Naondel Read online

  Ten days later Iskan visited again, but this time he arrived to a near-empty house. Father and Tihe had travelled eastward to buy new bao plants after an entire crop had been destroyed by the harsh summer drought. The worst of the heat was over, and in another half-moon or so the autumn rains would come. It was the best time to renew the spice tree crop. Agin had gone to stay with our aunt to help her sew a bridal gown for her eldest daughter, our cousin Neika. She was to marry as soon as the autumn rains had passed. Lehan had contracted a bad summer cold and lay in bed, while all the maidservants of the household competed to pamper her with hot and cold drinks, compresses and home remedies. That evening Mother and I were sitting alone in the sunroom. Mother was embroidering a collar for Lehan (I could not help but think that it too resembled a bridal outfit), and I read out loud from the teachings of Haong ak Sishe-chu. He has always been my favourite of the nine master teachers, because he mixes philosophy with history. We had come to the third scroll when Aikon opened the door and showed Iskan in. I began to roll up the scroll, but Iskan gestured for me to stop.

  “Please, do not let me disturb.” He smiled. Mother bowed over her needlework and I hesitated, with the scroll in my hand. It sounded as if he were teasing me, as usual, but would he really do so with Mother nearby? He sat down on his usual cushion, crossed his legs and looked at me encouragingly. My heart was pounding wildly, but I just frowned, unrolled Haong and started reading again.

  Iskan listened attentively throughout the whole third scroll and half of the fourth before inquiring as to the whereabouts of the rest of family when I had stopped for a sip of iced tea. I let Mother answer. When she told him that Lehan was sick in bed I studied his face carefully. He asked politely how she was feeling and if there was anything he might do, but I could not find any semblance of concern in his eyes or facial expression. My heart skipped a beat. Though a summer cold was naturally nothing to worry about.

  Then Iskan turned to me. “So I suppose you and I will have to amuse ourselves alone tomorrow, Kabira-cho. What shall we do?”

  I lowered my head and attempted to look busy rolling up the scrolls.

  “You could show Iskan-che the spring, Kabira.” Mother set down her needlework.

  “A spring? I do not think you have mentioned one, cho.”

  I had never shown Iskan the spring. It was not oaki—forbidden—but it was sacred. All districts in the realm of Karenokoi were built around a sacred place: a mountain, river, lake or, as in the district of Renka, a spring.

  “Our family are guardians of Anji, the sacred spring of Renka,” I replied reluctantly. Just as I had expected, Iskan chuckled with amusement.

  “I have heard of Anji. In my nurse’s tales when I was a boy.”

  “The spring is absolutely real,” I said indignantly.

  “I do not doubt it.” Iskan leant back, visibly amused by my reaction. “Though few remain who would call it sacred.”

  “The old beliefs have disappeared in most of Karenokoi,” Mother said. “But in many parts the traditions live on. My mother-in-law took great care to cherish and honour the spring, as my husband’s family has always done. She taught my eldest daughter to uphold the tradition.”

  I squirmed. It did not feel proper that Mother should speak of this with an outsider, though neither the spring nor my role as its guardian were secret. However, the true wisdom Father’s mother had imparted was something nobody knew but me. Hence why they could make light of Anji’s significance. Mother especially had always thought that Grandmother was stuck in the past and was annoyed that she occupied so much of my time with her lessons and visits to the spring, especially at night. It was inappropriate. It was old superstition. Mother was a practical woman. She understood that which she could see and touch, and did not assign value to anything else.

  She did not know that much of what she could see and touch in her own home, of her own wealth, was thanks to Anji. She did not know that the spring affected our harvests, our health and our fortune.

  “I would consider it an honour to visit your sacred site,” said Iskan and bowed low to me. “Tomorrow, at dawn?”

  He knew that I rose early in the mornings. I deliberated. The moon was waxing and it was only a few nights before full moon. Anji was good and strong. Why not? Perhaps I could teach this arrogant man a little humility. Make him swallow his haughty scepticism!

