They were from the
Her thoughts and emotions went through a crazy whirl of fear that the Tarmaks had learned of her clandestine visit to Sirenfal. Had the guards in the cave outpost recognized her? Had she left footprints? Had the dragon been forced to reveal their plans? Her guards said nothing to her. They only watched with cold eyes and dogged her every move. They wouldn’t talk to her even when she demanded answers. Yet they did not search her belongings for ropes or stolen clothes or the carefully hoarded pouch of powder from Afec, and they did not try to drag her before Lanther.
She wished she could talk to Afec, who might know what was going on. But with the guards on her heels, she did not dare approach him for fear of drawing undue attention to him. She waited hopefully for him to come to her in the afternoon for another lecture on Tarmak customs, but the Damjatt was nowhere to be seen, pushing Linsha into more dreadful speculation that perhaps the Tarmak had imprisoned him and were torturing him for his knowledge of her plots. When he did not appear by evening, Linsha grew truly worried. She could not think of a day when she had not seen him somewhere around the Akeelawasee busy at his tasks.
As exhausted as she was, Linsha could only sleep in fits and starts that night while her brain ran over every worry and fear she had concocted. She hoped fervently the guards would be gone the next morning, but one look at Callista’s face at dawn told her they were still there just outside the sleeping quarters.
“What are we going to do?” the courtesan murmured while she served the juice. “If the guards stay with you, we won’t be able to get out of here.”
“I know, I know,” Linsha replied, her mood made sharp by lack of sleep and her own deep apprehension. “Do you know where Afec is? Have you seen him at all?”
“Not since yesterday. He received orders to attend the priests.”
“That does not sound good,” Linsha muttered.
“No.” Callista put a dainty hand on Linsha’s arm and tried to smile. “I have the water and the food we need. I am trying to find some warm tunics or cloaks. What do you want me to do tonight?”
Linsha felt a cold feeling of dread and worry squirm in her stomach. Gods above, tonight was the last night she would be free to stay away from Lanther. They had to escape. Somehow, they had to get away from the guards, climb down to Sirenfal’s cave, and get the dragon out of there. By Kiri-Jolith, she missed Varia. She hadn’t realized until this separation how much she had come to depend on the owl for her courage, her intelligence, and her willingness to spy. She could really use the owl this night.
Instead of an owl, she had a feisty courtesan and stubborn old eunuch. They were doing their best; it just took a little getting used to. “I will feign illness and try to convince them to allow you to stay with me, so you won’t have to sneak out of the servants’ quarters,” she said. “Maybe they’ll find Afec, too.”
Callista nodded and went to fetch the basin of water for Linsha’s washing while she went outside for her run. As Linsha feared, two Tarmak guards fell in behind her, and this time they followed her around the path of the garden for her entire run. They stayed with her through the day, from the morning meal through the exercise schedules and her swim in the lake, to her evening meal and the quiet time before the women retired to bed. Linsha refused to eat her dinner and dragged herself to her quarters where she planned to have Callista inform the Empress that she was ill and would someone please summon Afec.
Instead she was met at her cubicle door by a Keena priest in a sleeveless black robe. Callista stood behind him looking pale and sick with fear.
“Drathkin’kela,” the priest addressed her with a bow. “If you will accompany me, the priestesses are waiting for you.”
“Why?” Linsha cried. Her most basic instincts wanted to back up and make a break for the wall, but the two armed guards stood directly behind, blocking her path.
“If you will come with me,” the Keena said, and he took her arm and pulled her toward the hall.
Linsha cast one agonized look back at Callista and was forced to follow.
There would be no escape that night.
12
Linsha couldn’t decide whether to be intensely irritated or very relieved when the Keena took her to another room in the palace and left her in the care of four priestesses. The women, dressed in black robes, wore their hair cut very short and hid their fair skin with a dark red cosmetic powder. Talking among themselves, they led Linsha to another room on a subterranean level where a deep pool of water formed a small underground grotto. To the music of drums and cymbals, the priestesses stripped Linsha, tossed her clothes away, and made her soak in the pool. They scrubbed her several times with a granular soap until her skin burned and then washed her hair with scented cleansers. When she was thoroughly clean, she was asked to step out, and in front of a roaring fire the priestesses rubbed her skin with oils and flailed her with branches from a tree that grew on the island.
It was the branches that finally triggered a vague memory in Linsha’s mind of something Afec had said during one of her momentary lapses of attention. Ritual purification. The chosen of a high-ranking Tarmak warrior had to be purified and prepared the night before the marriage ceremony. She had not listened to most of his description of the rites, for she had hoped to be gone by that night, but the Tarmaks-or Lanther-had apparently not trusted her and put a guard on her to insure she stay.
As soon as the flailing was completed, the priestesses braided her shaggy curls as best they could, then they draped her in a clean blue cloth and the head priestess blessed her in Tarmakian in the name of Berkrath, a goddess Linsha did not recognize. Finally she was given a glass of wine and the traditional meal of cooked meat for energy, bread for fidelity, and eggs for fertility. As soon as she was finished, the priestesses led her to a small room and told her to sleep. She would need her strength the next day.
Linsha vowed she would not sleep-she had to find some way to get out. But the priestesses must have put something in her food, for the next thing she realized hours had passed and the women were waking her for the next step of her preparation for marriage. A sick certainty chilled her to the bone. She would have to go through with this. There would be no escape from the island in time. She would have to marry Lanther and possibly submit to him if she wanted to live through the next night and keep the eggs safe.
The dressing and the morning preparations took a mind-numbing eternity. Linsha, who was not used to primping or taking more than five minutes to put on a dress, was cleaned again and rubbed with more scented lotions. Priestesses painted a geometric design of blue dots on her face-probably in lieu of cosmetics she guessed. Her hair was decorated with beads and white feathers. Her nails were cleaned and stained with a golden brown powder that made them gleam like polished wood. Even her dragon scales were polished and set reverently against her scrubbed skin. Then the Empress brought the green dress and the dragon robe, and Linsha was carefully dressed.
The entire operation reminded Linsha of the one doll her parents had given her before they accepted the fact that she was determined to join the Knighthood. She had played with the doll for one day, dressing it and playing with the wool hair until she had it just to her liking, then she propped it in the corner and never played with it again. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the Tarmak women propped her in the corner and left her there.
Unfortunately they didn’t. To the beating of drums and clanging of cymbals, they escorted her upstairs and took her outside into the hot sun where they processed out of the palace and into the large field where the warriors usually exercised and trained. Once again, the court was assembled in their finery. The black-garbed Keena priests and priestesses led her through the crowd to a large awning in front of the Emperor and his empress. The two royal Tarmaks inspected her and gave their approval.
