The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(27)
I shuddered and stumbled quickly past her, now anxious to catch up with Charon’s personal wagon, which rumbled along at the head of our ragged train. It turned sharply and disappeared beneath an archway. The slavers prodded us to follow. Once we were through the gate and standing huddled in a sandy courtyard, the madness of the city streets receded to a dull throb, the noise kept at bay by high, thick walls, plastered smooth and topped with jagged points of broken stone. A pair of iron-bound oak doors swung shut behind us, and the sudden, complete silence was deafening. And terrifying.
Then the slavers were among us, dividing us up and leading us off in groups of men, older women, boys, girls . . . and then Elka and me. The two of us were the last to be led away, through a stone archway and down a long colonnade. I wondered if we were being singled out. Perhaps Charon had changed his mind and decided to punish us for our ruinous escape attempt.
To my relief, the place we were led wasn’t a cell or a dungeon. It was a bath. A proper Roman bath, mist-wreathed, sweet-scented, and blissfully warm. I’d heard stories of them back home from the traders, and I’d tried without success to imagine what one would be like. I’d only ever bathed in the River Dwr or in the big copper tub that stood in the corner of my little house, filled with water heated in a cauldron over the hearth fire.
I gazed around, openmouthed.
Elegant fluted columns held up a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes of gods and goddess and strange creatures emerging from waves, horses with fish tails and white bulls wreathed in sea foam. In the center of the ceiling were set panes of colored glass that cast blue and green wavering light onto the surface of the still, steaming pools below.
Elka let out her breath in a low whistle.
I had to grudgingly admit to myself that I was glad the Varini girl was still with me. In a way, she almost reminded me of my sister. Sharp-tongued and haughty, but good in a fight, at least.
As we stood there, a matronly woman strode briskly in through one of the archways, followed by a bent-backed old crone swathed in a drab black robe. The first woman introduced herself as Maia and ordered Elka to unwind the braids that bound her long pale hair close to her head. Then she told us to disrobe. With fingers grown weak and clumsy, I plucked at the knotted lacings of my ragged tunic and handed it over. Maia took the garment and held it with two fingers, her nose twitching. When she took Elka’s, her nostrils actually pinched shut in protest.
She handed them off at arm’s length to the crone, who gagged and rolled her rheumy eyes. “We’ll just be burning these, then,” she grumbled as she shuffled out a side archway.
“Right.” Maia clapped her hands. “Into the plunge with you both.”
She pointed at the nearest pool and then at the tray of sea sponges and cakes of lye soap and pumice stones that sat off to one side. When she turned to see Elka and me both staring at her, unsure of what to do, her mouth quirked into a wry grin.
“Couldn’t sell you to pig farmers in your present state,” she said. “Now. Into the cold pool and scrub off as much of that travel muck as you can. Gruoch will be back to assist you once she’s disposed of those rags. You’ve probably both got fleas, so use the soap—it’s got rosemary and lavender to kill the little buggers—and lather it through your hair. Thoroughly. More than once. And don’t dawdle.”
I couldn’t have dawdled if I’d wanted to. The water was almost too cold to step foot in, let alone sink to my chin. But every time Elka or I tried to leave the pool before we’d sufficiently lathered and rinsed our hair, Gruoch, the old crone, would bring a willow switch down on our knuckles or shoulders in a painful, precisely aimed slap. I’d never heard Elka curse so colorfully, not even in Alesia.
Finally, once we’d achieved a level of cleanliness that Gruoch determined entitled us to leave the frigidarium—for that, I learned, was what that torturous ice bath was called—we ran, scurrying and hugging ourselves, arms and legs covered in gooseflesh—to a different pool called the tepidarium. We flopped like landed fish down the shallow submerged steps, splashing and sinking into the warm, scented waters beneath the fantastical glass and mural ceiling.
And it was the closest I’d been to happiness in months.
The closest since Mael.
I closed my eyes and sank into the soothing warmth, feeling my muscles melt like they had when he’d kissed me that morning in the vale. I’d almost forgotten what that had felt like. The steam rose off the surface of the water until I couldn’t see old Gruoch where she sat on her bench. Even Elka, drifting motionless on the other side of the pool, was just a shadow. I could have stayed there forever, my hair floating out all around me, wrapped in mist and dreaming and the scent of flowers.
I barely felt the tears sliding down my cheeks.
XII
“DON’T TART THEM UP TOO MUCH.” Maia briskly ordered her women about the room she called the “tiring room,” where Elka and I were being prepared for sale. “But for Juno’s sake, do something about the sunburn and freckles. Put this one in something green, nothing sheer, but make it short. She’s got the legs. And leave her shoulders and arms bare. The blonde one wears braids well, but do something with that forehead of hers. It’s far too high. And give her one of the leather cinchers. She’s got a good small waist for all she’s big-boned. No pallas for either of them. We can’t have them too covered up. The auction is scheduled for the ninth hour this morning, and Charon wants them ready well before then.”