“I do not know. Twenty days. Thirty. Maybe more.”

My heart sank. All that day it sank further, and by the early afternoon, when he left, I could have cried and held his robes, and implored him to stay. But the Chosen surrounded him, held a farewell ceremony with drums and flutes and singing, and I could not even say goodbye. In the middle of it, the house-owner’s wife told me to go and draw some water from the spring, and when I came back, my lord was gone.

9

Earth-Force

THE ATMOSPHERE of the house changed when the Firelord was gone. There was no laughter, no warmth, no friendliness. I thought at first that they missed his company, and were grieving in some strange way; then I realised they did not miss his company, but resented mine. They had tolerated me with him there. But without him, they no longer had to pretend. I was cut off, ostracised. They provided me with space to sleep, and permitted me to use their vegetables for food, but they would not talk to me, and refused to touch the birds Kallai and I brought in for food. I was resented, ignored, barely tolerated. At first, their altered attitude, their hypocrisy, angered me, but after five days it made me depressed.

More than anything, I missed the privacy they had given the Firelord and me. Every morning he and I had been left the lower room completely to ourselves, to heat water and to wash. But now the family was there all the time. Usually the lack of privacy wouldn’t have bothered me. Having been brought up in a tent with six men, I was not shy of nakedness, mine or anyone else’s. Many times I had washed in the Firelord’s presence, and he in mine, and never had there been uneasiness or embarrassment between us. Usually he read while I washed, and I doubt he even noticed me. But here, with him gone, the young men of the house had a way of looking at me that made me feel ashamed, and sometimes they whispered things about me and smiled at each other. I would not undress while they were about.

But on the fifth day, I came back from hunting early with Kallai, and longed for a wash. I spoke with the house-owner’s wife. She was washing the bowls and cooking utensils after the morning meal, and her daughter-in-law was helping her.

“Woman,” I said, standing at a respectful distance behind them, “would it please you to leave me this room to myself sometime today, so that I may wash?”

For a while she ignored me. Then, because I didn’t go away, she said coldly, “It would not please me, harsha.”

“It pleased you when my lord was here,” I said.

“Yes,” she hissed, still bending over the washing bowl, with her back to me. “It pleased us all well when he stayed. It does not please us that he left you here. I have never had a Quelled in my house before. Never has my home been so violated. Nothing about you pleases me, harsha – not your wastefulness, your ignorance, or your presence – and it does not please me to order my household around your worthless needs.”