“Sorry?” I asked and her eyes went from the top of the stairs to me.
“She is old and she is stubborn, set in her ways. She has the running of this house for months and lives alone, clearly liking it that way,” Narinda replied. “She is a slave and this is rightfully your home with your husband but you must understand the way she feels.”
I made no response for this was true.
Narinda carried on. “And my father taught me the best way to handle someone who is stubborn is to let them be stubborn and live with their decisions. If she wishes to wear shabby sarongs, then she denies herself kindness and beauty. That is her choice, Circe, and it is the wrong one but it won’t hurt you to allow her to live with it.”
I still made no reply for this was true too.
“You can’t force kindness, my lovely,” Narinda said softly.
And this was true too.
“All right, sweet Narinda,” I replied, “I’ll ask Gaal to make them and I’ll tell Twinka it’s her choice whether or not she wishes to wear them.”
Narinda smiled at me. I smiled back thinking it was good, having wise friends.
Then I said quietly, “Your father was very wise.”
She nodded and took a sip from her own chalice before her eyes drifted away and she said quietly back, “Indeed, he was.”
She was smiling her small, weird smile so I left her to her thoughts and looked back at the view. The pinks were disappearing, the gold was gone and stripes of vermillion and midnight blue slashed the sky as stars started to come out. I heard one of my girls moving around and, as the roof illuminated, I knew she was lighting the torches that were stuck in holders around the edge of the roof.
I felt my leg nudged, looked down at it and saw that Narinda had given me a light prod with her toe. I looked at her to see she wasn’t smiling small and weird but knowing and amused. Her eyes were on Sabine who I noticed belatedly had been completely silent for at least the last ten minutes.
I looked to my friend who was lounging across the top of the mats at Narinda and my heads to see she was gazing at the vista as well, her face soft, her lips tipped up, her eyes, though, were heated.
Someone was thinking good thoughts.
I pressed my lips together and bugged my eyes out at Narinda.
She smiled big, tipped her head back and called in Korwahk, “Sabine? My lovely, are you with us?”
Sabine started and her head jerked to us. “Sorry, so sorry, I was miles away,” she replied in Korwahk.
“No you weren’t, you were in bed with your savage brute,” I teased, watched her face flush then her eyes light then she scooted her cushions closer to us and asked, “Can I be forthright?”
This was familiar, and therefore was likely to get good, so Narinda and I closed into each other and Sabine as Narinda replied, “What you can do, my lovely, is not ask if you can be forthright every time you want to be forthright. I think you can take it as given you can be forthright.”
I stifled a giggle for this was true. Sabine always asked if she could be forthright before talking about what she got up to with Zahnin. And after breaking the seal on it the day I was attacked, she talked about this a lot. We never demurred so she had to know she could be forthright.
Sabine nodded then she leaned deeper into us and whispered, “Did you… did… erm, you know… did you know you can… do it on top?”
“On top?” Narinda asked mock innocently and I nudged her shin with my foot as I stifled a giggle.
Sabine’s eyes danced and her body gave a slight excited jump. “Oh yes, Narinda, on top. See, you know when… before, well, I told you how, after Zahnin got injured, I was hesitant to, you know… move things forward for before, erm… when we… um… when he… well, it seemed with all that grunting and groaning it took a lot of effort. I didn’t want him to aggravate his wound.”
“Yes, sweetheart, we know, you told us,” I muttered not able to hide the amusement in my voice.
Sabine nodded again and went on. “So, as I told you, I didn’t… erm… move things forward. But he, um… continued to use his hands in that way I like.”
“We know that too,” Narinda mumbled and we did, she’d told us, sometimes in some detail and it wasn’t only his hands but his mouth that he used in ways Sabine liked.
Sabine kept talking. “But, I was… well, something was, I don’t know. I liked it, you know, quite a bit. Erm… a lot, really. But… something was missing.”
I knew what was missing. Zahnin’s savage brute sword was missing.
Narinda and I kept quiet.