Shadowkill

1

Morning.

When the housemaid knocked at her door, Kizra groaned and crawled out of bed.

Aghilo had given her leather sandals to wear with the long gray skirt, the smocked shirt with the narrow scarf for a belt. She thought about wearing them, but something made her pick up the old boots and hold them and sit gazing at them. Her link with the past. She slid her feet into them, laughed a little as nothing happened. No epiphany. No magic rebirth. Not today anyway. She went downstairs, feeling vulnerable and tentative till she came up with Tinoopa and smelled the meat frying and the new baked bread waiting for them.

… says auntee Akitha caught ol’ Tinkkar playin fumblefinger with young Impanni, you coulda heard the noise in the next aynti over…”

“… you see that redhead?”

“Gonna be trouble with that one.”

“Taljee even sniff in that direction, he gonna…”

“… Jarrin says the young ’un she some kinda witch, she got healin hands or somethin…”

“Talking about witches, that Kulyari, she was in some kinda snit, made my life even more a misery than usual. She…”

The chattering housemaids seated about the long table fell abruptly silent as Tinoopa and Kizra stepped through the arch into the servant hall off the kitchen’s south end.

Cook had the armchair at the head of the table, a big woman, with massive arms and breasts like pillows. She didn’t say anything, just sat waiting for the newcomers to greet her; she reigned here and wanted no doubt of that in their minds.

With Kizra a nervous shadow in her wake, Tinoopa swept in, stopped beside Cook, held out her hand. “I greet you, Kuriya Kuma chal. May your shadow never grow smaller.”

“That’s as it may be.” Kuma chal touched the hand. “Aghilo chal tells me it’s you’ll be doing the ordering and such from now on, what is it, that fancy word? liaison, that’s it. Liaison between us ’n the Ulyinik Polyapo. Eh so?”

“I have become… um, shall we say acquainted with the Ulyinik.” Tinoopa put what was impolitic to say aloud in the dry tone of her voice, the quick lift of a brow. “I shall study to make life easier all round.” She bowed her head. “With your help, Kuriya Kuma chal, since I’m new to this place and don’t know the sweet ways, the clever ways to get done what has to be done.”

Kuma chal contemplated her for a moment, then she nodded her large head. “Yes. Jilipa, fetch a chair for the chapa Tinoopa, set it here,” she patted the table beside her. “And you, girl, yes, you, the little one, don’t hang about like an addled mouse, you too skinny as it is, sit down, eat eat.”