Leslie Moore - Griffin's Shadow

Asa grabbed a wooden bucket and filled it with water from one of the many small taps spouting from the walls over the troughs. “Don’t just stand there, Lacus you lazy dolt!” He glowered at Blond Bear. “Get his clothes off!”

Lacus stepped forward and Ashinji raised his hands. “I can undress and wash myself if you free my hands,” he said. Lacus looked at Asa, his broad face full of uncertainty.

Asa frowned, then said “Yeah, go ahead. Where can he run to, eh?”

Hands free, Ashinji peeled off his filthy clothes and dropped them into the trough. He looked at Asa. “Soap?” he asked, and the man went off to find some. While he waited, he unbraided his hair and raked his fingers through its greasy length, grimacing in disgust, acutely aware that others in the yard were beginning to take notice of him.

Asa returned and pressed an irregular yellow lump into Ashinji’s hand. Ashinji turned his back to the yard and began washing the two and a half weeks worth of accumulated grime from his hair and skin. When he had finished, his skin smarted from the harsh soap, but the sheer bliss of a clean body raised his spirits as much as they could be in this horrible place.

Lacus produced a clean tunic from the pack he carried slung over one broad shoulder. With a grateful sigh, Ashinji slipped the unbleached cotton over his still-wet body. He dunked his dusty sandals in the trough to rinse them and slipped them back on his feet, then fished the old tunic and breeches out of the murky water.

“Leave those,” Asa ordered, and Ashinji let the water-soaked garments slip out of his hand to land with a wet plop on the cobbles at his feet. “Hold out your hands,” Asa commanded and fastened the manacles back on Ashinji’s wrists.

As they left the wash yard, Ashinji glanced about and saw the many gazes turned on him.

Goddess, please! Help me get through this! he prayed. Help me survive and get home to Jelena and our baby!

He looked at the sky and caught sight of a pair of white birds winging their way across the roofs of the market. They swerved and alighted onto the wash yard wall. Their bead-like eyes seemed to follow Ashinji as he passed below their perch.

Seeing the birds, he didn’t feel quite so afraid anymore.

Perhaps these birds are a sign from the One, he thought. I am Ashinji Sakehera, son of Sen and Amara, Lord and Lady of Kerala. Jelena Onjara Sakehera is my wife, and I am son-in-law to Keizo Onjara, King of Alasiri.

I am no slave!

He would hold these truths in his heart, and survive.

Winter tightened its grip on Alasiri. The trees had shed their leaves and stretched bare branches to the gray skies like bony hands grasping toward heaven. The flocks of migratory birds that had passed overhead in countless numbers throughout the late fall had vanished, fled south to their breeding grounds in the human lands. The summer-sleek hides of horses and cattle had grown rough and shaggy, and the sharp wind off the high Kesen Numai Mountains sang of the coming snow.

As the season deepened, so too, did Jelena’s grief. For a time, she withdrew completely from all life at court, sequestering herself in a small set of rooms near the Sakehera family quarters. Unable to bear Sadaiyo’s presence, Jelena had refused to return to the home of her in-laws, and so the king had given her a private flat of her own to live in, along with Eikko.

Keizo came to see her every day, as did Amara and Sen. She would sit with them for a time, but then beg them to leave her, so she could retreat to the haven of her bedroom to lie alone with her sorrow. Sonoe came as well, sometimes with Keizo, sometimes on her own. For reasons Jelena did not quite understand, only Sonoe seemed able to give her any comfort.

Sonoe had been there, standing with the king, when Sadaiyo delivered the news that ended life as Jelena had known it. During the few moments it had taken for Sadaiyo to speak, Jelena’s world had imploded, leaving her a widow and her unborn daughter fatherless. She could recall little of that terrible day, but one of the few memories that stood out had been the unexpected tenderness of Sonoe’s attentions.

Her father’s arms had cradled her in those first few hours of agony, but later, when she had begged to return to her room, his Companion had accompanied her and had stayed with her through the long, dark night. Jelena had found herself clinging to the older woman as she would to a sister, accepting the comfort Sonoe offered without question or hesitation. All the suspicions she had harbored against Sonoe vanished like dew at sunrise, and now, after so many weeks of closeness, she shared a bond with the flame-haired sorceress both deep and strong.

Sonoe now came to Jelena’s rooms each morning and saw to it that she got out of bed, went to the bath house, got dressed, and ate. If not for her friend’s persistence during those first few days, Jelena doubted if she would have had the strength to move at all.

With each passing day, the pain, though still intense, grew a little easier to bear. Slowly, Jelena learned to live with her grief.

This particular morning, Sonoe was late, and Eikko, perhaps not having the heart to disturb her, had left Jelena alone to linger awhile longer in bed. Thin, wintry sunshine spilled like ice water across the coverlets, and Jelena sighed in annoyance at herself for forgetting to remind Eikko to draw the curtains last night. The light made it impossible to sleep, as did the movements of her daughter.

Jelena tossed the covers aside and slid awkwardly out of bed. She drew a fur-lined robe over her nightgown, and with a hand pressed to her aching back, she shuffled over to the little water closet to relieve herself. That done, she settled into the window seat, pulling her robe close about her to ward off the chill that seeped through the glass. Her unborn daughter dealt her another kick to her ribs.

“Easy, easy, little one,” she whispered in Soldaran. “Why must you be so hard on your poor mam?” Jelena almost never spoke in her native tongue anymore, and at times, she missed the sound of it.

Where is Sonoe?

Jelena felt a twinge of worry. She looked out the window, letting her gaze wander over the rooftops glazed with frost. A flutter of black against the blue tiles caught her eye. A large raven had dropped from the sky to land on a dragon-headed rain spout directly across from her window. The bird looked as though it watched something below its perch. Jelena craned her neck to try to get a look at what the bird saw.

In a little courtyard below Jelena’s bedchamber, Sonoe and Princess Taya stood face to face in what seemed to be a tense confrontation. Even from so great a distance, Jelena could sense the animosity that crackled between the two mages like a lightning strike. Sonoe spoke and Taya reacted as if she had been struck. Both women threw up their hands simultaneously and each took a step back and away from the other. Jelena cried out in alarm.

From the other side of the bedchamber door, she heard Eikko call out, “Princess! My lady, are you ill?”

“I’m fine,” Jelena answered, tearing her gaze away from the stand-off below. She pushed herself up from the window seat and moved to open the door, but before she reached it, Eikko had bustled in.

The hikui girl scanned Jelena with a practiced eye. “You cried out, my lady, and it frightened me!” She looked both relieved and accusatory all at once.

“I was startled, that’s all, Eikko. I just saw my aunt and Sonoe down in the courtyard and they seemed to be having a nasty argument,” Jelena explained. She moved past Eikko into her sitting room.