One Hundred Ablutions Read online

  I grasped his wrists. “I don’t—”

  He kissed me.

  It was not a tentative, gentle kiss such as I remembered granting my young Keren suitors when I was fourteen and no one’s handmaid. It was a man’s kiss, make no mistake about it, and I groaned and clutched his wrists as his tongue thrust boldly into my mouth, unleashing four years’ worth of pent-up desire.

  Lifting his head, Valek laughed softly, his cat-slitted eyes gleaming. “Ah! You do know.”

  “Hush!” Fierce with need, I breathed the word. My hands found his shoulder blades and pulled him closer.

  Fierce.

  It was an apt word for our coupling; short, sharp and fierce. It was as though a great storm rolled over the Kerentari valley and swept us up in its wake. There was no love in it—how could there have been? His vision notwithstanding, we were strangers to one another. And yet he was right, there was something in me that knew him, that understood that there was power in this joining. It hurt when he pushed into me the first time, but it was a pain I welcomed, a pain that tasted of freedom and defiance. We were not just man and woman, cock and cunny, but mountain and valley, rebel and ally. It was an act of desire and insurrection.

  Afterward, I knew fear again.

  “I must go,” I said. “Only tell me…tell me you don’t mean to put Shaladan women and children to the sword?”

  “It is not our wish to do so. But they will resist, and nothing is certain in the dark, even for us.” Valek fished a bulging leather pouch from his rucksack and pressed it into my palm, folding my fingers over it. “Khes-flower ointment. Mark the door of your household and yourself with it.” He mimed dipping his thumb into it and smearing it over his brow. “It will shine in the dark to Jagan eyes. You must share it with the other handmaids.”

  I tucked the greasy pouch into the sleeve of my robe, retrieved my silver bowl, and hurried back to my duties.

  Throughout the day, I could not help but be acutely aware of what I’d done. There was the lingering soreness and an echo of unfamiliar pleasure. Valek’s seed mingled with traces of my virginal blood trickled down my inner thighs.

  When I took my place on the kneeling-pad and waited for Farad Dhoul to complete his ritual, it seemed to me that surely he would know, that he would sense the difference in me and denounce me as unclean, no longer fit to serve as a handmaid of Shakrath, fit only for banishment to the desert where I would die of thirst beneath the merciless sun and the wind and sand would strip the flesh from my bones.

  But no, I was wrong. So long as I carried out my duty with no breach of etiquette, my master noticed nothing. Almighty Shakrath, whose honor demanded he be served only by virgin maids, breathed no hint of my transgression in his ear. So long as I obeyed, I was just another implement in the ritual.

  It made me angry, and anger made me careless. I managed to constrain it before the master and mistress of the household, but I slammed the elder daughter Atika’s bowl in the tripod hard enough to spill water. Although Atika didn’t witness it, she caught me in the act of trying to mop the spill with my robes.

  If it had been little Amina, she might have covered for my breach, but Atika had a haughty streak that reckoned any error was a personal affront. My mistress Alaya regretted sending me to the temple for a whipping, but she sent me nonetheless.

  I bore it and seethed.

  Now that there was a possibility that the order of the world I’d taken for granted my whole life might well and truly be overturned, I saw the manifest injustice of it everywhere; in the fields and orchards where the Keren labored from sunrise to sunset; in the hovels along the city walls where poor Keren clustered in crowded, filthy quarters; in the markets where the Keren bartered for grubs while the Shaladan pondered fattened livestock at their leisure; in Farad Dhoul’s household where Keren servants saw to their masters’ every need. Why should the Keren spend their lives in toil and squalor so that the Shaladan might spend theirs contemplating the majesty of Shakrath in luxury? Well, I’ll tell you why: For no good reason but that it pleases the Shaladan.

  Maybe it pleases Shakrath, too—but I wasn’t so impressed with the all-knowing, all-wise Shakrath anymore.

  No, not since I’d known what it was to lie with a man, and found my master all unwitting of the fact that I was in violation of Shakrath’s sacred law.

  After that day, Valek did not send for me again, but it didn’t matter. What was needful to fulfill our destiny had been done. The conspiracy continued apace. Young handmaids at the ford exchanged knowing glances. My lacerated back stung as I went about my duties, the sweat-soaked cloth of my fine blue robe clinging to the welts Mistress Elia’s whip had raised. I filled a twist of oilcloth with khes-flower ointment, hid it in my chamber, and passed the leather pouch on to Shoni at the ford with quick muttered instructions.

  She nodded, the pouch vanishing into her sleeve. “I’ll see that it’s done.”

  “Shoni.” I hesitated, then asked her a question that had been plaguing me. “Why did you wait so long to approach me?”

  She smiled, but there was bitterness in it. “I knew about Valek’s vision. I suppose I was hoping it wouldn’t be you, Dala. I knew I would envy whoever was chosen.”

  “Don’t,” I murmured. “Please don’t. I would trade places with you if I could.”

  Shoni shrugged as though she didn’t care and hoisted her brimming silver bowl in a practiced motion. She balanced it atop her head, and walked away from me, her back swaying gracefully.

