The Bird King(13)

The moon, as Fatima shook out the bedding in the blue guest room, was peeping through the latticework over the window, reddening as it sank toward the harem walls. It would be dawn soon. Luz was sitting on a pillow, unpinning her coif. She looked as though she had been born to a life without chairs, though Fatima knew, or rather heard, that northerners sat at high tables to eat and work and dress. Their clothes reflected this uprightness and pinched them around the waist; Luz’s own gown was not made for sitting on the floor, and bunched up unflatteringly. She did not seem to notice or to mind.

“This is a lovely room,” she said, handing her coif and pins to Catalina and combing her bright hair with her fingers. “Such woodwork! Even the ceiling is painted. And these little brass lamps you use for light—so ingenious. Our candles stink—they’re tallow, mostly, and burning sheep fat is not the most pleasant smell.”

“You don’t seem to like your own lands very much,” observed Fatima, tucking a bedsheet around its stuffed cotton mattress. Luz laughed a little abruptly; Fatima had succeeded in annoying her.

“Do I give that impression? No, I love Castile. Mostly it’s not as mountainous as Andalusia, but it has its own charm. Fields that go green during the rains and then smell sweet when the sun is on them. The town I come from has a wonderful crumbly old castle in it.”

“Is that where you live?”

“Oh no. I live in a manor. Or I did—after my husband died, I gave it up and took vows with the Dominican sisters at Santa Maria Dolorosa. I live in an abbey now.”

Catalina was holding a bone fine-tooth comb. Fatima took it from her with a smirk and began to run it through Luz’s hair, starting at the ends as she did for Lady Aisha. Catalina pursed her lips.

“Are you a nun, then?” asked Fatima. “I thought all nuns wore habits.”

“I’m a lay sister,” said Luz. “That’s halfway to a nun, I suppose. I took vows of poverty, but not of seclusion—I can leave the abbey and work in the world.”

“As what?”

Luz only smiled. “What about you?” she asked. “Where are your people from? You’re no Berber.”

Fatima divided Luz’s heavy hair into three parts and began to plait them together.

“My mother was an Abzakh tribeswoman,” she said. “From the mountains that border the Black Sea.”

Luz looked blank.

“I’m Circassian,” said Fatima.

“Ah! Of course you are. A real Circassian concubine! You’re a very long way from your homeland.”

“I’ve never been there. I was born here, in the palace. My mother was pregnant when she was sold to the sultan. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”

“Born into concubinage,” said Luz, tilting her head back like a cat. “In the North, we have a hundred naughty songs about women like you. You’re supposed to be a naked, immoral, ignorant creature, yet here I find you speaking three languages and completely clothed. And a little spoiled, if you don’t mind me teasing you about it.”

Fatima did mind. “An immoral, ignorant creature would be a poor match for a sultan,” she said, and then paused with Luz’s hair between her fingers. “But I was naked enough just before you arrived.”

Luz burst into laughter, her face an improbable shade of red. Fatima didn’t see what was so funny. It was a statement of fact.

“Shut up—you shut your mouth.” Catalina was suddenly talkative. Her voice was sonorous and fat. “Don’t you have any shame at all? How dare you speak about your sin with her own lovely hair in your hands?”

Fatima was on her feet before she knew it, brandishing the comb. Luz caught her by the arm.

“Quiet, Catalina,” she said sharply. “Keep your own mouth shut if you can’t say anything useful. She doesn’t know any better. Sit, please, Fatima—please. I apologize for Catalina. She knows nothing about your ways.” She let go of Fatima’s arm.

The anger that welled up in Fatima had nowhere to go; she stood for a moment longer, forcing herself to ease her grip on the comb, the teeth of which dug into her flesh like thorns.

“He’s my king,” she said when she trusted herself to speak. “Why should I be ashamed to serve my king?”

“You’re not married to him,” muttered Catalina. She began unpacking the leather traveling trunk with great energy. “That’s a sin, is all I’m saying.”

“Do you think your king goes to bed every night with his own wife?” snapped Fatima.

“That’s enough,” said Luz. Her voice was gentle, but there was a chilly authority in it. “Everyone is tired. It’s time to sleep.”

Fatima set the comb on the hammered brass tray near the bed that served as a nightstand. Once upon a time, the nightstand of a lady guest would be crammed with ivory-handled brushes and silver kohl pots and stoppered bottles of perfume, but these had all been sold off or appropriated by the palace women as their own supplies grew scarce. The serving woman had strewn the empty tray with dried rose petals instead. It seemed everyone thought they could disguise the palace’s insolvency with handfuls of flowers. Soon enough, they would all be naked and pathetic, just as in Luz’s naughty songs, and then they would need nosegays as big as washing buckets to satisfy their offended honor.