This Woven Kingdom(This Woven Kingdom #1)(70)
“My knees are old,” she said simply. “Things begin to fall apart when they get old enough. Not much to be done about it. In any case, you need not worry about me when I’m so busy worrying about you.” A pause. “Are you merely preoccupied with your regular comings and goings? Or is there something troubling you, my dear?”
Kamran did not answer at first, choosing instead to study the filigree of his teacup. “Are you quite certain,” he said finally, “that it is age alone that accounts for our steady decline? If so, I am forced to wonder. Perhaps you and I are the same age, aunt, for I fear I may be falling apart, too.”
His aunt’s expression grew suddenly mournful; she squeezed his hand. “Oh, my dear. I do so wish—”
“Forgive me. Would you be so kind as to indulge me a brief interlude? I’d love to wander the house a short while, and clear away my nostalgia with fresh memories of your beautiful home.”
“Of course, dear child!” Duchess Jamilah placed her teacup down with a bit too much force. “This is your home as much as it is mine. Though I hope you will forgive me, as I cannot join you on your tour. My knees, as you know, cannot bear all the stairs unless absolutely necessary.”
“Not at all.” He stood and bowed his head. “Please remain here at your leisure, and I will rejoin you directly.”
She beamed somehow brighter. “Very good. I will see to luncheon in your absence. All will be ready for you when you’re finished with your wander.”
Kamran nodded. “I’ll not be long.”
Twenty-Seven
THE CURIOUS SERVANTS WERE STALKING his every move.
Kamran made noise as he roamed the halls of Baz House, opening doors and wandering corridors gracelessly, leaving evidence of his interests everywhere. He stood dramatically in doorways, dragged his fingers along the intricate wall moldings; he stared moodily out of windows and picked books off their shelves, holding the leather-bound pages to his chest.
Perhaps Hazan had been right. The prince was quite good at giving performances when he felt them necessary.
He maintained the show for as long as he felt was needed to evince his wistful intentions; only then, when he was certain any suspicions of the staff had been thoroughly defused, did he reduce himself to shadow.
Silent as light, he crept up the stairs.
Kamran’s heart had begun to beat a bit too fast, a traitor in his chest. Despite the hateful circumstances, some part of him still sparked at the prospect of discovering more about the girl.
He’d already learned from his grandfather that she was orphaned, that she’d been in Setar but a few months, and that she lived in Baz House as only a trial servant. She did not, as a result, have rooms in the servants’ wing, nor was she allowed to interact or communicate with the other servants. Instead, she’d been offered lodgings in an old storage closet at the vertex of the main house.
An old storage closet.
This discovery had shocked him, but his grandfather had quickly assured the prince that the isolated position of her room would only make his task easier.
The king had misunderstood Kamran’s astonishment.
Even as he climbed yet another flight of stairs, the prince struggled to imagine what such a closet might look like. He knew servants occupied the most humble housing, but he’d not anticipated the girl might live among rotting vegetables. Did she share a room with sacks of potatoes and pickled garlic, then? Was the poor girl left no recourse but to sleep on dank, moldy floorboards with only rats and cockroaches as her companions? She was worked so hard she nearly wore the skin off her own hands—and yet she was not recompensed with the most basic offering of a clean bed?
Kamran’s gut twisted at the thought.
He did not like to think how poorly these revelations reflected on his aunt, but worse: he did not know whether he would’ve done any better. The prince knew not how every snoda in the palace was treated—and it had never once occurred to him to ask. Though he considered it was perhaps not too late to find out.
Kamran had by now lost count of the flights of stairs he’d climbed. Six? Seven? It was uncanny to experience the arduous commute she made day and night—and it was yet another astonishment to discover how far removed she lived from the breathing bodies of others.
For a moment it made him wonder whether the girl preferred being so far from everything. Certainly no one would make such a journey up into the attic without cause. It was perhaps a comfort to feel so sheltered.
Though it was perhaps desperately lonely, too.
When Kamran finally stood in front of the girl’s door, he hesitated; felt a disconcerting flutter in his chest.
The prince did not know what he might discover herein, but he tried to prepare himself, at least, for a vision of abject poverty. He did not look forward to rummaging through the girl’s private life, and he closed his eyes as he pulled open the closet door, whispering a quiet apology to her ghost.
Kamran promptly froze at the threshold.
He was met with a soft glow of light, and overwhelmed at once by the intoxicating scent of Gol Mohammadi roses, the source of which he pinpointed to a small, crocheted basket in a corner of the room. The makeshift bowl was stacked high with corollas of slowly desiccating pink petals, a kind of homemade potpourri.
Kamran was stunned.
The small quarters—so small that he might’ve lain down and spanned the length of it—were warm and cozy, flooded with perfume, rich with color. No cockroach in sight.