  I have wondered so many times—was there something I should have done differently? Something I could have done differently? Perhaps; and yet I can think of no course of action that would not have resulted in my banishment to the desert and a lingering death to follow, for as the new moon swelled to full, my woman’s courses failed to arrive, and I knew the seed that Valek had planted in me, the seed that was meant to join our peoples, had taken root.

  I was with child, and if I were found out, it would be the death of us. And so I kept my silence.

  All too soon, the next new moon day was upon us.

  For the first time, I dreaded the day that had been my sole respite. I didn’t trust myself to speak to Shoni or any of the other handmaids in the conspiracy, but took a spot in line as quickly as I could that I might be done with it. I found myself shuddering at the touch of Mistress Elia’s keen blade scraping over my stubbly scalp, causing her to nick me. She swatted me in annoyance, gave me a rag to stanch the bleeding, finished the job and sent me on my way.

  I daubed khes-flower ointment on the door of Farad Dhoul’s household and went inside to wait for nightfall.

  It was the longest wait of my life.

  At sunset, the other Keren servants were sent to their separate quarters and the great front door was locked from within. I smeared khes-flower ointment on my brow. There was a trace of ointment left in the twist of oil-cloth. I hesitated, then left my chamber to intercept Amina and Atika in the hallway outside the chamber they shared.

  “Dala!” Amina’s long, lashless eyes widened in surprise at my breach of etiquette. “Should you not be abed?”

  “Forgive me, young mistress,” I said humbly. “I had a cramp in my foot and needed to walk.”

  Atika’s eyes narrowed with disapproval. “You should have walked in your chamber. We’ll have to tell Mother in the morning.”

  “Yes, mistress,” I said to her, then reached up to brush my ointment-smeared thumb over Amina’s brow. “Forgive me, young mistress,” I said again. “There was a fly.”

  As I returned to my chamber, I could hear them discussing the incident in slow, puzzled murmurs, but soon enough the household was quiet, all its members sunk deep in slumber. I stole forth from my chamber one last time, making my way by touch, to unlock the great door from within.

  For a moment, I considered fleeing—but it was already too late. If the rebellion failed, I would be caught and banished. If the rebellion succeeded, I would be thought to have betrayed it.


  I made my way back to my chamber and waited alone in the darkness until the raid.

  Thus it came to pass that on the first night of the new moon, my master Farad Dhoul was slain in his sleep. His wife Alaya took up his sword and fought until she was slain. The governess Resalin heard the commotion and rushed to the girls’ defense. She was killed fighting tooth and nail in their chamber. Atika sustained grave wounds and was taken captive. She died of her injuries before the night was out. Only little Amina, with a smudge of khes-flower ointment shining on her brow, was spared. She was taken captive, too.

  I know, because I heard the tales later.

  But that night, I sat as rigid and unmoving as a stone on my pallet, one hand splayed over my belly while the terrible sounds of the raid in progress—the clashing of swords, the cries of pain and fury—echoed in my ears and tore at my heart. Once, the door to my chamber was opened by a pair of Jagan raiders. They glanced at me, flashed hard smiles and victorious hand-signs, and closed the door.

  The household grew quiet once more.

  I continued to sit motionless.

  Valek found me at dawn, wrenching open my chamber door. He was splashed head to foot with blood, but he was grinning fiercely. A handful of Jagan raiders and Keren rebels accompanied him, the latter armed with swords taken from dead Shaladan warriors that made them look like little boys at play with their fathers’ weapons. “There you are!” Valek strode into the chamber, his cat-slitted eyes glittering with triumph. “Come, Dala! The city is ours.” He held out one blood-stained hand to me. “Let our people see us together and rejoice!”

  “Excuse me.” I rose from my pallet, picked up my silver bowl and balanced it atop my head. “I have a duty to perform.”

  He reached for my arm to stop me.

  “No,” one of the Keren said, and the others nodded. “Let her go.”

  No one disturbed me as I walked through the city. Here and there, there were still knots of fighting; besieged and isolated Shaladan households whose handmaids hadn’t joined the conspiracy holding out against their attackers. Not enough to turn the tide, though. Valek was right, we’d taken the city.

  There were Shaladan dead in the streets, corpses dragged from their homes and piled like cordwood. In the marketplace, the few Shaladan women and children who’d been spared and taken captive were confined under heavy guard in a pen that usually held sheep or goats. I didn’t know what plans the rebels had in store for them. Later, I would learn if whatever influence I wielded might aid them in their plight, but I could do nothing for them now.

  “Dala!” Amina called out to me in anguish as I passed. “Dala, please! Help me!”

  Feeling as though my heart was breaking in my chest, I ignored her.

  At the ford, I gathered the skirts of my fine blue robe, taking care not to let them trail in the water.

  I filled my silver bowl.

  Balancing it atop my freshly shaved head, I made my way back through the city and returned to the household of Farad Dhoul with its blood-spattered walls. On the sun terrace, I placed the bowl in the tripod, careful not to spill a drop.

  There was no need to strike the gilded bell with the hammer. There was no one to summon but me. There was no one to make atonement but me. I took the silver ladle from its carved wooden rest and dipped it into the bowl.

  Pouring water over my head, I began counting.