underclothing so smooth it seemed to have the weight of a cloud; loose trousers and a knee-length overtunic slit for walking in a cloth the color of the sky before dawn, more gray than pink. The old woman brushed a gooey salve onto the sores that circled her wrists. It stung, but then the spicy scent relaxed her. The old woman gestured to show she must sit on a stool with arms extended, so the salve could dry.
Giggling, three girls approached her. One had black hair and black eyes, one brown hair and brown eyes, and one hair streaked with a reddish-brown color that matched her complexion.
'Mima. Mima,' said the black haired girl, tapping her chest. She pointed to the others. 'Ebba. Ebba. Noria. Noria.' Then she pointed to Kirya. 'Yah? Yah?'
Kirya knew better than to give her name to demons.
Mima smiled kindly. 'Yah yah yah,' she added. She displayed a metal comb and mimed combing hair.
Behind, the other young women and girls hissed and hooted, or coughed and sneered. Several girls just sat there staring blindly at nothing, and one girl rocked obsessively side to side, but she sat away by herself, no one close by her. Yet none of them left. They wanted to watch as when, the only other time Kirya had seen a foreign person in the tribes, all the children had followed the foreign person around the entire time that person had walked within camp.
Kirya shrugged, to show acquiescence. Anyway, Mima's pretty smile reminded her of Mariya. Was it so bad to want a person to be friendly with, even if it was a demon?
Hesitantly, Mima reached for Kirya's hair, but withdrew her hand without touching it. The old woman snapped out words. Mima fixed a nervous smile on her face, and tapped the hair as if it might burn her. Her companions squealed, and giggled, and Kirya grinned, just a little, because they were so funny.
'Yah yah yah,' said Mima with a giggle. She began to work through the long tangles. As she worked, the place quieted while every soul there, except for the girl who rocked side to side, watched
and exclaimed as if they expected the color to change with every stroke, only of course it did not.
They were dark, some like Mima handsome in the manner of Mariya and some demon-scratched like the Qin, while others had a clay-red complexion or a pleasing brown one, and one pair of girls had skin so black that Kirya wondered if the color had been painted on. But no one else was like her, a woman of the tribes with pale hair and pale skin.
A low clang shivered through the air. The old woman clapped her hands, and the girls and young women hurried away, some gabbling but most silent. Several girls lifted up and then pushed along the girl who had been rocking side to side; she was like a sleepwalker.
The attendants closed in on either side of Kirya, gripped her elbows. They steered her down a long narrow place fenced by high walls and a roof, and into a big place, like a headwoman's spacious tent, only this tent with its unmoving walls had benches set on a raised platform and other places to sit heaped with pillows. Lamps hissed. A sharp perfume smoking up from piles of incense made her eyes water and her nostrils sting.
They sat her on a stool on the platform. An attendant tucked a startlingly beautiful white flower between Kirya's hair and ear. In twos and fours, the other girls and young women filed into the room, some with eyes cast down and shoulders hunched and others with bold, hard laughter and snatches of song. So much bright silk dazzled Kirya. This was a rich tribe, indeed, that all its daughters and even a servant like herself were dressed in precious cloth.
Wood clappers snapped out a staccato rhythm. A pair of older women pulled back the purple curtains to reveal doors. A pair of stocky men armed with staffs came out of the shadows and opened the doors. Twilight swirled in on a dusty breeze, and on its wings tramped a horde of jabbering men who, as they settled inside, fell quiet suddenly and stared at her so brazenly that after all they were not proper men who knew better than to stare but must be demons, even if they looked mostly like men.
There came the old merchant from the journey, and the young one flushed and drunk in his wake, scratching at his groin again, that itch having come back. What animals they were!
The old woman strode to the dais and gave a lengthy speech
which every man there followed with avid attention. Then she raised a hand. At once they began shouting at her and shaking pouches at her, one overtopping the next. The young merchant cursed in a loud voice and stormed out; the old merchant faded to the back to watch. The clamor looked a lot like haggling at a confluence when one tribe was trying to get more hides or saddle blankets in exchange for dyestuffs or a particular stud.
A shout of triumph from one of the men. A groan from the others, and suppressed if intense whispering among the girls as the triumphant man strutted forward and dropped a heavy bag at the old woman's feet. An attendant counted out bars of silver from the bag he'd tossed down.
The behavior of demons made no sense at all, so Kirya was relieved when the attendants pulled on her elbows and made it known she could get out of that unpleasant, crowded place and go away into a different one. They led her past a curtain into a cave of tiny places like narrow cages with high walls. They pressed her into one of these narrow places. A lamp burned on either side, hanging from the low ceiling. She stood on a strip of worn carpet, nothing special; she'd felted better patterns as a little girl. A cot set against one wall filled half the space.
The attendants backed out, and the man who had thrown down the bag of silver bars sauntered in, grinning. He was a burly, middle-aged fellow dressed in a silk robe belted with a polished gold buckle. A curtain slipped down behind him, cutting them off from everywhere else. They were alone.
'Whew!' he said in a friendly way. He plucked the flower from her ear.
Abruptly, it all made sense. He thought she was offering him her Flower Night.
'No!' She took a step back. 'You are not my choice!'
He laughed. 'Yah yah yah,' he said jovially as he walked to her, driving her back until she bumped into the wall and could retreat no farther. His heavy hands settled on her shoulders. He fumbled at her hair, bringing strands to his face, closing his eyes, and taking in a breath. She wedged her arms up between them, and shoved.
'Oof! Heh!' He stumbled back a few steps. He chuckled at first,
but then he frowned, and then he furrowed his brow, and then he called out in an annoyed tone.
The old woman appeared, mouth pressed tight.
'Yah yah yah,' he complained, gesturing and grimacing.
She grunted, went out past the curtain, and returned with a quirt in her hand. This she raised threateningly. For that first instant, Kirya was so greatly relieved that the headwoman of the tribe had come to teach this outrageously behaved man some manners. As if he could just walk in and demand her Flower Night, when it was hers to offer, not his to take!
The quirt whipped down onto her forearms. She yelped, more angry than hurt. Again, it slapped down, and this time she kicked out to defend herself. Her foot met flesh, and the old woman shrieked. The quirt thwacked into the side of Kirya's head, staggering her. The man was scolding in a loud voice as shouts and questions flew from outside, and the quirt slapped into her calves so hard Kirya fell. She hit, hard, on her back, breath punched out of her lungs, dazed and dizzy and utterly confused.
He was taking his clothes off.
She struggled to sit, but the quirt slapped her down again, and this time she shouted with rage, coming up fighting. Attendants swarmed in, bound her raw and aching wrists and her ankles with rope, and tied her to the cot, and then they departed, not even angry about her kicking and punching, as if tying down a screaming, struggling girl who was about to be forced against her will was something they were accustomed to doing every day.
After that, there was nothing she could do to stop him. Or the next one. Or the next one. Or the next one.
26
The long night begins.
It is not night always. She counts the days and polishes her mirror. She accepts a name, Azalea, a white flower. She might laugh with Mima and Ebba and Noria over a joke as they are scrubbing floors, or during a song they are teaching her while they
grind kernels to flour in big stone bowls, or when she makes a mistake speaking a word, saying 'I comb my
