I could think was, thank the Ancestors that I took the bough with my right hand and not my left, which bears the red birth blotches.
'You've gone quiet,' he said. 'I've offended you. I'm sorry.'
For some reason that got me laughing.
'What's funny?' he asked, even though his voice hinted at laughing, too.
'My hand--you thought it was beautiful! And then you thought I'd be offended....'
My heart is beautiful, Mama used to tell me, and my eyes, but never my blotchy face, never my browned and callused hands. If next to my own he'd seen my lady's pale, smooth hand....
'Don't stop laughing!' he said, and he started to say things to get me to laugh again, telling a story of how he was once riding a horse that stopped suddenly, sending him flying off the saddle to land headfirst in a barrel of water.
He wasn't satisfied that I was truly laughing then, so he sang the silliest song I guess I've ever heard. It was about a bodiless piglet, and I remember one verse of it because it repeated several times: This morning I found a piglet, grunting beside my bed
This piglet, she had no body -- she was only a head!
She rolled about while squealing, moving by snout and by jaw
Happily snuffling for treats without use of hoof or paw.
My lady even smiled, which made me feel fat with goodness. He did keep us laughing until fear of the guards was eating at him. Then he sent up a bag of fresh meat, raw and still warm.
'From an antelope my war chief slew for you. He's fierce with an arrow. I wish I could claim I'd slain it myself, but my clumsy shot went wide. I thought fresh meat might make a pleasant change.'
'Oh, Khan Tegus, oh, my lord,' I said, and that's all I could say for a few moments. 'We have salt meat... but fresh, it's a difference, isn't it?'
'I'll say! Eating salt meat, you have to drink so much for your thirst, there's no room in the belly for food.'
'And we have salted everything here--vegetables and meat and cheese and cracker bread. Though I'm not complaining, please don't think. The food's wonderful, as long as I can keep the rats out.'
'There are rats?'
I hadn't meant to grumble, but there was this little pressure inside me, pushing inside my chest, urging me to confide some truth to him. 'We've a plague of rats in the cellar. We swat at them and even got one in a trap, but I'm afraid my... my maid won't have enough to eat, after a time. My, uh, my father brought us so much food, but not enough for the rats, too.'
'Your voice is tilting down, my lady,' he said, 'and I guess that you're frowning. You're worried. I should go now before the guards return, but keep the rats out of your hair tonight and I'll return tomorrow.'
He left.
I don't have anything else to write, but I don't want to put down my brush yet. I want to keep all that happened, the feel of the evening still thick in my head, the sounds of his words awake in my ears, twitching pleasantly inside me. I'd guess I'm tower-addled and talking to someone from outside just made me wistful. That's all. That's why I feel this way, twisting and floating, as though my heart is bigger than my chest.
I do like the world quite a lot. Nothing more to say, so I'll draw.
[Image: Drawing of a Foot]
[Image: Drawing of an Acorn]
[Image: Drawing of a Hand Writing on a Book]
Day 33
It must be past midnight now, but I'll write till morning if I have to. I don't want to forget a word.
Her khan came again. When I heard him calling, I didn't wake my lady, who was asleep upstairs. Should I have? Or was it right to let her sleep? And asleep or not, should I have ignored him and refused to continue the lie?
Ancestors forgive me, in the moment I didn't think twice. I just opened the flap and let his voice come in.
'Did you sleep well last night?' he asked. 'I might take offense if you went ahead and slept with rats in your hair, after I specifically warned you against it.'
'I slept well,' I said, laughing. 'Sleep is always sweet.'
'Not all would say that. You're an antelope who bounds through life, I think. Here you are, locked in a tower and laughing still.'
'You make me laugh.'
'Why is that?'
'I can't say.' And I couldn't. Why do his questions make me laugh?
'I think I'd like to make you laugh all day long. If
I could take you out of here, I'd hold a feast and a dance, and see you bedecked in a silver deel, laughing and bounding about.'
'Why silver?'
