One Hundred Ablutions Read online

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  One Hundred Ablutions Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline Carey.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover and interior design Copyright © 2016 by Desert Isle Design, LLC. All rights reserved.

  Electronic Edition

  ISBN

  978-1-59606-802-5

  Subterranean Press

  PO Box 190106

  Burton, MI 48519

  subterraneanpress.com

  As far as Keren childhoods go, I suppose mine was happy enough. Da was a picker in an omichaya orchard, and the overseer let workers take home any fruit that was rotten-ripe or too damaged to serve to our Shaladan masters. Anyone caught damaging fruit on purpose got a whipping for it, but Da didn’t get caught often. My brother and sister and I almost always had enough to eat, although sometimes we had gripy bellies and loose bowels from too much omichaya.

  What we didn’t eat, Ma traded in the market. You could find almost anything that grew, flew, crept, crawled or swam in the whole Kerentari valley on display in the market: Fruit, fish, fowl, frogs, rice, spices, eels, eggs, nuts, wriggly bugs and crunchy grubs. There were fineries, too—intricately patterned carpets, shiny jewelry, bowls of hammered copper or finely-turned wood, leather belts and sandals, tinkling brass bells and the like, but those were reserved for the Shaladan.

  It seems strange to me now, but I didn’t give much thought to the Shaladan when I was a child. They were simply a fact of existence, pacing slowly through the market with their long, grave faces and their long, flowing robes, at least half again as tall as the Keren servants trotting beside them, arms laden with their masters’ purchases. The Shaladan women wore headscarves in muted colors and dangling earrings. The men wore turbans and wide belts from which hung long swords.

  They were the Shaladan and they ruled us. What was there to think? As a Keren peasant child, I was as far beneath their notice as a grub and they were distant from my comprehension as the clouds drifting overhead.

  The handmaids of Shakrath, now that was another matter. Spirits save me, I used to envy them.

  Mind you, that was long before I was chosen.

  According to the Shaladan, they’re bestowing a tremendous honor on Keren girls by choosing us to serve as handmaids of Shakrath. Yes, well, I suppose they would think so, since Shakrath is their god and they spend large portions of their daily life in prayer and meditation. The fact that despite several centuries of occupation, the Keren haven’t embraced the worship of Shakrath is irrelevant to them.

  Shakrath is great; therefore, it is a great honor to serve him.

  In fairness, I’ll grant that there’s a certain logic to their thinking, since Shakrath in his mercy and wisdom granted his people’s prayers and allowed them to conquer the valley centuries ago. Before that conquest, the Shaladan were a desert folk eking out a miserable existence in a harsh terrain.

  Of course, I knew none of that as a child. As a child, I only knew that the handmaids of Shakrath, with their blue robes and shaven heads and elegant strands of silver chain hanging around their necks, were special. They were granted a status that no other Keren enjoyed. Ordinary Keren weren’t permitted to address them. Ordinary Keren weren’t even allowed to wear dyed fabrics or jewelry, not even the merchants who procured such items for their Shaladan patrons. The handmaids were sleek and glossy with health. They went about their sacred task with solemn dignity, fetching great silver bowls of water from the river so that each and every member of the Shaladan household that they served might perform the ritual One Hundred Ablutions each and every day.

  I certainly had no understanding of what that meant.

  Now, I wish I didn’t.

  It was rumored that the handmaids did not live in squalid, over-crowded quarters like other Keren servants, but lived almost as a full-fledged member of the household in spacious rooms with windows open to the sunlight and sweet spice-tinted breezes of the valley. It was rumored that they were privileged to dine on the leavings of the household meals, which included meats traditionally forbidden to the Keren—pork, goat and beef, meats that the Shaladan say Shakrath has decreed only for the enjoyment of his own people.

