And when Cook says, 'Hurry with that pot, girl,' my lady smiles, dimples and all. Under strike me silly if I lie.
She has her willow tree moments, she has her mopes, and she still startles at sudden sounds like a dropped pot or slammed door. But other times, in the in-between easy moments, she's calmer than pond water. Sometimes, she even seems happy.
I keep kissing her cheek and once I tickled her side, and hear this--she laughed! She says such things as, 'Look at how clean that rag is,' and 'That's a pot I'd eat out of, sure enough.' After she worked through her stack of pots today, Cook let her take over the stirring of the soup kettle, and I thought Saren would burst from joy. It's that cat's doing, no doubt in me. The creature loves her true as true, and she knows it. It's the knowing that's made the difference, I think. He wraps around her ankles or neck, even when she isn't singing to him. He finds her at night and purrs into her belly. A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap.
His very nearness is a healing song.
We've all been worked to bruising lately because now we cook for Lady Vachir and a large entourage from Beloved of Ris. They fled the war and a feared winter siege. I wish they'd brought more news with them. So far, I've learned little about our khan's warriors and how they fare, but surely the Ancestors will protect them.
When her khan returns, I don't rightly know how I'll tell him I'm Lady Saren. Having his current betrothed sleeping in his house does add a complication to this already thorny situation. Thank the Ancestors I hadn't made the claim before. With Khan Tegus gone, there d be no one to prevent Lady Vachir from deeming me a threat to her betrothal and taking my life. That's how the law's written, that's how Nibus, god of order, made the world. And Osol's death has reminded me that the chiefs wouldn't hesitate to carry out that law.
Day 145
Last week, Cook was so impressed with my lady's new devotion to working, she moved Saren out of the scrubbing kitchen and into the presenting kitchen, where she arranges food on the platters before they're taken up. It's one step below server and one of the highest duties any kitchen worker achieves. Saren fairly glowed at the news. My Lord entwines himself in her ankles, and she hums as she works, her cheeks bright and pink as though she were a healthy mucker girl living under the sun.
'Cook only chose her because she's pretty,' said Gal, 'in case she moves up to server. It's not fair. You're the fastest worker in the kitchens. It should've been you.'
'It doesn't matter. I'm a scribe,' I said, though I don't know if I'll ever be again.
Today was my free half day, and I sprang outdoors and into the city. I was anxious to see if I could find any news about the khan's army, but all the talk was the same--Khasar invincible, bloodshed imminent--enough dismay and fear to please Under, god of tricks, for years to come.
I passed the jobbers market where refugees stand in long rows hoping for employment, all holding the symbols of their trade: jewelers with magnifying glasses, goldsmiths with tiny mallets, teachers with books, merchants with scales, smiths with hammers, carpenters with saws, and scribes with brushes and ink. I felt kind of funny when I saw those scribes, wondering if I'd join them there after my lady marries.
Day 150
We've all been in such a flurry only now am I able to write. Khan Tegus is back, wounded, a tenth of his warriors dead. They rode hard into Song for Evela, bringing in villagers and shutting the city gates behind them.
I spent an entire helpless day scrubbing so hard I feared I'd make holes in the pots, until at last Shria came for me. Since then I haven't spent much time here in my quiet little room. I only came now to get some sleep because I was so tired I was beginning to see frogs leaping about in the corner of my eye. It'd make me laugh if times weren't so scary.
Three days I've spent with the shaman healers in Khan Tegus's room, singing until my throat's fair scalded with songs. He bears an arrow wound through his side and it's turned to fever. His breath wheezes while he sleeps, a sound that makes my own skin hurt as if a thousand red ants bit me at once.
The shamans change his bandages, give him drinks, dance with their drums, pray toward the Sacred Mountain, burn incense, and read the cracks in fire-heated sheep bones for any signs of hope. I hold Tegus's warm hand and sing and sing. My lord, my poor lord. It's too much like my mama's end. Times there are these past days when I lay my head on his couch and begin to dream as soon as my eyes shut, and my dreams are always the blackness of the tower falling over all the world, an endless city of corpses, and my lord's body there, too, cast on the ground.
I need to try and rest so I can return to him and sing some more.
Day 151
The shaman healers dismissed me. Tegus isn't improving. My singing does nothing. So they said. And I was lying here on my horsehair blanket and believing them. But then I remembered how Tegus asked me to help Batu, how he said please. Please, Dashti. And I did. And he got better.
Then I got to wake-dreaming about a time when I was ten and I fell into a thorn bush and scraped my arm, and it swelled and swelled, my arm on fire, my whole body trembling with heat. Mama and I were alone on the edge of a great forest, with no one around to help for miles, but I remember how calm she was, how cool her hands on my face.
And while I thrashed and sweated on my bed, she never stopped singing. On the third night, I woke from death dreams and looked up into her eyes, and I remember how I could see her confidence. She knew I could heal. So I curled up on her lap and felt her song move inside me until my skin cooled and I could sleep a healing sleep.
I'm going to go back to the khan's chamber now. I'm going to keep singing.
Day 153
It's still dark, the autumn morning too tired to rise, and I'm writing by firelight. The shaman healers feared that the khan's fever was the kind that comes with an open wound and stays and stays until it takes a warrior down days after battle. But at midnight his fever broke. They said it was a miracle, mumbled prayers to the north, then left or curled up to sleep on pallets on the floor.
I stayed by my lord's couch. It was the same couch where Batu had lain ill, where Tegus and I had leaned back together and stared at the fire, touching Batu's arm. This time, I touched the khan's arm and watched his
