“Your Honor,” said her son.
The man’s cold and forbidding presence was leavened by a warm baritone voice. “Widow Meklos, may you follow your husband in peace as you followed your father in obedience and follow after your sons with a nurturing heart to care for their needs.”
She inclined her head, glad she did not have to speak. What was there to say? The words were part of the rite once used in the old country when a widow was drugged and buried alongside her dead husband. Who was a woman, after all, except through the men who recognized her as part of their lives? Asvi, daughter of Hinan. Asvi, sister of Astyan, Nerlas, Tohilos, Elyan, and Belek. Asvi, wife of Meklos. Asvi, mother of Elilas, Vesterilos, and Posyon.
The priest went upstairs with her son to examine the body. Once he was out of the parlor, she went to the cupboard and took out cups for the men.
Danis came in, carrying the tray of sesame dumplings. “Dear Mother, will you not sit down? I’ll set out the tea things . . . ah, here is the tea.”
A servant hurried in carrying a covered tray, which he set down on the side table next to the dumplings.
“Thank you, Herel,” Danis said graciously.
He touched fingers to his forehead, ear, and heart, and left the parlor. With the practiced movements of a woman who has had the leisure, as a girl, to learn such niceties, Danis set the cups on saucers and the saucers on a tray painted with flowers. Then she tipped the lid of the heavy teapot just enough to inhale the scent with a satisfied nod.
“Feloa will bring up hot pancakes when they return, but don’t expect the priest-magistrate to eat any,” Danis went on, watching Asvi with a wary eye as if expecting her to collapse at any instant. “We can eat them once he’s gone. We’re not required to starve!”
“Will you promise to keep Feloa on, Danis?” said Asvi in a low voice.
“Keep her on?”
“Households often turn out older women who are servants and hire in younger ones.”
“Such a course is advised as a matter of economy. A younger worker can get more done. An older worker should return to her family to rest.”
“She has no male kin. She was never able to marry and have sons. She’s served me well all these years. I would not want to see her forced—” The thought caught in her throat like a bone that could not be swallowed.
Danis nodded with a sober expression, never one to pretend she did not understand an uncomfortable truth. “You want me to promise we will not turn her out and force her to take the long walk.”
Asvi swayed, grasped the nearest chair, and sat. A sweat broke out down her spine, as if she were sitting with her back to a hot fire.
Danis sat next to her, taking hold of both her hands. “Father Meklos did well. His sons are good stewards of the business. We can keep her on.”
“Even if she grows too old to do much work?”
“She’s a good cook, better than me. Cooks can work a long time. Elilas does not care if his meals come from his wife’s hands. Nor do I! Did you never tire of cooking, Dear Mother?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I like the kitchen. Nothing ever turns out quite the same two days in a row. And there’s no one looking over your shoulder if you want to try something new. You won’t keep me out of the kitchen, will you?”
Danis smiled sadly. “Dear Mother, everyone in this household knows we are blessed with the food you make for us. Once the rites are finalized and Father Meklos is buried, we’ll move you into that nice room in the back that looks over the garden. That way there are no stairs for you to climb. You can easily go to the kitchen whenever you want.”
“I can’t see the mountains from there.”
“Of course not. That will be a comfort, won’t it? Imagine waking up every morning to see the eastern peaks. Then you never have to think about dragons hunting and demons clawing their way along the ground through the poisonous fog.” She shuddered theatrically.
“Won’t Elilas take that bedroom?” For generations the tower room had been the bedchamber for the head of the household.
“No. I don’t want to sleep there. We’re going to turn it into a schoolroom for the children. I feel sure the sight of the mountains will scare them into concentrating on their studies. Elilas and I will stay in the chamber we have now. It’s small but I like it. I’ve convinced him to extend it with a sitting room and courtyard so I can invite over my friends.” She squeezed Asvi’s fingers. “You can sit with us, of course. We embroider, and read aloud last season’s plays and all the most current poets.”
Asvi had never had the chance to learn to embroider, only to mend. Her father hadn’t wasted any money educating his daughter, although her brothers had taught her the letters. She tried to imagine Danis’s elegant sitting room and her fashionable friends quoting plays and practicing dance steps, but it was a room she viewed from afar, not a place she could inhabit.
“Oh, dear.” Danis released her. “I’m talking too much, and you’re the one grieved, Dear Mother. Not that I’m not grieved as well,” she added, too quickly. “But Father Meklos was so ill and in so much pain, I can’t help but be relieved he’s shed of it. His illness exhausted you. Maybe you can rest now.”
What was rest, if not death? Rest didn’t sound at all appealing, any more than did a tidy room overlooking the garden walls.
Footsteps sounded in the passage outside, brisk and demanding. The men had returned.
Elilas helped her stand and held on to her arm a bit too tightly, so she couldn’t go to the tea tray, as if he thought she didn’t understand how things had changed in the house. Instead, Danis poured with a skill Asvi admired, giving a rhythm to the pattern of warming the cups with hot water, emptying out, and pouring in the amber-colored tea in a perfectly curved stream. So graceful. So beautiful. Like Danis herself, a prize on the marriage market the year Elilas had convinced his father to pay her staggering bride price by explaining how such a bride would enhance the household’s status in the wool trade.
Asvi recalled the first time she had poured tea in the place of her husband’s father’s wife, after the old man’s death. Her hands had shaken so badly she’d spilled, and then spilled again at hearing the disapproving hiss made by Meklos’s mother. Ever after, she’d dreaded visitors for fear of disappointing his mother or him. Danis’s confidence felt not like a slap at her own incompetence but instead like a long-sought escape. Elilas’s proud smile toward his lovely wife was echoed by the priest-magistrate’s appreciative nod.
Danis served the men first and afterward brought a cup to Asvi and sat beside her. The magistrate sipped; Elilas sipped; the women sipped.
Once the magistrate had finished his first cup and allowed Danis to pour him a second, he began.
“I will send over the acolytes to take the body to the temple for preparation. Because it is high summer, the crossing ceremony must be held tomorrow instead of after the traditional five days of reflection. You have brothers, do you not, Headman Elilas?”
“Two still living. One is in the militia, stationed at Fellspire Pass.”
“Courage to him,” said the magistrate. “A brave sword who through his sacrifice secures peace for us all.”