  It was known that Keren girls chosen to serve as handmaids of Shakrath were considered inviolate. No hand might be raised against them without invoking the wrath of the Shaladan. As for those handmaids’ hands…well, those hands would never be given in marriage. As far as the Shaladan were concerned, the handmaids were wedded to Shakrath and would remain virgin for the entirety of their lives. It was worth a Keren boy’s life to flirt with a handmaid of Shakrath, and none in his right mind would attempt it.

  At six, eight, even ten years of age, this didn’t sound like such a bad bargain in exchange for the perquisites.

  At fourteen, with my breasts budding and handsome boys vying for my favors, I felt otherwise. I was enjoying the first taste of the power a desirable young woman can wield over men, and I liked it. I liked it very much, and I wanted more of it.

  But it was not to be.

  As a peasant, I should not even have been eligible for the lottery, but there was a bout of flux that year that left a shortage of Keren girls from the merchant class that the Shaladan preferred. And so the Shaladan priests canvassed the hovels clustered outside the walls of the city, searching for likely candidates.

  I recall the long shadow of the Shaladan priest darkening our doorway. “This one is comely,” he said to Da in the slow, deliberate way of his kind, pointing a finger at me. “Bring her to the lottery.”

  Da bowed.

  I wept.

  Ma wept, slapped me for weeping, and wept some more. My little brother Joji wept, too. If my older sister Juna had not been wed that very year and gone to live with her husband and his parents, she might have wept, too.

  The lottery was held in the city square on the first day of the next new moon. Thirty girls had been selected, but only ten of us would be chosen to serve as handmaids. It was a simple affair. A Shaladan priest presided over an urn filled with white and black stones. Each girl reached into the urn and drew a stone.

  Black meant you were free to go. White meant Shakrath had chosen you, and that was the end of life as you’d known it.

  “May Shakrath bless you,” the priest intoned when it was my turn. It was the nearest I’d ever been to one of the Shaladan. At close range, I could see that his sand-colored skin was slightly pebbled. “Pray that he guides your hand.”

  In silent defiance, I prayed to the Keren spirits of field and stream instead, thrusting my hand into the urn and drawing out a stone.

  It was white.

  The priest pointed toward the group of chosen girls, waiting patiently beneath the supervision of an older handmaid whom I was told to call Mistress Elia.

  Numb with shock and fury, I stumbled through the rest of the day. Mistress Elia led the novitiates to the temple where we were bathed, our heads were shaved, and we were given clean blue robes to wear. I wept to see my glossy black hair lying in a pile and was slapped for it.

  “It will do you no good to whine,” Mistress Elia said firmly. “You’ll have an easy life. Be grateful for it.”

  I tried. Spirits save me, I did. We all did. There were two other girls rescued from far greater hardship than me that genuinely were grateful. But the rest of us…no. Our lives had been stolen from us.

  We received a month’s instruction at the temple on the proper etiquette for fetching water and the history of the One Hundred Ablutions. Three hundred years ago, the Shaladan were a tribe of nomads roaming a drought-stricken desert. When the well in their last oasis began to fail,
Shakrath sent their chieftain a vision of a lush green valley where the Shaladan might make a new home. In accordance with this singular vision, the chieftain warned his people that it would not be won without bloodshed and made a sacred vow that if the valley became theirs, every member of the Shaladan tribe would perform a daily ritual of one hundred ablutions as a meditation on their gratitude for the life-saving water and in atonement for any innocent blood spilled in the process.

  So it came to pass, and the handmaids were chosen among the Keren so that we might be given the honor of bearing witness to the Shaladan expressing gratitude and atonement for slaughtering a large number of our people.

  Oh, well, thank you so very much!

  The galling thing was that the Shaladan genuinely did expect us to be grateful. At the time of their conquest, the Kerentari valley was occupied by the Jagan, a fierce and godless mountain tribe. Overpowered by the Shaladan, the Jagan abandoned the valley and fled back to the highlands. In the Shaladan view of history, they freed the poor, hapless Keren from oppression and brought us the word of Shakrath, and we were the luckier for it on both counts.

