Shutting the panel behind her, she set the lantern on the floor, threw off the dusty robe and ladled water into the pan. Sitting on the stool she washed her feet and legs before standing in the pan to wash the rest of her. The water had a sharp, resinous smell, some cleansing agent that rinsed away without residue and took the grime with it. Even the sweaty stiffness of her hair dissolved when she poured water through it. When she had finished washing herself she fetched her bodysuit and sloshed it about in the pan until the dried milk was gone. She wrung it out and spread it across the stool. The dirty water went down the privy hole and the folded cloths went over the edge of the pan. One dry cloth was long enough to wrap around her body, covering her aching, swollen breasts. She wasn’t expecting company, and it covered her almost decently. Certainly it would do to eat in.
When she returned to the table she found a comb lying atop a folded shift, a perfectly simple white garment woven of the same fiber as the robe Awhero had given her. Plant fiber of some kind. Less harsh than wool. Well then. Someone was watching her, someone who could come in and out without her hearing. Not precisely a comforting thought, though the items spoke of concern for her welfare. Give them, her, whoever, credit for trying. The shift covered her from neck to elbows and ankles. The comb pulled the snarls from her hair. She left the wet strands loose down her back while she rubbed unguent onto her hands and feet and face. Later, when she had rested, she would braid her hair out of the way.
Then the food. The bread was chewy and full of crunchy inclusions, nuts and seeds and shreds of the same rich, peppery pod Awhero had once given her in the rooms below the kitchen. The meat and slices of melon were delicious, the one partially dried and salty, the other juicy and sweet. After a brief spasm of rejection which was almost anger, she took one of the pills from the jar and swallowed it. Emotionally, she hated the idea, but she would need all her strength. If Dovidi couldn’t use her milk, it would be stupid to stress her body to produce it.
When she had eaten less than half the food, she caught herself drowsing, head on chest, breathing deeply, lips half opened around a partly chewed mouthful, a bit of bread still in hand. She roused enough to cover the food remnants and drink a last half cup of water before setting the cup over the neck of the carafe. If she was being observed, let them give her a good rating for neatness and parsimony. Who knew how long this ration was intended to last?
Her last thought before sleep was of Awhero. She wished the old woman knew she had come this far safely . . . well, seemingly safely. At least there were no hunters, no voices from the sky. At least she was away from the thorn and the sun. She did not think of the Marshal or Delganor or Dovidi. She did not think of anything but this moment, well fed, comfortably warm, and without thirst. As Tenopia had said, she could afford neither grief nor anger. She could not afford anything but the day, each day from waking to sleep, each such day to be set down after all other such days, a long journey which one must not think of as even having a direction. If one went on, steadily, perhaps at the end there would be explanations, even justification.
The end was the only possible destination. One could not, ever, go back to the beginning.
1: Blessingham House
Genevieve’s tower was slender and tall, an architectural conceit added at the last moment to the otherwise undistinguished structure of Blessingham School. Gaining access to this afterthought could not be accomplished on the way to or from anywhere in particular. Climbing the hundred steps to the single room at the top was both inconvenient and arduous. Despite the nuisance, Genevieve had chosen the tower room. For the quiet, she said. For the view. For the brightness of the stars at night. Though these were at best only half reasons, they satisfied Mrs. Blessingham better than the real reason would have done—a reason which had to do with the billowing foliage of the surrounding forest, the isolation of the star-splashed night, the silence of the sky. On stormy nights the boughs surged and heaved darkly as a midnight sea, and on such nights Genevieve would throw the casements wide and lean into the wind, the white curtains blowing like flung spray as she imagined herself carried jubilantly through enormous silken waves toward an unknown shore.