Page 18 of Stardust Child

“I’ll stay,” she made herself say.

“How do I let you know when I’ve returned?” he asked, turning back to Madam Sanai.

“The small garden at the entrance is for your use, noble lord.” She bowed again. “There is a chime there. Your lady will be ready at noon.”

He glanced down at Ophele, stiff and severe with strangers nearby, but his fingers brushed hers before he departed.

And then silence, with the trees shifting overhead and the soft tinkling of bells.

“Why are men forbidden?” Ophele asked, forcing her wooden tongue to move.

“It is forbidden to disturb the serenity of maidens,” Madam Sanai said firmly. “We are sworn to guard it. Pili, Bilaki, and Huvara,” she said, the other women bowing in a wave as their names were spoken. “We guard and attend the sacred bath. Have you heard this, that bathing is sacred?”

“No, there weren’t many books about Benkki Desa,” Ophele admitted, following as the madam beckoned with her staff. “In Aldeburke, I mean. Where I lived.”

“It means we must keep our silence on all that we see and hear within these walls.” The madam paused at the entrance of the bathhouse, an area recessed into the building with sliding wooden doors open to thesultry summer air. There was a long, low basin of cool water fashioned to look like a stream trickling over smooth, rounded pebbles. “It means you will feel free to ask, and speak, as you please, noble lady. Pili will remove your slippers, so?”

“Oh, thank you.” Ophele stepped out of them, blushing when she found Pili already at her feet.

“In our land, there are many pools heated from the earth, with great virtue in the water,” Madam Sanai explained as Ophele stepped into the shallow stream. “Niravi, goddess of the moon, comes down often to the waters, always in the form of a lovely maiden…”

Ophele listened to the story as she followed the women inside, looking curiously at the paper walls and doors. They admitted light while affording privacy, and many were painted with beautiful landscapes, flowering trees, rolling hills, and fancifully scrolling rivers, as if she had walked into an illustration in a storybook. Intricately patterned wooden doors framed the vistas, and there were a number of plants in low pots, flowering and beautifully shaped. Halfway down the central corridor, Huvara pushed open a sliding door to reveal a small changing room.

“Being a maiden, Niravi understood it may be frightening to be naked,” Madam Sanai remarked. “One may be shy of others. One might be embarrassed, or ashamed. That is why we are sworn to keep our silence. But if it is your wish, noble lady, we will leave you to bathe in solitude.”

Curiosity warred with shyness.

“Will it hurt?” Ophele asked, hating the plaintive question. But with the exception of Celderline, all her baths had hurt.

“No, noble lady,” the madam replied, after a pause. “Pili and Bilaki will attend, and they will be very gentle. Baths are for healing, above all other things.”

Ophele extended her arms to allow them to undress her as Madam Sanai explained the other purposes of baths, beyond the obvious reasons of hygiene, aesthetics, and relaxation. In Benkki Desa, it was a ritual of peaceful contemplation in which the bather sought to understand and embrace their own body.

“And also, for good health,” Madam Sanai added as Pili pulled Ophele’s chemise over her head. “If there is a spot that looks ill, or scratches that do not heal, perhaps. Or if the maiden’s husband has been ungentle…”

“That’s not…what happened.” Ophele crossed her arms over her breasts, crimson to her hairline. She had gotten so used to the marks Remin left on her body, she had forgotten they were there. But there could be no doubt of the origins of the marks on her breasts and thighs. And oh, stars, the place he had bit her yesterday…

There was a twittering of laughter from the Benkki Desans.

“We saw the noble lord has great affection for his lady,” said Pili, her eyes dancing. They were indigo rather than Madam Sanai’s violet, and Ophele could detect no malice or mockery in them.

“Such marks may show the lady is loved,” the madam agreed. “There is no reason for shame, so? All marks upon the body must be examined and contemplated for their meaning. Pili.” She said something in their tongue, and Pili took one of Ophele’s hands and turned it over, revealing her still-healing palms.

Ophele closed her fingers over them automatically. A lady did not have such hands, let alone a princess. She had been ashamed when she realized Remin had seen them. She had tried so hard to hide them, all those months.

“Are they injuries, noble lady?” Madam Sanai asked serenely.

“I…I worked at the wall.” The words emerged in soft, stiff syllables. The Lady Hurrell that lived permanently in the back of her mind had had a great deal to say about them. “I fetched water for the men there.”

“The work must have been hard, to leave such signs.” If Madam Sanai had an opinion, it was not evident in her face. “But their meaning is for the maiden to decide. Whether these marks are good to you, or hateful. It is our task to touch, to treat, to see them for you. The noble lady must contemplate them. If you wish to change them. If you must accept them. You see?”

“…yes,” Ophele replied slowly, struck by this unusual and rather lovely idea.

A cloud of fragrant steam billowed from the adjacent room as Huvara slid the wall open, scented of flowers and something fresh that went straight to the depths of her lungs.

“His Grace said the lady is sensitive to heat,” said Madam Sanai as they led her to the first of what would be three baths, this one simmering with scented oil. “Please say if it is too hot, or if the lady feels faint. Heatis necessary for cleansing. It opens the skin and draws the blood hot, so? But too much is not so good.”

“It smells nice.” Ophele hissed as she stepped into the steaming water. It was hot, uncomfortably so, but after a moment she thought it wasn’t unbearable. She let her head fall back onto the wide, cradling lip at the back of the tub, and Bilaki gathered up her hair to let it stream over the side, to be washed separately.

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