4
A heavy knock on the frame of her narrow door Drought Linsha awake before dawn. She yawned and stretched to a sitting position, and for the thirtieth time in as many days, she thought sadly of Varia. The owl had been her constant companion for over five years and habitually woke her in the morning by bouncing on her and hooting softly in her face. It was a far better awakening than this unfriendly, impersonal slam on the door. By Kiri- Jolith, she missed her friend. She didn’t even have the solace of knowing what had happened to Varia. Lanther had refused to let her see the owl before they left the city and would not tell her what he had done with the bird. Nor had she been able to ask since they landed in Ithin’carthia. The one advantage that she could see about being sequestered from the male population was she hadn’t seen Lanther for almost two weeks.
She groaned and rose as Callista slipped into the tiny room with a basin of cold water and a cup of juice. The courtesan looked tired. She had a soft gray look about her eyes and a sag in her shoulders. It was little wonder. Linsha estimated by the time she finished with all the work the palace servants were required to do that she had only four or five hours before she had to start again. The small blonde smiled at Linsha and handed her the juice.
Linsha grimaced. “This dodgagd juice is foul. Where do you suppose they get it?”
Callista laid the basin on a stand. “You don’t want to know. But I am told it is very good for the blood flow. And good blood flow means-”
“Strong muscles, and strong muscles mean healthy babies, and healthy babies mean a greater Tarmak nation,” Linsha said by rote. “I swear if I hear any more about Tarmak babies, I will hurt someone.” She spoke in a loud voice knowing full well she could be heard through the thin screens that separated her from the other sleeping chambers of the barracks-like dormitory.
But Callista was not so bold and replied in a much lower tone. “I know. They are single-minded. The servants say there are seven women with child in the Akeelawasee-and five of them are the Emperor’s get.”
Linsha grimaced at the mere mention of the Emperor and pregnant women spoken together in the same breath. It reminded her of the slave women brought from the Missing City. She hadn’t seen one of them yet, and she could only hope they were still alive. Her thoughts hurried on while she pulled a clean sleeveless shirt over her head. The rumors of babies brought something else to mind she had noticed earlier.
“If all these females are breeding little Tarmaks like rabbits, where are the children?” she asked.
Callista straightened out the blankets and rolled up the sleeping pallet to look busy in case someone passed by the door. “The royal children are in another part of the palace. Their mothers feed them and visit them until they are about seven, then the boys are sent to a military camp and the girls are sent somewhere else for schooling and physical conditioning.”
“Seven?” Linsha repeated, horrified at the thought. At seven she had been happily ensconced in the center of her family, surrounded by loving parents, grandparents, and a brother who still called her by her family nickname. “I can hardly imagine that. A child should be with its family.”
Callista agreed. “My mother may have been a courtesan, but she kept me with her until her death.” She paused and a pale twinkle lit her blue eyes. “Have you had children, Lady Linsha?”
Linsha gave a snort. “I had a horse once.”
Then there was no more time for talk. A bell rang in the corridor calling the women to their first exercise period of the day. Linsha groaned. She had been in this place for about fourteen days and she had come to loathe that bell. It ruled her life like a slave driver, holding her fast to the rigid routine of the Akeelawasee. What, she wondered as she stretched a little, did the common females do? If they were bound to this sort of royal routine, nothing would ever be done.
She was about to leave the cubicle when she suddenly turned and looked at Callista. “How do you know what the servants are saying? Do you speak Tarmakian already?”
The courtesan waved a casual hand. “Servants talk. A few speak Common. They’re all slaves from different areas. There’s even an old woman from Solamnia who was left here by the Dark Knights. She talks to me often. Oh! Another thing I heard. The apothecary, Afec? Some of the older slaves say he is a prophet. They say he has visions sometimes.” She giggled. “It’s probably from all the fumes from his herbs and medicines. Maybe he’ll have another vision of how we can escape from here.”
Linsha grinned. “I’ll ask. Keep your ears open. Let me know what else ‘they’ say.”
Callista’s humor abruptly faded and she held out a hand. “One last thing. Malawaitha has been away being ‘properly chastised.’ Whatever that means. But someone said she was coming back soon.”
“I’ll watch for her. Thanks.”
Malawaitha, Linsha thought as she jogged outside to join the noblewomen. Afec had told her the emperor’s daughter had been sent out of the palace for a while as punishment for her temperamental outburst to the Empress, but no one had said where she had gone or what was happening to her. It had been rather nice not to have to worry about the fiery Tarmak stabbing her in the back or ambushing her during one of their long runs.
The gods knew this place had taken some getting used to. Even her first few years in the Solamnic knighthood had not been as regimented as this. She and all the other royal women rose before dawn for a cup of foul dodgagd juice and a three mile run over the palace grounds followed by calisthenics and swimming. Then there was breakfast, more exercise, a massage, a light midday meal, more exercise, and any work the Empress saw fit to hand out. Then there was music lessons or weapons practice, gymnastics, a small evening meal, discussions on what Linsha could only describe as beauty lessons, and then it was bedtime when all the females had to retire to their personal cells for sleep. The routine was so set and so predictable that she was already perishing from boredom. She was too accustomed to setting her own times, making up her own mind, doing things in her own manner. She liked reading books, visiting with friends, riding her horses, eating different foods, facing challenges, using her mind! Here there was nothing to do but exercise, eat dull food, and sleep. It was enough to drive her mad.
On the good side though, she noted while she jogged along the same dull dirt path, the food, the rest, and the exercise had done her a world of good. After so many months of war and hunger and strife, she desperately needed the food to rebuild her strength, the rest to rebuild her stamina, and the mindless exercise to regain her old skills. She truly felt better than she had in months.
She was so deep in thought that she did not pay much attention to the grounds around her. She had already seen this path fourteen times in a row and examined it carefully for some means of escape. Unfortunately, the grounds were walled in by high stone barriers and frequently patrolled by Tarmak guards. There was no way out that she had been able to see, yet. This morning the sun was barely up and a heavy dew drenched the grass. The shadows were still thick under the trees, but the sky was clear and promised another warm sunlit day.
There were so many other women out running that Linsha paid scant attention to the footsteps pounding behind her. Suddenly a hand struck her between her shoulder blades and shoved her off balance. She staggered sideways, slipped on the damp grass, and fell to her knees. One knee scraped something hard, and pain streaked up her leg. Linsha looked up in time to see Malawaitha run by, a nasty little smile on her face.
“Malawaitha, wait! I’d like to talk to…” Linsha yelled, but the Tarmak woman kept running and soon disappeared among the trees.
Wincing with pain, Linsha climbed to her feet and continued jogging. She didn’t look at her knee. It was obviously scraped, and if it was bleeding, the blood would help clean out the wound until she could find some water and a bandage. This time she ran with her full attention pinned on the track ahead. If Malawaitha could do something like this, she wouldn’t put it past the Tarmak woman to try to ambush her in any one of the groves of trees along the trail. When she heard more runners come up behind her, she slowed a little to allow them to catch up with her. Better to run in a group than by herself. The other Tarmak women in the Akeelawasee tended to ignore her, but at least they didn’t shove her into the dirt.
By the time she reached the end of the morning run, she had blood dried in streaks down her shin. The Empress, waiting at the end of the path, spotted the bloody injury and snapped a word to Afec standing patiently nearby. There was no sign of Malawaitha. Linsha bowed to the Empress as was customary and said nothing about