  “Do you believe it’s true?” I whispered at night to Shoni, the two of us sharing a pallet. She was a merchant’s daughter with whom I’d struck up a friendship. “Three hundred years later, are we better off under the Shaladan?”

  “We aren’t, you and I.” If anything, Shoni was more disgruntled than me at being chosen. Her father had been on the verge of arranging a very good marriage for her. “At least our people could mingle with the Jagan. There are still Keren in the north who trade with them,” she whispered. “My Da’s heard tales. They say the Jagan have eyes like cats and can see in the dark.” She put her mouth close to my ear, close enough to tickle. “And they’re very, very virile!”

  I giggled and someone shushed us.

  “The men take pride in pleasing their women at least three times a night!” Shoni reached between my thighs and squeezed. “Think about that, Dala!”

  I shoved her away. “You think about it!”

  She rolled onto her back and folded her arms under her head. “Oh, I do.” Her voice was grim. “Every day.”

  In truth, so did I. But there wasn’t a blessed thing either of us could do about it.

  The days slipped away like water held in cupped hands, and the month was gone before it seemed scarce begun. One by one, this year’s novitiates were declared full-fledged handmaids and presented to their Shaladan households. Shoni and I wept on each other’s shoulders and declared eternal friendship. Although we would see each other every day as we went to and fro fetching water for our new masters, etiquette forbade us to do more than exchange the most banal of greetings.

  I was nervous and jittery when my time came, balking on the path that led to my new home. The great looming house built of blocks of yellowish stone was like the Shaladan themselves, too big and too solid to comprehend. Mistress Elia sighed and tugged me by the hand. “Come, Dala.”

  What choice had I?

  None, then.

  So.

  This, then, was to be my new life. I was to serve as handmaid of Shakrath to the household of Farad Dhoul, which included his wife Alaya, his daughters Atika and Amina, and their governess Resalin. On the doorstep of the house, Mistress Elia placed the first strand of silver chain around my neck, symbolizing my formal entry into service as a handmaid. For every year that I served, I would receive one additional strand. Upon entry into the house, the elderly Keren handmaid that I was to replace presented me with the ritual silver bowl, her crabbed hands trembling with the effort. I could not imagine how she’d carried out her duties for so long. She was nearly stooped under the accumulated weight of silver necklaces that she wore.

  A lifetime wasted, that’s what those strands represented, but I kept that thought to myself.

  A silent Keren servant led me to my new quarters, careful to avoid meeting my gaze. I trailed in his wake, balancing the empty silver bowl on my head and steadying it with both hands as etiquette dictated. The rumors regarding our lodgings were true. My room on the upper story of the house was vast and spacious, with arched windows open to the warm, spice-scented breezes.

  And there, I and my bowl were left alone.

  Sometime before sunset, the same servant brought me a platter of food. Table scraps, maybe—but oh, what scraps they were! I ate sparingly of the rich meat lest I make myself sick. Afterward, I slept on a pallet stuffed with soft cotton.

  And yet the luxury I’d coveted as a child did nothing to allay my loneliness.

  At dawn, the bell that summoned me to my duty rang, a single loud scintillating chime. I rose, descended the stair, unlocked the main door, and made the first of what would be many, many long treks to fetch water from the river.

  Keep your steps graceful. Keep your bowl balanced. Keep your countenance serene. Keep your thoughts fixed on your duty.

  Do not glance around you. Do not acknowledge Keren commoners. Do not dawdle or delay. Do not splash. Do not allow the hem of your robe to trail in the river. Do not make idle chatter with other handmaids.

  Do not spill.

  That last one was the one that terrified me. I’d practiced in the temple, but there was no room for mistakes now. The punishment for spilling the first time was a reprimand. Second, a day’s fast. A third spill earned a visit to the temple and a whipping from Mistress Elia.

  After that…well, Mistress Elia had been vague. But she was very clear on the ultimate punishment for a handmaid judged unfit to serve Shakrath: Banishment. Oh, and not just banishment from the city. No, a handmaid found unfit to serve would be taken beyond the Kerentari valley twenty leagues into the desert and abandoned to Shakrath’s ungentle mercy.

