?”

Lord Karnagh shook his head. “He lets no one close enough to harm him. Gives no one power enough to replace him. He does not even have a second in command.”

“He is isolated, then. We will use that to our advantage.”

The lizard-eyed old man next to Lord Gilrem watched me just as closely as he had the day before.

When the High Lord turned to his brother, I dared ask Lord Karnagh, “My Lord, would you tell me who sits by Lord Gilrem?”

“Shartor, Karamur’s soothsayer,” Lord Karnagh said without much enthusiasm.

I spent the meal talking with him once again, my feet tucked carefully beneath my seat.

Little laughter rang out over the Great Hall, unlike the night before. Dark tension thickened the air, the torches flickering as if preparing to fail at any moment. A chill touched me that I had not felt the previous night. More than one servant mentioned the mist in passing.

Batumar rose to leave early, without bidding me to follow him, and as soon as he left, the Great Hall was fast deserted, all who had dined within eager to return to their chambers.

I was just as eager to reach mine. Having escaped the High Lord for the second day, I grew hopeful that he only wanted me as a healer. Maybe he only housed me in Pleasure Hall because it stood empty, available. He had required nothing but healing of me all this time. I needed to start readying for more of that at once, before my services were called upon and he caught me unprepared.

“I shall need an escort to the forest tomorrow,” I told Tilia, who was once again feeding the fire in my chamber.

Alarm flooded her lined face. “Lady Tera, the High Lord’s concubines never left the palace except at his request and in his company.” She bowed deep.

So he
had
concubines in the past. I filed that ominous thought away.

“I am a healer. I will need a good supply of herbs. Perhaps if I told you what to look for, you could bring them to me.”

True horror flooded her face then as she shook her head and threw herself to the floor, crying and protesting that I should not ask her to do such a terrible thing.

As I could not understand her anguish and wished to cause no more, I sent her away.

When Leena came, I sat patiently while she unlaced my dress. I had learned that a tight bodice was most uncomfortable for sleeping, and also I knew what hard work went into the servants restoring a dress from a wrinkled state. I would relent and wear the night rail, I decided.

I feared that bringing up herb collecting might distress Leena as it had Tilia. I would find out why the servants had such an aversion to herbs before I brought up that subject again. Instead, I asked a question that had formed in my mind during the evening meal.