Once the ship was stable, other Matile ascended the ramp. Some carried painted, earthenware pots of kef, and others had baskets of injerra, the flat disks of bread eaten throughout the Matile Mala. Still others brought steaming bowls of wat, a spicy stew that seared the tongue like fire.
Healers came as well – men and women garbed in unadorned chammas. They carried their herbs and talismans in leather pouches, and their surgical implements rested, like swords, in scabbards. With the healers came the Keepers of the Dead, who were laden with bundles of fragrant leaves that would mask the odor of the Fidi who had not survived their long voyage. Later, they would prepare the foreigners’ bodies for burial.
As the day passed, throngs of curiosity-seekers came to the docks to catch a glimpse of the strange ship. Guards posted by Jass Eshana refused to allow any of the gawkers aboard, and eventually the crowds diminished. But the gossip did not. A storm of rumors swept from the high-class kef-houses to the seedy slum taverns called talla-beits; from the market squares to the jewelers’ shops; from weapon-makers’ forges to thieves’ dens.
Why did they come here? was the question all asked, wherever they were.
No one knew. Nonetheless, most people speculated.
Some thought the Fidi were escaping from some unknown calamity in their homeland – perhaps Storm Wars of their own. Others believed the foreigners were the harbingers of an invasion. But the most frequent conjecture was that Nama-kwah herself had brought the Fidi to Khambawe, for reasons known only to her Amiya, Tiyana, who would soon reveal the Goddess’s purpose to all.
2
In the Beit Amiya – the House of Vessels – the low-roofed, many-chambered building in which the Vessels of the Jagasti dwelled, Tiyana stood beside a rectangular pool of clear water. The pool lay at the center of an inner courtyard surrounded by the plain, white-washed walls of the building. Flat stone benches lined the sides of the pool, and flowering shrubs splashed the courtyard with color. Its water welled from a spring sacred to Ateti, the Jagasti who was the Goddess of lakes and rivers.
At Tiyana’s side, a shamasha – a servant-girl recruited from Khambawe’s sprawling slums – used nimble fingers to undo the tiny clasps that held the strands of her costume together. Clad only in a length of plain white cloth knotted around her waist, the shamasha worked carefully. Tiyana had forgotten the girl’s name; in the Beit Amiya, shamashas came and went like shadows. In the eyes of the Amiyas, the shamashas were little more than slaves. This one was younger than most, with narrow hips and a chest still flat as a boy’s.
One by one, the diamond-studded filaments fell away until Tiyana was naked. Holding the scanty costume as though it were a spiderweb, the shamasha laid it into a lacquered box no larger than her fist. The Mask of the Goddess had already been returned to its place in the temple common to all the Jagasti. By the time the girl turned back to Tiyana, the Amiya had already slipped into the pool and submerged herself.
She stayed under long enough to allow the fresh, spring-fed water of the pool to dissolve the salty rime of the sea. But she could not wash away the misgivings that had begun well before she saw the shadowy bulk of the Fidi ship looming over her.
Nama-kwah had warned her of impending danger. Was the Goddess telling her the threat lay in the coming of the Fidi? Tiyana doubted that. She was not a scholar, but based on what she had learned of bygone times, she knew Fidi had never presented any hazard to the Matile. They were nothing more than strangers from an unimaginably distant land, strangers who until now had been nearly forgotten.
Yet the goddess had given Tiyana her one-word warning at almost the exact moment of the Fidis’ arrival ...
Tiyana tried once again to contact Nama-kwah. But the silence from the Goddess was so emphatic that she wondered if she would ever hear the Jagasti’s voice again. That possibility was too terrible to contemplate, so she stopped thinking about it.
Abruptly, Tiyana kicked her legs, propelling herself back to the surface. She used no ashuma this time; the magic power was far too precious to waste on such mundane matters as bathing.
For a long moment, Tiyana floated face-up on the surface of the pool, allowing the fully risen sun to beat down on her bare skin and burn away her many misgivings. Then she swam to the side of the pool and climbed out of the water. She was refreshed in body, but still troubled in spirit.
The shamasha handed her a chamma striped with the green and blue colors of the sea – Nama-kwah’s colors. After draping the garment loosely over one shoulder, Tiyana dismissed the girl with a curt gesture. As the shamasha quietly disappeared into the shrubs, Tiyana sat down on one of the benches and gazed at the pool, as though the answers she was seeking could be found in its depths.
“Tiyana.”
Startled, Tiyana turned in the direction of the voice she had heard. She smiled when she recognized the man and woman coming toward her.
The woman, whose name was Yemeya, was one of the four Callers who had sung in the ceremony. She had removed her long headcloth, and sunlight glinted from the ornaments of amber and gold woven into her thick braids. With Yemeya was Keshu, Amiya of Halasha, the Jagasti of iron, the blacksmith’s craft, and war. Keshu wore white cotton trousers decorated with
