“Huh. I’m not above you or anyone. I’ve been wearing borrowed clothes for nearly a month. At the moment I’m just grateful you’ve taken me into your house.”
“No, it is our honor, Briony-zisaya.”
“Do...do your people hate my father? For what he did to Shaso?”
Idite eyed her, the soft brown eyes full of shrewd intelligence. “I will speak honestly with you, Princess, because I believe you truly wish it. Yes, many of my people hated your father, but as with most things, it has more complicatedness—complication?—than that. Some respected him for forcing his own nobles to spare Shaso’s life, but making a servant out of the Dan-Heza still was seen as dishonorable. Giving him land and honors, that was surprising, and many thought your father a very wise man, but then the people were furious that Shaso was not allowed to come back and fight against the old autarch (may he have to cross each of the seven hells twice!). These are things much discussed among our folk even now, and your father is seen as both hero and villain.” Idite bowed her head. “I hope I have not offended.”
“No. No, not at all.” Briony was overwhelmed. She had been painfully reminded again how little she knew about Shaso despite his importance to both her father and herself, and she was just as ignorant about many others who had been her helpers and guardians and advisers. Avin Brone, Chaven, old Nynor the castellan—what did she know about any of them beyond the obvious? How had she dared to think of herself as a ruler for even one moment?
“You seem sad, my lady.” Idite waved for one of the younger women to refill their guest’s cup with flower-scented tea— Briony had not developed a taste for the Tuani’s gawa as yet and she doubted she ever would. “I have said too much.”
“You’ve made me think, that’s all. Surely that’s nothing to apologize for.” Briony took a breath. “Sometimes we don’t see the shape of things until we’re a long way away, do we?”
“If I had learned that at your age,” said Idite, “I would have been on the road to deep wisdom instead of becoming the foolish old woman that I am.”
Briony ignored Idite’s ritualized self-deprecation. “But all the wisdom of the world can’t take you back to change a mistake you’ve already made, can it?”
“There.” Idite smiled. “That is another step down the road. Now drink your tea and let us talk of happier things. Fanu and her sister have a song they will sing for you.”
Briony woke on her thirteenth day in the house of the DanMozan to find the women’s quarters bustling. She had still not developed the habit of rising as early as the others— they seemed to get out of bed before the sun was above the horizon—but even so she was surprised by the degree of activity.
“Ah, she awake!” cried pretty young Fanu, and then added something in the Tuani tongue; Briony thought she recognized Idite’s name in the fast slur of sounds.
Briony began sluggishly to pull off her nightdress so she could don her own garments, but the women gathered around her, waving their hands and laughing.
“Don’t do!” said Fanu. “Later. For Idite wait.”
Briony was grateful that she was at least allowed to wash her face and scrape her teeth clean before Idite arrived. The older woman was beautifully dressed in a robe of spotless white silk with a fringed girdle of deep red.
“They won’t let me dress,” Briony complained, shamed by Idite’s splendid clothes and feeling more than ever that she was too large and too pale for this household.
“That is because we will dress you,” Idite explained. “Today is a special day, and special care must be taken, especially for you, Briony-zisaya.”
“Why? Is someone getting married?”
Idite laughed and repeated her remark. The other young women giggled. Idite had explained to Briony that most of them were the daughters of other well-to-do families, that they were not Effir’s wives but closer to the ladies-in-waiting of Briony’s own court. Only a few were true servants, and some, like Fanu, were relatives of Idite or her husband. Although Effir dan-Mozan was not a Tuani noble, not in the sense Briony understood it, it was clear that he was an important man and this was an important household, a fine place to send a daughter to learn from a respected woman like Idite.
“No, no one is to be married. Today is Godsday, and just as you go to your temple, so do we.”
“But you didn’t take me the last time.” She remembered well the long morning she had spent on her own in the women’s quarters, wishing she had something to read or even some sewing with which to occupy herself, much as she disliked it.
“Nor will we take you this time,” Idite said kindly, patting Briony’s hand. “You would be welcome, but you are a stranger to the Great Mother and Dan-Mozan my husband says it would be wrong to teach you the rituals, since you are a guest.”
“So why do I have to dress in a special way?”
“Because afterward we are going out to the town,” said Idite. The women behind her all murmured and smiled. “You have not been outside the walls of the hadar since you came. My husband thought you deserved to go outside today with the rest of us.”
She was not certain she liked the word “deserved,” which made her feel like a child or a prisoner, but she was excited at the thought of seeing something other than the inside of the merchant’s house. A cautious thought occurred to her. “And Lord Shaso...? He says it is allowed?”
“He is coming, too.”
“But how can I go out? My face is well-known, at least to some...”
“Ah, that is why we must begin to work on you now, king’s daughter.” Idite smiled with mischievous pleasure. “You will see!”
By the time the sun had crept above the walls and morning had truly come, Briony sat alone in the women’s quarters waiting for the others to return from their prayers, which were apparently led by a Tuani priest who came to the hadar and held forth in the courtyard. She lifted the beautiful little lotus mirror Idite had placed in her hands, wondering at the changes the women had made. Briony’s skin, fair and freckled, at least in summertime, had been covered all over in powdery light brown paint from one of Idite’s pots, so that she was now only a shade or two paler than Shaso himself. Her eyes had been heavily lined with kohl, her golden hair pulled back so that not a wisp of it showed beneath the tight-fitting white hood. Only her eyes had not changed, the green she had shared with her brother Kendrick as pale as Akaris jade. Idite and the other women had laughed at the contrast, saying that her eyes in that dark skin made her look like a Xixian witch, that she needed only flame-colored hair to complete the picture. This had made her think of redling Barrick, and to her horror she had suddenly found herself weeping, at which point everything had stopped while her eyes and cheeks were dabbed dry and repairs were made. The kohl had to be reapplied completely. As she looked in the mirror now, Briony saw a black spot of it that had dripped from her jaw to her wrist, and she dabbed it away.
Where was he? Where was her brother now? For a moment a wave of such pure pain washed over her that she could barely breathe and she had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut. Every kindness that the people of this house did her only made her feel more lost, the life she knew farther away. She could live without the throne of Southmarch, even without Southmarch itself, strange and lonely as that was to contemplate, but if she could not ever see her father or her brother again she felt sure she would die.
Barrick, where are you? Where have you gone? Are you safe? Do you ever think of me?