  I slammed shut the lid to the box of scrolls.

  “As you wish, che.” I smiled sweetly at him, and when he raised his eyebrows I realized that it was perhaps the first time he had seen me smile.

  We met the next morning on the path leading to the spring. I brought with me the broom, a drinking bowl, a small clay pot filled with water and Aikon, Father’s faithful servant, because I could not be unchaperoned with a man who was not my kin. Iskan gazed in the direction of Areko, which could be glimpsed in the early morning mist like a flickering mirage of shining roofs and smoking plumes. He was clearly restless. Wasting his time here with me, an old maid, when he could be back in the palace in the capital and… well, doing whatever it was he did there. Enchanting beautiful girls, shining the Sovereign’s shoes. He never said exactly what his responsibilities were at the court, but he happily hinted that he was incredibly important and highly praised. I sailed straight past him.

  “Follow me,” I said as my only greeting. It was more than inexcusably discourteous, especially to such a highranking guest. Yet there was something about Iskan that always got my hackles up.

  He hurried after me along the path that snaked up the hill behind our grounds. It was late summer now, and all the grass had dried. The hill was brown and dead, and dust covered our shoes as we walked. The worst of the heat was over, and soon the autumn rains would come. I found myself hoping they did not come too soon. Not before I could teach Iskan a lesson.

  We came to the point where the path curved to the left and continued up to the tomb on the crown of the hill. There I turned right, onto a barely discernible trail which led around the hill through the rustling dried grass. My shoes darkened with dew.

  “So much haste, cho,” panted Iskan. It occurred to me that he was not like the young men on the plantations, used to long rides and hard work. A palace lapdog, that was all he was, used to treats and caresses and no more. I knew that. So why did my heart still race at the sound of his voice so close behind me? Why did the thought of a morning alone with him send delight surging through me, as though I were flying on swallows’ wings?

  When we rounded the hill and had nearly reached the crevice I turned around.

  “Aikon, you wait here.”

  Aikon frowned his already wrinkled forehead, but said nothing. I gave him a reassuring smile. “We are only by the spring. I shall call for you if need be.”

  Iskan held out his hands. “Cho, I beg of you. You needn’t fear anything in my company.”

  I pursed my lips and gave him a look. He smiled broadly. “This is a sacred site. A little respect, che.”

  He put on an appropriately humble expression and nodded. We walked the last part together in silence. The crevice is scarcely visible until you stand before it, and the spring makes no sound at all. The rift opens to a dark, narrow recess in the side of the hill, with its foot to the east. I continued towards its opening with Iskan, the Vizier’s son, close on my heels.

  When I was met by the cool air of the chamber inside and the smell of spring water I felt a sense of calm run through me. All the vexation and the pounding of my heart drained away. No matter what Mother said, this was a sacred place—an ancient site for worship of the divine: the balance of nature. I could feel it every time I came to the spring, and I could not imagine how others did not perceive the same thing. I took a deep breath and let peace wash over me. Then I stepped inside.

  Anji was deep inside the hollow chamber. The walls were bare rock and nothing grew in the gloom, nothing except the velvety moss which was still green and healthy even after our long period of drought. The spring water
formed a small mirror by the rock face, no larger than two silk shawls spread out to dry in the sun. It was framed by smooth white stones set around it by someone many generations ago. Some dead leaves had blown up onto the stones, and I swept them away carefully with the broom I had brought. A leaf was floating in the dark water, and I whispered the words that Father’s mother had taught me before I picked it out. Nothing dead could taint the sacred water. As always, I was surprised by the coldness of the water on my fingertips. I leant forward and saw my own face reflected in its untroubled surface. Sometimes other things could be seen in the spring. Things to come. Events from the past.

  A face appeared next to mine and gave me a start. For a moment I had completely forgotten Iskan’s presence.

  “Very pretty. And I truly appreciate the coolness.”

