crossed under her neck and tied at the back.
She had one. It was always clean but also threadbare.
“Your kindness is extraordinary, my queen,” she lied about her opinion with obviousness, “but my clothing is fine.”
“I disagree,” I returned.
“The old Dahksahna gave me this fabric,” she informed me.
“Well, the new Dahksahna is giving you more,” I replied, she opened her mouth to retort but I got there before her. “Fine, if you want to wear that in the house, that’s your choice. You leave this house; you do it representing your Dax and Dahksahna and wear your new sarongs.”
She glared at me. Then she inclined her head. Then she turned and moved quickly off the roof.
My girls watched her and waited before they emitted their low giggles, doing so only after she was well out of sight.
I smiled down at the mats, picked up my chalice of juice and took a sip.
“You’re very hard on her,” Narinda muttered, I put my chalice down and looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry?” I asked and her eyes went from the top of the stairs to me.
“She is old and she is stubborn, set in her ways. She has the running of this house for months and lives alone, clearly liking it that way,” Narinda replied. “She is a slave and this is rightfully your home with your husband but you must understand the way she feels.”
I made no response for this was true.
Narinda carried on. “And my father taught me the best way to handle someone who is stubborn is to let them be stubborn and live with their decisions. If she wishes to wear shabby sarongs, then she denies herself kindness and beauty. That is her choice, Circe, and it is the wrong one but it won’t hurt you to allow her to live with it.”
I still made no reply for this was true too.
“You can’t force kindness, my lovely,” Narinda said softly.
And this was true too.
“All right, sweet Narinda,” I replied, “I’ll ask Gaal to make them and I’ll tell Twinka it’s her choice whether or not she wishes to wear them.”
Narinda smiled at me. I smiled back thinking it was good, having wise friends.
Then I said quietly, “Your father was very wise.”
She nodded and took a sip from her own chalice before her eyes drifted away and she said quietly back, “Indeed, he was.”
She was smiling her small, weird smile so I left her to her thoughts and looked back at the view. The pinks were disappearing, the gold was gone and stripes of vermillion and midnight blue slashed the sky as stars started to come out. I heard one of my girls moving around and, as the roof illuminated, I knew she was lighting the torches that were stuck in holders around the edge of the roof.
I felt my leg nudged, looked down at it and saw that Narinda had given me a light prod with her toe. I looked at her to see she wasn’t smiling small and weird but knowing and amused. Her eyes were on Sabine who I noticed belatedly had been completely silent for at least the last ten minutes.
I looked to my friend who was lounging across the top of the mats at Narinda and my heads to see she was gazing at the vista as well, her face soft, her lips tipped up, her eyes, though, were heated.
Someone was thinking good thoughts.
I pressed my lips together and bugged my eyes out at Narinda.
She smiled big, tipped her head back and called in Korwahk, “Sabine? My lovely, are you with us?”
Sabine started and her head jerked to us. “Sorry, so sorry, I was miles away,” she replied in Korwahk.
“No you weren’t, you were in bed with your savage brute,” I teased, watched her face flush then her eyes light then she scooted her cushions closer to us and asked, “Can I be forthright?”
This was familiar, and therefore was likely to get good, so Narinda and I closed into each other and Sabine as Narinda replied, “What you can do, my lovely, is not ask if you can be forthright every time you want to be forthright. I think you can take it as given you can be forthright.”
I stifled a giggle for this was true. Sabine always asked if she could be forthright before talking about what she got up to with Zahnin. And after breaking the seal on it the day I was attacked, she talked about this a lot. We never demurred so she had to know she could be forthright.
Sabine nodded then she leaned deeper into us and whispered, “Did you… did… erm, you know… did you know you can… do it on top?”
“On top?” Narinda asked mock innocently and I nudged her shin with my foot as I stifled a giggle.
Sabine’s eyes danced and her body gave a slight excited jump. “Oh yes, Narinda, on top. See, you know when… before, well, I told you how, after Zahnin got injured, I was hesitant to, you know… move things forward for before, erm… when we… um… when he… well, it seemed with all that grunting and groaning it took a lot of effort. I didn’t want him to aggravate his wound.”
“Yes, sweetheart, we know, you told us,” I muttered not able to hide the amusement in my voice.
Sabine nodded again and went on. “So, as I told you, I didn’t… erm… move things forward. But he, um… continued to use his hands in that way I like.”
“We know that too,” Narinda mumbled and we did, she’d told us, sometimes in some detail and it wasn’t only his hands but his mouth that he used in ways Sabine liked.
Sabine kept talking. “But, I was… well, something was, I don’t know. I liked it, you know, quite a bit. Erm… a lot, really. But… something was missing.”
I knew what was missing. Zahnin’s savage brute sword was missing.
Narinda and I kept quiet.
Sabine kept talking. “I didn’t know what but, it was good… I mean, beautiful but, I wanted more.”
“Yes?” Narinda prompted.
“But I didn’t know what,” Sabine repeated.
I pushed closer to tell her what she wanted but she continued before I could.
“So, I asked Zahnin.”
I blinked.
One could say that things were progressing… slowly… between Zahnin and Sabine. When he said he could be a patient teacher, he didn’t lie. He had been very solicitous with her and this included him doing things with his mouth and hands that she enjoyed very much but that he had to find very frustrating since she didn’t return the favor.
There was a poetic justice in this, I felt, for Zahnin had twice the amount of time giving and not receiving after he took and didn’t give. Not to mention his month of courting.
But I was beginning to feel sorry for Zahnin and that it might be time to intervene. At my request, the healer had long since visited his house to remove the stitches and even before that he was not wearing the bandages. The gash was still pink but it was mostly healed. But he was a warrior; he could survive a little somethin’ somethin’. But weeks had passed and he was giving, a lot, but he wasn’t getting anything.
And Sabine was still timid about it. I was shocked she asked him.
“You asked him?” I whispered, my voice filled with the shock I felt and she nodded again.
“Yes, we were, I was… erm, close. But I made him stop and told him what I felt and that I was worried I would hurt him and then… then… then...” her eyes got round and Narinda and I leaned in, “then he rolled to his back, picking me up as he did so and planting me astride him.” Her eyes drifted faraway and before I could lift my hand and snap in her face to regain her attention since she was definitely in hot sex la-la land her body jerked and she came back to us. “He said, that way, I could do all the work and he wouldn’t get hurt.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I stifled another laugh and Narinda nudged my leg with her toe again as I heard her swallow a snort.
“But…” Sabine went on, totally missing all this, “I didn’t… erm, do all the work. In the middle of it, he lifted up to sitting and used his arms and hands on me to make me go, um… faster and erm… you know, harder. So, I… you know… did.” Then she pressed her lips together before she burst out with, “After all he’d done before and how he felt inside me I couldn’t stop myself!”
I bet she couldn’t.
