arm, pulling him. Psal yanked his hand free and led Maharai into the base of the tower. However, as she entered, a little girl dressed very much like herself approached from a small inner room. Maharai extended her hand toward the girl who extended hers also. But unexpectedly, the girl stopped at the tiny doorway. Maharai approached the room, but found she was separated from the girl by a clear impenetrable invisible door. The strange girl looked as perturbed as Maharai felt. It was apparent the tiny little thing was trapped inside.
“Let her out,” Maharai pleaded, and pounded the impenetrable doorway. “Whatever she’s done, she’s sorry to have done it.”
“Look behind it.” Psal pointed at the shiny door.
Maharai looked behind the tiny door. “There is no behind it. Where is she?” She faced the tiny doorway again and peered into it. The trapped girl had returned. “Is it a window to some other place?” she asked.
“It’s a crystal,” Psal said. “A very large one. Polished and placed in a wooden box. When we keen, we often use it to set the lights of the crystals. We must look into the mirrors to see the image of the Greater Light.”
“And the girl?”
“An image of yourself.”
“An image? You’ve trapped my soul?” Suddenly afraid, she ran toward the studiers and attempted to push past them. “Why did you take it?” she yelled.
Psal pushed her toward the trapped soul. As he did this, his own soul also appeared in the crystal, as trapped as she was. He lifted his hand and the Psal inside the stone mimicked his gesture.
Maharai stood there long, staring at the other Maharai and the other Psal. “Why did you trap your soul with mine?” she asked. “Who can free us now?”
“This is no magic,” Ephan called out from where he stood in the hallway. “You’ve seen lakes, have you not? This is what we call a ‘mirror.’ In addition to helping us keen, it shows us how others see us.”
She had seen herself in lakes before; but never this clearly. So this is what I look like? she thought, and smiled at her beauty and how kind her face was. She would have stayed there a very long while except that Ephan grasped her by the hand and led her back into the hallway.
Again, he whispered something in the Wheel Clan language, his gestures even more urgent. Once more, Psal ignored his adopted brother. This time, however, his face was calmer, as if the former anxiety no longer oppressed him.
“This passageway is called the chief’s hallway.” Psal smiled at Ephan as if daring his friend to challenge him. “Here, we have the keening room, the three studier rooms, the chief’s chambers, the chief’s family’s room, the storage rooms, the sick rooms, the pharma rooms, the granaries, the weapons, and on the other side, our horses.” He slapped Ephan playfully on the back and pointed toward the hearth. “The other passageway is called the residential hallway. Warriors and their wives and families sleep down there. Three hundred rooms. Usually two warriors and a woman for each room. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Depending on rescues. The children sleep in their own rooms. Do you want to see that hallway as well?”
They walked past the gathering room to the other side of the longhouse into the residential hallway, passing room after room, of differing sizes, containing one, two, or more beds. They walked past the squatting places with their wooden bottomless toilets to the hall’s end where some eighteen women lived, separated into five rooms. Most appeared malformed, bent and frail, or sickly. One or two had bruised faces as if they had been beaten. Some had pale skin with pale hair like Ephan’s. The women lay in beds or sat on chairs, or on the floor staring out past Maharai with sunken and morose eyes. Three held small children. One child—a pale boy with pale white hair—approached Psal with his head bowed. Maharai listened as Psal whispered something in the Wheel Clan language which elicited a smile from the boy who returned to the woman’s lap.
“Who are these?” Maharai asked Psal.
“Comfort women.”
“Whom do they comfort?”
“Men,” he said. “Boys.”
She sucked at her teeth, trying to understand. “And must they comfort? What if they don’t want to comfort anyone?”
“I suppose those who have brothers in our longhouse—who would avenge them—could refuse to comfort.”
“Who comforts them?” she asked.
“Rangi comforts them,” Ephan said. “Tomah comforts them.”
“I don’t know what Rangi or Tomah are,” she said, “but the one who looks normal—that pale beautiful one—men must love being comforted by her?”
“That one is Lyrenna,” Psal said. “She has an ugly disposition. But yes, they do like her body. That little one with her is her son.”
Ktwala’s voice echoed through the longhouse calling out to Maharai.
Maharai asked Psal, and looked down the corridor at her mother. “Old Jion says your people don’t like those whom the Creator badly-made. He says you allow the badly-made girls to live but kill the badly-made boys. Still, look…you’re badly-made and you’re alive!” Her mother called again and Maharai rolled her eyes. “Mother probably thinks I’m shaming her somewhere. Be safe, my brothers.”
She ran toward the gathering room where Gidea was weeping about losing both her daughter and Ktwala at once.
“The separation has occurred too suddenly,” Gidea was saying. “I did not wake this morning expecting to be bereft of my daughter. And, although you Wheel Clan sisters assure us that both towers will meet frequently, I must be sure Lan and Deyn are not cruel husbands who will beat my daughter. Therefore, we Iden Peacock women will return to our longhouse. Tomorrow we will show you Iden hospitality. Then we will schedule the courtship intervals. The Iden men must examine the Wheel Clan warriors properly.”
Gidea stopped speaking momentarily as Ephan and Psal walked through the gathering room into the night. Satima took the opportunity to speak.
“This is a rare night, Sister. A night when we women can laugh and sport among ourselves without listening to men talk of war. And courtship rituals during a time of war? My Iden sisters, this is not practical.”
Ktwala tried to make peace. “Gidea,” she said, “let the men fend for themselves tonight and see women’s worth. Perhaps Rain will agree to the courtship interval. Even in a time of war. And yet I do believe your daughter’s husbands are as honorable as my Nahas.”
But Gidea rose from her seat, dragged Ouis from Ktwala’s lap. “My sister, you’re letting your heart—and that other thing—rule your mind.” She turned to Satima and Rain. “I only speak my heart. Don’t be insulted. What mother would not worry for her daughter?”
So, the Iden women rose as one—Ktwala apologizing profusely for Gidea’s behavior—and forsook the exotic Wheel Clan dainties and fermented meats. They bade the Wheel Clan women goodbye. “Who knows if we shall see each other again?”
And—despite Rain’s protestations—went out into the night.
CHAPTER 12
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE IDEN