  I stood bolt upright. My cheeks flushed hot.

  “Anji has more than just cooling powers.” I took the clay pot and showed him. “This is ordinary water from a normal estate well.” I removed the stopper and took a sip. “No poison, see?”

  Iskan raised his eyebrows in amusement but said nothing. I bowed down, whispered thanks to Anji and filled the bowl with her icy water. Then I walked to the mouth of the chamber. I looked down at the two thistles growing by the entrance, quite dry and dead. I held up the bowl so that Iskan could see what I was doing, and then poured the spring water over the one to the west, slowly and carefully so the dry ground had time to swallow every drop. Then I poured water from the clay pot over the eastern plant in the same way. Iskan stood leaning against the rock wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “There. Meet me here three nights from now, at the full moon.” I pushed the stopper firmly back in the clay pot, turned on my heel and rounded the hill before Iskan had to time to react. Aikon was waiting for me by the bend with a grim expression. My hands were sweaty and I felt as though I could barely breathe. What had I just done? I stumbled on a stone and Aikon had to catch me to keep me from falling. I had invited a man—a man my parents saw as suitor to my own sister—to meet me at night. Alone. For I knew I would have no chaperone. I knew I would meet Iskan alone, and my cheeks blazed with shame. Yet I was not sorry.

  During the three days that followed I was an exemplary sister and daughter. I took care of Lehan, whose fever had lessened but who was still exhausted and weak. I helped Mother with all of her errands. I made offerings to the spirits of the ancestors up on the burial mound. I waited on Father and Tihe when they arrived home, weary from their long journey and troubled over the rise in the price of bao plants. All to avoid thinking about what I had done. What I was intending to do.

  The night of the full moon was cloud-free and bright. I sat in my bedchamber and waited until the whole household had fallen into a deep sleep. Midnight had long passed before I dared sneak out.

  Unknown birds were singing in the surrounding bushes as I walked the familiar path round the foot of the hill. The colours, smells, sounds—everything was different. I, too, was changed by the night. I had become someone else. A woman who sneaks out to meet the man she loves, with no regard for propriety, family, consequence. My shame, my reservations, I left them all behind. In that moment I was free. Freer than I have ever been since. I often dream about that walk to the hill. In my dreams it is never-ending. Sometimes I am floating above the ground. The shadows are blue, the moon enormous and the air cool against my skin. It smells of dew and soil and etse. Everything in the dream feels real, razor-sharp. Freedom and joy swell through me as though my heart might burst.

  The dream always ends in the same way. My dream-self becomes aware of something approaching. Something large and black that eclipses the moon and stars. Something about to devour everything. I try to scream. Then I wake up, in my own bed, with the night sky on the other side of the window. My heart pounds and I know it is too late.

  Too late to scream.

  Iskan was there waiting for me when I arrived. He was sitting with his back to the dark mouth of the chamber. Next to him were the silhouettes of the two dead thistles. The eastern one, which I had watered with ordinary well water, looked the same as it had three days previously. The western one, however, to which I had given Anji’s water, had a new shoot at its root, the length of a hand.

  “It might be a coincidence,” came Iskan’s voice out from the shadows. “You might have come here and watered it every day since we saw each other last.”

  Yet I heard doubt in his voice. I came to sit down on the ground next to him. I could not see his facial expression in the dark.

  “Anji can bestow life and wealth, if you drink of her water at the right time. And she can bring death and destruction if you drink at the wrong time. The power of the spring is primeval. My father’s mother said that all the sacred sites of the different districts had powers once, but that many have been depleted by human greed, or simply forgotten.” As I turned to face Iskan the silver chains jangled in my hair. “The spring is the source of our ancestral wealth. It has been used, guarded and cared for by the eldest daughter for many generations.”

  My father’s mother would not have approved of me discussing Anji’s secrets with an outsider in this way. But the night and the moonlight had swept away all my reservations and I felt not a tinge of a bad conscience. I was sitting beside Iskan—he and I alone—and I was prepared to say anything to make him believe me. To make him see me.

