Shannon Hale - Book of a Thousand Days

His eyes were wide, but he nodded. "You pricked me just then. I can't explain it."

"Was it..." I hesitated. I didn't want to tell him his own feelings, but I thought I understood. "Was it as though you had a splinter inside, deep in your chest, that had been there so long you'd forgotten to notice the pain, and the song reminded you so you could pluck it out?"

I think he really saw me then for the first time, if that makes sense. He looked in my eyes, and he smiled and said, "Thank you, Dashti."

I hadn't known that he remembered my name. I can't say why, but his words made me want to cry, so I turned my head away and started gathering up the papers that had scattered. I felt him kneel beside me, heard the rustle of parchment as he picked up others.

"Where's that food storage account?" he mumbled after a time.

"Here, my lord," I said, handing him a paper.

"You read?"

"Yes, my lord, and write."

"And where do you work when you're not attending to me?"

"In the kitchens. I'm a scrubber."

"You read and write, you have the voice of the goddess Evela, and you scrub in the kitchens."

I laughed. "Evela's voice! I'm no pretty singer, no sit-and-listen singer. My mama used to say my singing voice is as rough as a cat's tongue and that's why my healing songs work. They dig at you, get inside, clean you up."

"Where's your mother now?"

"In the Realm of the Ancestors." And just like that I started to cry. Five years she's been gone. I should think I'd be used to it, but just saying those words to Khan Tegus was like being swatted in the face with the sadness all over again--maybe because for the first time I was telling him some of my own truth. I handed him the papers right quick and begged dismissal, walking out his door before he'd even given me leave.

When I think on all the times I sinned against her khan's nobility, I'm shocked I haven't been struck dead.

Perhaps in the morning I'll wake as a pile of ash.

Day 104

Not ash yet.

Day 105

I'm writing this from a clean room with its own hearth, a horsehair blanket, and a wood table and chair. There's a window that looks over the dairy. The room's half the size of a gher and for now it's my own. How mama would laugh! Privacy's a strange notion to a mucker, where five in a tent is a roomy place.

Yesterday Shria told Cook, "Dashti will be living upstairs so she can copy notes for the chiefs and attend to Khan Tegus with the healing songs."

Saren didn't like it, but what could I do? I begged Qacha to look out for her and help her keep up with her scrubbing, said good-bye, and that quickly, here I am. Perhaps I should've found a way to stay with my lady, but she's improved very little since the tower, and my daily singing doesn't heal her a bit. Maybe it won't hurt either of us to be apart.

I've spent the past two days brushing ink on paper, making copies of lists about supplies and weapons, and looking out the window to ease the cramping in my eyeballs.

Windows are the eyes of the Ancestors. Windows are better than food!

I had a free hour this morning and went back to the kitchens to fetch this book from where I'd hidden it beneath some empty grain sacks. No one in the kitchens can read, so far as I know, but I'd rather not risk it being found. There are things written in here that could get me hanged on the south wall.

The girls cheered to see me and wanted all the details, so I washed pots and described my room and the window and the horsehair blanket. My lady didn't speak a word. She wouldn't even meet my eyes. Sometimes I have to snap a twig to keep from shouting, "Why don't you tell him who you are? Why don't you smile? Why don't you stop worrying about your father and Khasar and the tower and just decide to be Lady Saren?"

I should scratch out those words. Maybe later.

Day 109

Lately all I do is write. I copy pages of notes, lists of food supplies, numbers of weapons. As I fall asleep, the soft sound of a brush grazing parchment continues to murmur in my ear. Already my scrubber hands have begun to heal and my ink stains make me feel like a real scribe. I'm mostly alone, but white-haired Shria comes to take the papers to the khan's chiefs, and twice a day Qacha brings my meals from the kitchen.

Sometimes when I'm sitting on the floor eating with Qacha, I feel about as content as a bird with a good lifting wind. In greeting, we always clasp forearms, touch cheeks, and inhale through our noses so as to breathe in each other's scent. Smell is the voice of the soul, and this greeting is the most intimate. It's common among family and clan, of course, but I've been on my own for so long, I'd forgotten how warm and wonderful it is.

And whenever I can, I return to the kitchen to see my lady and the other girls or walk around the stables and dairy and soak in the cheery summer sun. The window is wonderful, but any walls remind me of the tower.

I haven't seen her khan since I came to this small, clean room.

Day 111

Shria called me to the khan's chamber today. I was startled to see it full, seven of the khan's chiefs present, several shamans, all arguing about Khasar and scouting reports and the state of the city with the refugees near bursting the walls. Three other scribes were there. I joined them by the wall, taking notes of the talk as quickly as I could.

Khan Tegus never looked at me. I'm a mucker maid. I guess I needed to be reminded of that. So, good. Fine.

Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.

Day 112

Shria came flustering for me this morning.

"Come! Quick!"

We raced down the corridors, up another flight of stairs, and into the last of the khan's chain of rooms.

The first thing I noticed was a man lying on the floor and bleeding, bleeding fast. Another man was in the corner, his ankles and wrists tied with sashes, animal scratches on his face. Three men with drawn swords were guarding the bound man, all tense as a gher roof, shaking slightly as if hoping for a reason to stab the bound man through. I stopped on the threshold. I wobbled.

"Here's the mucker girl, my lord,'' said Shria.

The khan pulled me toward the wounded man. "My friend is hurt. Sing for him."

"I... I can't, my lord. A healing song can't stop blood from flowing or close a wound."

"Help him, Dashti."

How I longed for the voice of Evela and the strength of Carthen, for powers as mighty as the desert shamans are rumored to possess, for a way to force that man's body to do my will and heal itself. But I felt as thin as grass. I sat by the man's head, I touched his face. My body shook so hard I thought I heard my bones rattle, and I wondered if my limbs would fall right off.

Sing to him, Dashti,

I ordered myself, but before I could find a tune, I got to thinking of Mama with the fever, her skin as yellow as this paper I write on, her lips dry like a snake shedding its skin. For hours, for days I sang to her. I pushed my soul into the words till my voice rasped to ashes. But she fell asleep, deeper and deeper till her skin went cold.

A shaman knelt beside me, letting his hands hover over the bleeding man's chest. Until I recognized his face, I didn't realize he was a shaman because he was dressed only in a robe and for some reason had removed his tassled hat and belt with nine mirrors.

"I feel a pulsing heat," said the shaman, his eyes closed. "The life heat leaves his body even as his blood does.

His soul is teetering on a threshold, undecided to live or die."

"Help him to live," said Khan Tegus. He was speaking to me and to the shaman and he seemed near crying.

"Tell his soul to live!"