I gave her khan my shirt. Ancestors, there was a basket of washing right by my mattress. I could've seized one of my lady's own shirts. He would've inhaled her scent, the breath of her soul. Even though there was something else at hand, I chose to give him my own garment.
Why didn't the Ancestors strike me dead? After such an offense, I'd think they wouldn't permit this mucker maid to remain breathing. Perhaps they only ignore me because I'm shut up in this tower, cut off from the gaze of the Eternal Blue Sky. Perhaps if
I ever step out of its shadow, I'll be struck in the instant and crumble into a heap of ash.
Day 158
This morning, we... I'm shaking still. I didn't realize until I put the brush to paper. If My Lord the cat weren't on my lap, I don't know that I could be calm enough to write at all.
This morning, we heard voices outside. Now that it's warm enough for the sun to burn holes in the icy ground, we've begun to hear our guards again, chatting as they walk around the tower and occasionally shouting saucy things at us. But these voices were new. One was so deep and loud, I felt it in the stones of the tower. I felt it in my bones.
I was darning my lady's stockings by the orange light of the fire, and my lady was lying on my bed, teasing My Lord the cat with a stocking too holey to save. When we heard the new voices, she sat upright, like a fawn stops grazing when she hears a hunter's step.
'Is it your khan, do you think?' I asked. 'Back already?'
My lady didn't answer. She's so often spooked,
I didn't realize that this time she was truly terrified, so badly that she couldn't speak or move.
I left my sewing, fetched the wooden spoon, unhooked the flap, and jammed it open.
'Don't, Dashti,' she said too late, just as a hand shot up the hole and seized my arm.
I screamed, I think. The hand was covered in a black gauntlet, the wrist trimmed in metal spikes. It was not her khan.
'Do I have her?' said the voice low enough to grumble in stones. 'Do I have my lady?'
'No, I'm sorry, no, no,' I said.
'Who is this?' He shook my arm.
'I'm Dashti. I'm my lady's maid. I'm the mucker maid.'
He laughed as if I'd just told a wicked joke. 'Yes, I know muckers. There are hundreds of the ragged folk wandering the steppes in Thoughts of Under.'
He let go, and I pulled my arm inside.
'Put your arm back!' He yelled so loud, the cat screeched.
I didn't want to. Ancestors, I wanted to crawl under my mattress. He may have a voice like an earth rumble and put my lady in the fear shakes, but I recognized the command of gentry, and I must do what he says. I lowered my arm back down the hole.
He didn't grab me again, just tickled his gloved fingers against my fingertips. He was chuckling, lower than his voice. Then he slapped my hand against the wall. It stung like a log full of hornets.
I pulled my arm up, but he said, really slowly and sweetly like I was his favorite lamb, 'Back down, Dashti the mucker maid.'
Again I lowered my hand, and again he slapped it against the wall. I left it there, and I was crying, but not just because it hurt, I think. The next time he slapped, my lady grabbed me under the arms and pulled me away from the hole. We fell back on my mattress.
'Stay here,' she said.
I stayed. After all, she's my own mistress. Let that black-gloved lord growl and yell all he likes, I'll obey her first.
'It's him. It's Lord Khasar,' said my lady.
And I stopped wondering why she refused to marry him.
'Are you in there, Lady Saren? Do you believe you're hiding, stashed in a tower all the world can see? You're not very good at the hiding game. You never were.'
I wish I could write that my lady stood tall, that she declared she would never love him or bow to him or tremble at his voice, let him do his worst, or somewhat of that bold kind of talking. I saw her show a bit of courage to her father once, but at Lord Khasar s voice, she covered her face and cried so hard she squeaked like rusted hinges. I'm sorry for her, I am, but sometimes I think crying's done for and it's time for doing. If only I knew what ailed her, perhaps I could help, but I guess there are corners and folds of my lady's soul that I'll never see.
I sat with her, put one hand on her belly and one on her back, and sang the song for bitter sorrow, the one that goes, 'Darker river, blacker river, faster river, pulling me.' I sang while Lord Khasar spoke. She calmed some. I didn't dare go pull the wooden spoon and shut the flap. He couldn't touch us, safe here in the center of the room, but his voice slinked in like smoke. Not even in the cellar under sacks of barley would we be able to hide from that sound.
These are the sorts of things he said.
'Your father hobbled to Thoughts of Under to see me, whining like a girl in two braids. He told me, 'My daughter awaits you in the watchtower on the border of our lands. Knock down the walls! Take her, bound and gagged, I care not. She is refuse to me till she bends her will to your own.' He spoke grandly, but his knees shook. Do your knees shake, my lady? I don't trust a man who fears me, and all fear me.
Do you fear me, my lady?' He laughed heartily at that.