  Hence, my fear.

  Nonetheless, I managed to fill my bowl and return without spilling a drop. All Shaladan households are laid out in the same manner and I found the sun terrace exactly where I’d been taught it would be. There was the tripod for the bowl, there was the stand with the golden bell and hammer, there was the carved wooden rest for the silver ladle, and there was the mat for me to kneel upon. I lowered the bowl carefully and placed it in the tripod. The water showed me my unfamiliar reflection in the early morning light—my head as bald as an egg, silver glinting around my throat.

  I looked away from my reflection, took up the hammer and gave the golden bell a single sharp tap, then knelt on the mat.

  Soon enough, Farad Dhoul came in response to the bell’s summons. As head of the household, it was his privilege to perform the day’s first ritual. Hearing his slow, deliberate steps, I kept my eyes downcast.

  He halted in front of the bowl. All I could see of him were his immense sandal-shod feet with their splayed toes and horny yellow nails. “What is your name, handmaid?”

  Having been addressed, I looked up. “Dala, master.”

  “Dala.” He stooped to touch the top of my head. “Be welcome in the service of Shakrath.”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

  Apparently that sufficed, for without giving me another thought, he commenced the ritual. I watched him unwind his turban and hang it on the stand. Beneath the cloth, his head was as hairless as mine. The pebbled texture of his tannish hide was more pronounced on the dome of his skull. Kneeling in his presence, I could not help but be terribly conscious of how different the Shaladan were from us. Beneath the folds of his robe I could discern the faint outline of his long backward-bending legs with hocks instead of knees, built for striding great distances across the desert sands on those wide, splayed horn-nailed feet. A nictitating membrane protected his eyes and the narrow nostrils of his long nose could pinch almost completely closed—against sand-storms, one supposes. A not-entirely-unpleasant scent of hot dust emanated from his skin.

  A tall man for his kind, he was nearly twice my height. I felt small and weak by comparison. My soft Keren skin, as dark and rich a brown as the kui-nuts that grew in the valley’s shady groves, offered litt
le protection from harsh elements, little more than the sweeping lashes of my eyes. The thin, pale nails of my slender fingers and toes were not made for striding or digging in the sand.

  I thought about deserts and shuddered to myself.

  Leaning slightly forward, my new master took up the ladle, dipped it into the bowl and poured the contents over his head, eyes closed as water streamed over his bare head and coursed down his face. A profound look of peace settled over his features, and I hated him a little bit for it.

  Once, twice…well, I trust you can count. Let me say that one hundred ablutions performed with Shaladan deliberation takes a fair bit of time.

  And this was only the first ritual of the first day of the rest of my spirits-forsaken life.

  When Farad Dhoul finished, he replaced the ladle on its stand, rewound his turban around his head, and went about his business. I rose from my kneeling-mat, picked up the empty bowl, balanced it on my shaved head, and went about mine.

  This time, the strangeness of it all struck me as it hadn’t on my first foray. The city was awake and bustling, and I had to thread my way through a crowd in the marketplace. No one would meet my eyes. Of course not—ordinary Keren weren’t permitted to address the handmaids. I knew that. I’d grown up knowing it. Mistress Elia had reminded us of it daily. And yet I hadn’t had the first inkling of how it would make me feel, at once horribly conspicuous and utterly invisible.

  Even my own Ma looked away when I passed, cuffing my little brother Joji when he pointed and called out to me in an excited voice.

  And I had to look away from him as though I hadn’t heard, tears trickling from my eyes, lest one of Mistress Elia’s spies among the older handmaids, the ones who had nothing left to live for but duty and status and zealously guarded our honor, report me for acknowledging a Keren commoner. Some of the younger handmaids, those with a spark of liveliness left in them, had warned us initiates, never trust anyone with ten strands or more.