whispers --'
'I don't hear any whispers,' she snapped. 'I'm fine. I'm not afraid.'
She walked tall, her hand on Mucker's back, her other arm in mine. She was trying to be brave, I could see.
And it twisted my heart.
She didn't say another word for all those long, straight streets. Perhaps she felt buried in all that life. I certainly did. There were people everywhere--cooking in the street, shouting and chasing, throwing wash water out the window, fighting and kissing and eating and just talk, talk, talking. The smells! And the noise, like having your head stuck inside a wasp's nest. I'd forgotten that people were so loud, that they move around so much. They were beautiful, their eyes, their hands, their voices and laughs. It was many blocks through the city before I realized I'd been crying and I didn't even know why. Is that strange? I think Mama would understand. And maybe Khan Tegus.
Her khan's house was fat and square, with a roof five tiers high made of yellow and blue enamel tiles, grander even than my lady's house had been. How can anyone believe such a claim? And yet it's true. A throng of guards stood at posts all around, and more clustered about the gate. We tried to enter, but they stopped us and a little man in a deel too long for his feet asked us our business.
'Tell them who you are,' I said.
'No,' said my lady.
I spoke in her ear so the little man wouldn't overhear.
'Please, my lady. Tell them you are Lady Saren of Titor's Garden, betrothed of Khan Tegus. Tell them so you can be fit up like gentry and live as you should.'
'No. And I forbid you to tell anyone who I am.' She was looking around now like a hunted thing. 'Lord Khasar would find me, or Khan Tegus would --'
'He won't hurt you, my lady! He'll protect you.'
Her eyes were wet, her chin quivered. 'What if he's not safe, as I once thought? No one is, but you.' She gripped both my arms with her hands, like a bird clutches a branch.
'I can't look after you forever,' I whispered. 'I don't have money or work, and I don't have status or clan. We're barely surviving, my lady. And come winter, we'll freeze and die without a gher. You're an honored lady. You need more than a mucker maid can give you. Please, tell them who you are.'
My lady took a breath, turned to the little man, and said, 'I'm a mucker.'
Ancestors forgive me, but I think I cracked in half then. I turned my face into Mucker's neck and I cried and cried like a roof in the rain. I was so tired. Not just of walking or feeling hungry, or washing and keeping my lady. I was just tired of being Dashti, of breathing, of being alive.
Forgive me, Mama.
'What's going on here?' A white-haired woman approached the little man. I found out later that her name is Shria. 'Who are these girls blocking the way?'
The little man cleared his throat as if to signal us to leave. I took a deep breath and felt my heart stutter and my sobbing dry up, and I knew I couldn't be broken any more than I was. There's some comfort in that. Mucker was lipping the laces on my boot, and I thought, I can get by, and I can find a way to keep my lady alive, but I promised poor Mucker he'd have a stable and a brush down at the end of our journey.
So I wiped my cheeks and told Shria, 'I bring a gift for Khan Tegus. This is the best yak I've ever known. His name's Mucker.'
The little man started to protest. 'We don't buy animals from --'
'No, not buy. I want the khan to have him. It's an honest gift from a mucker girl.'
It was a right stupid thing to do, I know, and as I sit here writing, I can't believe I was so thick-skulled as to give away our only possession. With no animal or tent, in a few months' time winter would whack us dead like a yak's tail slaps a fly. I might've traded him for employment at the least. But in that moment I only thought how much I loved that yak, what warm and happy company he had been for me when I thought all the world was dead, and how he deserved a stall like the kind her khan's house was sure to have. And a little I thought of her khan. He gave us My Lord the cat, who was the best cat who ever breathed. And though Khan Tegus never came back for us, I'd heard the sound of his soul through his voice, and I believe he's the kind of person who deserves the best yak in all the realms.
I kissed Mucker's nose and sang into his huge ear the song to ease parting, the one that goes, 'Roads go straight and roads go on, my heart moves like the sun.' A boy came to lead him away to promises of oats and that quickly Mucker was gone. I hadn't realized it would hurt to lose that yak, but I nearly gasped at the pain in my heart. Thank the Ancestors, Shria didn't give me the chance to think and mourn because she asked right quick, 'Do you girls know kitchen work?'
I showed her my hands. She turned them over, felt for calluses.
'She's a good girl,' she said to the little man. 'Her face has the mark of bad luck, doesn't it? Even so, I'd bet my shoes she's a good girl.'
'What about the other one?' The little man squinted at my lady.
I smelled hope in the air, and I snatched at it. 'She's my clan sister, and we've survived in harsher living than most girls could imagine. Why, she's worth two of any city girl you can find.'
I guess they believed me because here we are in her khan's house. Instead of placing my lady in a chamber of silk and pillows, as I'd hoped to do, she's sharing my blanket on the kitchen floor by the washing hearth.
Ancestors but I'm tired and kitchen work starts at dawn. I'll pay for this writing time tomorrow.
Day 54
Though it's middle night, I'll write now because I never have other time. I'm used to recording my thoughts by
