Blood and Majesty

Chapter Five

- Nym

 
She climbed out of the marble bath, careful not to slip on the step down, and tugged the chain on the cork that plugged the drain.
 
Though it had to be filled with warm water by bucket, it had a hole carved in the bottom that led to a chute which then connected to the main chute used to carry away the palaces waste through a system of baked clay pipes running beneath the sand.
 
Like the palace itself; the system was old, and its maintenance costly.
 
Nym took the towel from the back of the chair at the small desk in her privy. On its top was a single row of colorful, assorted bottles and phials. All different sizes and each with a detailed description of its contents scribbled on a tag twined around its neck.
 
Her regimen.
 
All the bitter mixtures, venoms and toxins that she had been gulping down for as long as she could remember.
 
In front of these green, blue and red bottles was a round, silver tin that held a balm she was to rub on her body when she finished washing to remove whatever hair still remained anywhere below the neck.
 
She hated this. They had all hated this. Syra and Bal had both been sympathetic, to a degree, when the Grand Madam first applied the acidic paste to the clueless girls’ underarms.   
 
First, she had merely stood there feeling exposed and uncomfortable as her brother and sister looked to one another, shared a secret moment of internal glee, and looked back to her anxiously.
 
“Do not make a spectacle of the poor girl,” the Grand Madam scolded her siblings.
 
“Apologies,” Syra cleared her throat.
 
“It’s happening,” Bal beamed with joy and tugged at his sister, “Syra, look.”
 
Nyms eyes were the size of coins.
 
She threw her arms above her head as the flesh of her armpit set ablaze and ran from the room yelling to the guards as she passed that her family were trying to abuse her.
 
Nym dried her body and then her hair the best she could. When it was wet it reached nearly to her waist. She had a complex relationship with her hair where she loved how soft and shiny it was, but not taking care of it.
 
She let the towel fall to the floor behind her and reached for the silver tin.
 
Her hand hovered over its polished lid and she tried to remember when was the last time she had done this.
 
Days for certain. A week?
 
She did her best to remember but there was no certainty.
 
She had bathed several times but couldn’t remember bothering with the tin.
 
With a growl that sounded like it came from the belly of a baby jackal, she stood in front of the polished looking glass and began to give herself a once over, running her hands over her arms and legs, and other places need not mentioned.
 
Nothing. Does this mean that she was now free of the unbearable routine like her siblings? 
 
She was about to run her finger over the goose-bumped flesh of her underarm, just to be certain, when she noticed the smidget of blood on her fingertips. Her eyes were then immediately drawn to the small red smear on her inner thigh.
 
No.
 
This had been happening for over a year now. As she knew it eventually would.
 
The Grand Madam and other consorts had debates on why Nyms body was so reluctant to accept the invitation into womanhood. She had listened to them offer explanations for why she was smaller than other girls and not blossoming like other girls. They would argue and speculate as to why she was so late in getting her first moons blood and then propose solutions for how to resolve the issue.
 
The fact that they were so concerned had made Nym even more concerned but when she ran to her sister in a panic Syra had assured her that not all girls were the same, and that Nym would catch up to the rest of them when she was meant to.
 
Not long after, she noticed that she was just a little bit taller, her face a little more defined instead of round and childlike. She now had small mounds where her chest was once flat and boyish. Not much, but much more than before.
 
Her body was changing but she felt no different. She knew more, had learned more, but she still enjoyed and feared the same things. Bal either failed to take notice or simply chose not to address it.
 
Which was preferable to Nym anyhow.
 
Syra on the other hand had taken notice and it was as if suddenly everything Nym did that use to make her laugh now only annoyed and tried her patience. It felt as if her sister had expected her to grow up the moment blood ran down her leg. And when it did not happen, she grew frustrated waiting for it to happen.
 
It was unfair.
 
Syra and the other women assured her there was nothing to be afraid of and that this was all part of her journey to womanhood.
 
A journey that they themselves had all made their way through and she would as well.
 
When she learned that she was to be sent away to that frozen kingdom in the north the moment she came of age, she began to dread that journey. She had never left the palace and she never wanted to leave the palace.
 
She particularly had no desire to leave her home for a land of strangers who held no love for her.
 
If that northern king had kept himself alive for another year or so, she would have had no say in the matter.
 
It was a painful blessing to hear that Syra would be taking her place.
 
She loved her sister. They had their fights and squabbles but that was amongst themselves. They could fight like cats and dogs but if you were to try and attack either of them separately, they became a united front.
 
Syra was the protector.
 
Nym mostly stumbled into things.
 
She would miss her, but that was inevitable no matter who stayed behind.
 
She walked to the tub, grabbed the rag she had just wrung moments before, and cleaned herself before sliding into her robe and leaving the privy.
 
 
- Tolma
 
 
He heard her open and close the doors to her wardrobe and then shuffle about in her suite a few moments before she walked past him and onto the terrace to gaze into the night.
 
The entire eastern side of her suite was open to the air so he stood sentinel between two pillars with his back to her privacy and his eyes on the horizon.
 
He had been told by Kafar that a strange mountain gypsy had come with the crowd of hopefuls but had not left nor took a place in the harem. Which had never happened and therefore was worthy of discussion.
 
At times, in the later hours of the day, she emerges from his majesty’s bed chamber and is seen roaming throughout the palace.
 
Tolma had met eyes with her once. She was making her way down the corridor as he stood outside the eating chamber where the little one would pick and fork at her breakfast.
 
She looked and smelled clean, pleasant even, but the shreds of leather that wrapped around her body were aged and worn. Ragged. Her hair streaked with white stripes like a skunk’s pelt.
 
She looked him over as she passed, foot to top, and winked.
 
That was it.
 
When he was young it bothered him when one of the serving girls would look his way or flirt. He felt they were mocking him. Teasing him, knowing he had nothing they truly wanted.
 
As he got older, he accepted that they had nothing to offer him either, and he grew numb to such things.  
 
Tolma felt neither a sense of urgency nor anything else regarding the woman.
 
Kafar had made the palace guard aware of his concerns but Kafars concerns were not Tolmas concerns. His only concern stood a few feet in front of him admiring the stars.
 
Until the skunk haired woman did more than wink, he would not bother with being worrisome of her.
 
“Do you see how pretty it is?” The little one asked.
 
“I do.”
 
“How do they stay up there, Tolma? How do they not fall?”
 
“The stars do fall, my love. Sometimes.”
 
He swapped his spear from one hand to the other, scratched his nose.
 
“Syra says they are our ancestors holding torches to guide us to paradise from the Under. Do you think it could be true? Or is she is lying?”
 
“She is not a liar,” he answered carefully, “but only the Gods know these things.”