The Book of Longings(100)

“She waits for you both in the atrium,” Pamphile added.

I knew then who it was. Yaltha nodded at me. She knew, as well.

“Where’s Haran?” Yaltha asked.

“He has been away all afternoon,” Pamphile answered. “He hasn’t yet returned.”

“Bring the visitor to us here and say nothing of her presence to anyone but Lavi.”

“My husband hasn’t returned either.” She let the word husband slide slowly from her tongue. The marriage settlement had been signed as Lavi had hoped.

“Be certain to alert him when he arrives. Ask him to wait in the garden out of sight. When our visitor leaves, we’ll need him to slip her out through the servant quarters.”

“Who is she?” Pamphile asked, alarm appearing on her face.

“There’s no time to explain,” Yaltha said and waved her hand impatiently. “Tell Lavi it’s Chaya. He’ll know. Now, hurry.”

Yaltha opened the door onto the garden, allowing hot air to invade the room. I watched her preparing herself, smoothing her tunic, taking deep, concentrated breaths. I poured three cups of wine.

Diodora hesitated at the threshold, peering inside before she entered. She wore a rough-weave brown mantle about her white tunic and had pinned back her hair with two silver ornaments. Her eyes were painted with malachite.

“I didn’t know if I’d see you again,” Yaltha said.

When Diodora stepped inside, I quickly closed the door, which had an iron lock on the inside and on the outside, but we had no key to secure it. I reminded myself that Haran had not come to our rooms in all the time we’d been here. Why would he do so now?

Standing in the middle of the room, Diodora looked thin and childlike. Did she know how dangerous this was? Yet there was a beautiful irony in her being here; the girl he’d gone to such lengths to be rid of was in his house, beneath his roof, under his nose. It was a revenge so hidden and precise, I wanted to laugh. I offered her the cup of wine, but she refused it. I took mine and drank it in four swallows.

As Yaltha seated herself, I gave Diodora the bench and settled on the floor, where I could look into the garden to watch for Lavi.

“The news you brought me was a great shock,” she said. “I have thought of nothing else.”

“Neither have I,” said Yaltha. “I’m sorry I thrust so much on you at once. I’m not known for subtlety. My delicate side wore away many years ago.”

Diodora smiled. It was the first time we’d seen her do so and it was like a little dawn had broken over the room. “I was glad at first that you stayed away from Isis Medica as I asked, but then . . .”

When she said nothing further, Yaltha responded, “I wanted to go back if only to see you from afar, but I felt I should honor your wishes. I’m happy you’ve come.”

“I remembered what you said about your brother confining you here. Even if you decided to ignore my wishes, I didn’t know if it would be possible for you to leave. So, I’ve come to you.”

“Weren’t you concerned you might encounter Haran?” I asked.

“Yes, but I conceived a story in case I came upon him—I was relieved not to need it.”

“Please, tell us.”

She undraped a pouch from her shoulder and extracted a bronze bracelet carved with the head of a vulture. “I planned to show him my bracelet and say, ‘One of your servants may have left this behind in the healing sanctuary at Isis Medica. I’ve been sent to return it. Would you kindly let me speak with one of them?’”

Her story was shrewd—but it bore flaws Haran was too clever to miss. He would know Diodora was an attendant at Isis Medica. And look at her—she was the image of me.

“And when you spoke with the servant, what did you plan to say?” I asked.

She reached into the pouch once more and removed a small ostracon. “I planned to beg her, servant to servant, to deliver it to Yaltha. There’s a message on it to . . . to my mother.”

She lowered her eyes. The word mother hung in the air, golden and unmissable.

“You read and write?” I asked.

“My master taught me.”

She handed the ostracon to Yaltha, who read its six words aloud. “I beg you to come again. D.”

Out in the garden, I could see the last orange clamor of the sun. Haran would return home soon, yet we lit all the lamps and talked, even laughed. Yaltha asked her daughter about her work in the healing sanctuary and Diodora told of bleedings, sacred baths, and the intoxicating plants that induced dreams. “I’m one of only two attendants who write down the petitioners’ dreams when they wake. My master taught me to read and write so I could have this high position.” She amused us for a short while with accounts of the more preposterous dreams she’d recorded. “I take my dream recordings to the priest, who deciphers their meanings and prescribes cures. I know not how he does it.”

“And do these cures work?” I asked in bafflement.

“Oh yes, almost always.”

I glimpsed a movement in the garden and saw Lavi treading through the spiky palm shadows. Catching my eye, he lifted his forefinger to his lips and concealed himself behind the foliage near the open door.

“Do you live within the temple precinct?” Yaltha was asking.

“Since my master died when I was sixteen, I’ve had a bed in the temple domicile with the other attendants. I’m free now and make a small wage.”