I had not been naked since my time with Trader Akriel, and the fading browns and greens of various bruises still showed on my hips and shins. My toenails were cracked and rub as I might some dirt remained caught in them. The skin of my hands had been roughened by the various tasks I’d done for Dwalia, the hands of a servant, not a high-born Buck girl. I knew a moment of shame that I had not known before that the kitchen girls’ chapped hands were evidence of the sort of work that had never been expected of me. So often I had cursed the events that had taken me away from my comfortable life, and now I had a little jolt of realization. How would it have been to be born a slave or a servant, to know that the abuse I’d suffered was to be my daily life?
I put on the garments and felt oddly naked in them. They were loose and the trousers came barely to my knees, but the sleeves of the blouse fell past my wrists. The fabric of both garments was light and a pale rose in colour. There was no way to carry the candle inside my new shirt. The sandals were a mystery but I finally strapped them to my feet. Beneath the clothing, I found a comb. The water had put my hair into tight curls, but I did my best to make it tidy. I folded the drying cloths and looked for a way to drain the grey bathwater but didn’t find one. It shamed me that someone would see how dirty I’d been. I steeled myself, tucked my worn garments, with the candle inside them, under my arm and left the bath.
Daylight had grown stronger and the morning was warmer than many a noon in Buck. Capra looked me up and down, with her gaze lingering on my bruised legs. ‘Leave those rags. Just drop them. A servant will dispose of them.’
I froze. Then, without a word, I reached into the bundle, and drew out the halves of my broken candle. I let my clothing fall. Capra scowled at me. ‘What’s that you’re carrying?’
‘A candle that my mother made.’ I didn’t show it to her.
‘Leave it.’
‘No.’ I lifted my eyes and met her gaze. Her eyes were peculiar. Today they seemed not pale-blue or grey, but a sort of dirtied white. They were hard to look at, but I didn’t break my stare.
She tilted her head to look at me. ‘How many candles do you have?’
I didn’t want to tell her, yet I could not say why. ‘It was one. It broke into two.’
‘One candle,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s interesting. But only one. Not like the candles in the dream.’ She said this as if hoping to provoke a reaction.
I did not let my face change. But abruptly, the day shimmered around me. I looked up at Capra and it seemed as if light spiked out from her in myriad directions. So many paths leading from her. From this moment, yes, but more than that. She was like the beggar, who was also the Fool. My father’s Beloved. I had no words for what I sensed about her. Like a crossroads, I thought, where one could go off in a different direction. I looked away from her, wondering how much time had passed while I had been caught in that moment. None, it seemed, when she spoke.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Carry them with you. It’s your nuisance to deal with.’ Yet from her voice, I did not feel she conceded to me so much as added the candle to my list of wrong-doing. Her guard’s expression suggested that I had been foolishly wilful. He was one of the men who had wielded the whips that ate Dwalia’s flesh. I set my teeth to keep my jaw from quivering at that memory.
‘Follow,’ Capra said. ‘You will be staying here with us, so I will show you the grounds. Later we will decide what you are to be here. Perhaps a student? Perhaps a scholar? Maybe just a servant.’ She smiled at me, a thin stretching of her lips. ‘Maybe a breeder. Or a slave to be sold. There are so many ways you might like to be useful.’
I did not think I would like any of them but I said nothing. I walked behind her, her guard next to me. The sandal straps bit into my feet but I gritted my teeth and walked on. She took me back inside, and I was grateful that the sun no longer beat down on my head. I did not realize how I had squinted against the glare of white light on white stone until we were indoors again.
She did not hurry but she did not pause. On the main floor, I was shown a room where five pale children were learning to write and being assisted by scribes in green robes. Each child had a scribe sitting by him, assisting him to guide his pen. The pale children looked very young, no older than three years. But if they were like me, I judged they were older than they looked.
We traversed a long, gently curving corridor and went up grand marble stairs to the second floor. ‘Here we welcome those who come to share our wisdom.’ She told me this as she opened the door to a room panelled all in rich wood and deeply carpeted. There was a grand table surrounded by carved chairs in the centre, and on it a decanter of some liquor and some tiny glasses.
