The curtain
that Naida had hung in front of the sleeping nook in her very own private cave
muffled the words but didn’t hide the tone that Sybaris was using. She was telling Asteri exactly how much of a
baby he was being and that she wasn’t having that kind of behavior from a greater
spirit.
Naida
supposed she would feel better hearing that she was right thinking that the
chimera was behaving badly but she didn’t feel better at all.
She looked
around the cave that had been her home for the longest number of days in a row
since she could remember. It was hers
and the library, however much it changed.
The kitchen and the bathing pools full of glowing green star bugs… kind
of icky glow worms if you looked at them closely but from far away you could
imagine them as beautiful as the light they gave off.
“I… don’t
want to go yet… but I want to go right now!” she exclaimed. Temis’s claws
clicked on the wall outside.
“May I come
in, Kitten?”
“Yes,
please. How… can you fit in here?” It
was a tiny cubby in the rock. Naida
suspected that Sybaris had made it intentionally small for her comfort, so she
wouldn’t have to sleep in a nest in the middle of some echoing hall.
The sphinx’s
head, without her spectacles, fit through the narrow door, her mane flattening
back as first one paw, then the other slid inside. She rotated somehow to get
the folded tips of her wings in, along one wall and then somehow her back paws
tucked themselves into her tight coiled self that left her with her fuzzy chin
resting on Naida’s bed, just by her knees.
“Like this,” she said, smiling. “And
if I can talk to you then you won’t hear Syb.”
“It bothers
me. Even though Asteri is being a… a…”
“Baboon and
showing his backside?” Naida flung both hands over her mouth, giggling. “It’s
an expression of your people.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Temis nosed the bedroll that had the pieces
of clothing Syb had spoken of flung across it.
“You only need to carry the one clean chiton and you can wear the other
one. There’s a pair of sandals just for
you, with leather liners for the snow.”
“Why not
wool?”
“Your shawl
that you’ll be able to tie over your head and arms is goat wool.” Temis said,
avoiding the question.
“Not sheep’s
wool?” She ran her hand over the new
chitons. “These are linen—“
“—and I’m
sending you with a complete ‘princess’ outfit for your people. You’ll look absolutely perfect.”
“Oh. Um…
thank you?”
“You’re
welcome. The collar will match your hair
beads… and it’s a young woman’s collar, with a single line of rubies along the
bottom. When you have your children you’ll
get more.”
“Rubies?”
Naida felt faint. “Real rubies?”
“Most women
make do with carnelian or amethyst stones… any kind of red pebbles but I like
rubies best. You won’t find a lot of
sheep in Kush, so you’re all right with goat tending. Kushites and the Nile folk think sheep are
disgusting.”
“Are they?”
“Well, in
Aegypt they’re thin, sickly, covered in fleas and ticks and lice. They keep
giving people illnesses. The Jordanites
and Hebrews along the coast are shepherds of both sheep and goats, but their
flocks are a different breed.”
“I… see, I
guess.”
“So. Let us speak in the tongue of the land of
Kush, the children of Meroe, the people of the higher land.”
“Do I HAVE
to?” she whined but in the correct language.
“Now you’re
starting to sound like Asteri.”
Naida
giggled again and pulled her legs up to sit cross legged. “So… I should never call someone I liked the
son of a sheep.”
Temis
snarled a laugh. “Exactly.”
**
In Kush the
celebrations for the Candace’s pregnancy were wild. People sang and drank in the streets. Flowers
and flower petals floated through the air, flung from the roofs of buildings,
floating candles brought more stars onto the Nile, to be lost in the distant
cataracts downstream. Every Goddess
Temple was lit with thanksgiving all through the hours of the night.
In the
house of Amun’s healing, Kyan opened his eyes for the first time since he’d
fallen unconscious. “Why are the
sistrums ringing?” he asked the novice attendant. “Why are there bells and
drums?”
“The Mother
Goddesses have granted our most longed for prayers, Honoured One,” the little
priest smiled and smoothed the sheet over his chest though it didn’t dare show
any creases under his diligence. “The
Great House… the Candace is with child again, and says the missing princess has
been discovered! Isn’t that grand?”
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