  “So no one but you knows about this?” His voice was full of disbelief. Mocking.

  I took his hand, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if I had a right to touch him so. His hand was warm and soft in mine.

  “Come,” I said, and pulled him to his feet. I led him inside the crevice, his hand in mine all the while. My heart was pounding in my throat and my mouth was dry, but my head was clear and my thoughts darted like fish in water. It was dark in the chamber but my feet felt out the way and I led Iskan directly to the spring. She was shining like silver in the moonlight.

  “Look down in the water,” I whispered. “What do you see?”

  He leant forward, callous, disinterested.

  “I see myself. And the moon. It’s shining. It…”

  He stopped. Quietened. The disinterest disappeared and his entire body tensed, as though on guard. I did not look into the water. I looked at him.

  I was still holding his hand.

  Suddenly he turned to me, pulled me close.

  “What is this?” His voice was a whisper, a hiss. “What is this I am seeing?”

  “Anji shows what has been or what will be. Sometimes she shows your greatest wish.”

  He stood stock-still. His hands gripped my upper arms so hard it hurt. “Why do you not look yourself?”

  “I already know what has happened. I know how my future looks. And I know what I wish for.”

  The last part I said very quietly. I could hardly believe the words had come out of my mouth. Iskan’s face was right before mine now. His eyes were big and dark in his moonlit face. I had never been so close to him before. He smelt of expensive things: the almond oil in his hair, the incense of the palace, the horse that he had ridden to Ohaddin.

  A shudder ran through his body. A change—I felt it in his hands, in the grip on my arms. The hardness and tension melted away and he smiled, slow and gentle.

  “You do know why I have been coming here all summer, do you not Kabira?” He leant forward, and I could feel his breath on my skin. It was sweet with wine. “For you.”

  Then he kissed me, and it tasted of honey and cinnamon.

  From that night on I was a lost cause. A fire blazed inside me, a fire of madness and abandon. There was nothing I would not do to be close to Iskan. Nothing I did not do. I did things I had heard that other girls did for love, forbidden things, things I used to look down on. Now I was the one sneaking out at night to meet my lover in secret. Iskan continued to visit our family just as before, but whenever he spent the night in one of the guest chambers we always met by the spring.
Sometimes he came only at night, just to see me. We would sit by the spring and talk. I asked him about his life in the palace and he was happy to explain. Yet he was not the type of man to speak only of himself. Sooner or later he always led the conversation back to me, and I told him everything I knew about that which most piqued his curiosity: the spring and its powers. I passed on everything that my father’s mother had taught me, as well as that which I had discovered myself through experience and intuition. That under the waxing moon the spring water is good and bestows strength, power and vitality, but under the waning moon the water is dangerous, filled with corruption, pestilence and death. Though Anji has greater resources than these alone. For my kin, for generations past, the spring was above all a source of knowledge.

  “My mother does not believe in the power of Anji, but my father knows,” I told Iskan one night. The autumn rains had begun but it did not rain that night. Swathes of cloud rushed past a waning moon and we had taken shelter from the winds inside the chamber. Iskan had spread a blanket out on the wet ground, but the damp seeped through and I was shivering. “We never speak of it directly, but he trusts my advice. I warn him about the coming droughts, floods and pests. I visit Anji and then tell him when to sow and when to harvest. He spreads the word to our neighbours. The wise ones have learnt to take heed, then their plantations thrive and their yields grow at the same rate as ours.”

  “But were you not struck by drought this summer?” Iskan asked. He had taken a lamp with him several meetings ago and hidden it in the chamber between our reunions. Its warm shine illuminated his right cheekbone and almond-shaped eyes. I could barely look at him, he was so beautiful.

  “Yes, and Anji foretold it. But what can be done against drought if the channels run dry? Father made preparations to ensure he had enough silver to replace the plants that died.”