"Come in out of the sun," said the woman, who now appeared to be of middle years, with features similar to Eliar's but no pronounced resemblance. A pair of young women stared at Mai with wide-eyed interest, but at a gesture from the woman they hurried past to fetch the gear left out in the alley.
They must leave their footgear at the step, she showed them, and once they stepped up onto the veranda wear cloth slippers, although the ones available did not quite fit. Indoors lay a suite of rooms furnished with pillows, low couches, a writing desk, brushes and ink, and innumerable cupboards, all immaculate. Finest silk covered those pillows, embroidered with birds and flowers in pleasing designs.
"Rest," said the woman. "The girls will bring you something to drink. No one works at this hour. Dinner is eaten at dusk."
The girls brought their belongings up onto the veranda and then brought cool drinks, and pitchers of cool water so they could wash their hands and faces in a cop per basin. After this, they were left alone. Exhausted, Mai dozed, and she was glad of it afterward, thinking that to endure an afternoon of fretting would have been too much. After all, she was the one who had convinced Anji to make the gamble.
Later, toward dusk, the same girls brought trays of food, but this time both of the girls arranged the platters on the low table and sat down to eat with them.
Sheyshi tried to serve, but the older of the girls, a young woman a year or two older than Mai, waited even for the slaves to sit before she would portion out the meal. This task she undertook with an exactitude that Mai, accustomed to measuring out a cupful of almonds in the marketplace, could appreciate. Then she and the other girl bent their heads, closed their eyes, and touched fingers to foreheads, with palms turned inward. What words they said, if they said any, Mai could not hear. Afterward, they ate together, but no one spoke.
When Sheyshi made an effort to stand in order to clear the platters, the other girl stopped her and took everything away. Cupboards, opened, revealed mattresses and bedding to spread in the back room. Once this was settled, the young woman took her leave with the regretful smile of a friendly conspirator whose cunning plot has been thwarted. She left through the far gate, the one that did not lead into the alley. The guesthouse itself, it seemed, had no entrance except the veranda. They were, in fact, shut in, betwixt and between: not on the street and yet not truly within the compound either.
The previous night had been a long, restless one, and this night transpired no differently because of the heat and the constant spark of images that flew into her mind's eye and took their time drifting away again. She had to believe Anji would succeed, that he could manage anything, but in the dark, in a strange room, that was sometimes difficult. She would doze, then start awake thinking she heard voices, or the clatter of hooves on stone, or anguished sobbing. The food sat uneasily in her stomach; often she woke burping, and this churning discomfort further disturbed her dreams.
Very late, Priya woke also and held her close. "Rest now, Mistress. Fretting will not change our course, nor will it alter what is to come."
Sheyshi snored.
"Let the peace of the Merciful One embrace you, Mistress."
"It is hard to find peace," said Mai in her smallest voice. "I am afraid."
Priya kissed her. Held tight in those arms, Mai was able to sleep.
NOT LONG AFTER dawn, the women of the family took their morning khaif in the shade of the veranda. A trio of girls came first, bearing trays, and after them a procession of stern women of various ages: young, mature, and aged. Mai looked in vain for the friendly young woman who had brought them dinner last night.
The aroma of paradom melded with the sharp spice of khaif and the scent of freshly baked buns. That combination of spicy khaif and sweetened bread with an even sweeter bean curd core made Mai's heart race uncomfortably, but it was evident by the casual demeanor of the women that this was their accustomed morning feast, the appetizer to their day.
At length, the long silence was broken.
"I trust you rested well?" demanded the wrinkled grandmother over the rim of a very fine, thin ceramic cup.
"Yes, verea. Thank you."
They had pulled around pillows and couches the better to examine her.
"And the meal brought last night was to your taste?"
"Yes, verea."
"You didn't eat all of it. You left half of the soup, all of the cabbage, and one dumpling."
The cabbage had been the nastiest thing Mai had ever tasted, and the sour sting of the soup had made her mouth go numb. She smiled her market smile, and said, "Concern for my husband left me with little appetite, Mistress. I beg your pardon."
"Few like the way we pickle our cabbage," said the old grandmother, "but you've turned a pretty phrase by way of thanking us for our hospitality." She had wispy hair, gone to silver and let loose to straggle over her shoulders. No horns peeped through, and there wasn't enough hair to cover horns had they been there, so after all the Ri Amarah were ordinary people, not the children of demons. In a way, Mai was both disappointed and relieved. "What do you think of these sweet buns? Our baker is the best in the city."
"I've never tasted anything like them before."
Several of the women chuckled.
"A truthful statement!" agreed the old grandmother. "None make them but our own people. Do you cook?"
The question surprised her. "Even my husband did not ask me that before we wed."
"He was obviously not looking for a cook," said the old grandmother tartly. "As any person can see, looking upon you, a pretty girl, with a pretty smile, and pretty manners. Do you cook?"
"I learned to cook the specialties of our house, as do all the girls raised in the Mei clan. I can embroider a sleeve, although none of my work was considered elegant enough to be worn outside the house on festival days. I can mend. I have some small skill at carving, taught to me by my uncle."
"Can you brew a cordial or bind a lotion?"
"I was not taught such things. But I know which herbs to blend as teas and simples for remedies for common complaints."
"Distill and mix perfumes?
"No."
"Prepare silk for dyeing?"
"I've scoured wool, and applied the mordant, and thereafter dyed those skeins. We did that commonly. Our clan raised sheep."
"Can you read?"
"No."
"Paint figures and images?"
"No."
"Can you sing?"
"I have been told I have a passable voice."
"Can you dance the lines?"
"I don't know what that is. The festival dances, certainly. Everyone learns those."
"Can you reel and spin?"
"I have spun thread, and carded wool."
"Silk?"
"Silk is not grown where we come from. We buy silk at the market, but only for bedroom clothes and festival garments."
The women smiled, and one coughed behind a raised hand.
Grandmother was not done. "Can you weave?"
"Not well. Others in my household showed greater skill, so I was sent to other pursuits. Anyway, most of the weaving was done by our-ah-" Recalling Eliar's impassioned speech against slavery, she chose another word. "By our hirelings."
"What did you do?"
"I sold produce in the market."