Then there was no more time for talk. A bell rang in the corridor calling the women to their first exercise period of the day. Linsha groaned. She had been in this place for about fourteen days and she had come to loathe that bell. It ruled her life like a slave driver, holding her fast to the rigid routine of the Akeelawasee. What, she wondered as she stretched a little, did the common females do? If they were bound to this sort of royal routine, nothing would ever be done.

She was about to leave the cubicle when she suddenly turned and looked at Callista. “How do you know what the servants are saying? Do you speak Tarmakian already?”

The courtesan waved a casual hand. “Servants talk. A few speak Common. They’re all slaves from different areas. There’s even an old woman from Solamnia who was left here by the Dark Knights. She talks to me often. Oh! Another thing I heard. The apothecary, Afec? Some of the older slaves say he is a prophet. They say he has visions sometimes.” She giggled. “It’s probably from all the fumes from his herbs and medicines. Maybe he’ll have another vision of how we can escape from here.”

Linsha grinned. “I’ll ask. Keep your ears open. Let me know what else ‘they’ say.”

Callista’s humor abruptly faded and she held out a hand. “One last thing. Malawaitha has been away being ‘properly chastised.’ Whatever that means. But someone said she was coming back soon.”

“I’ll watch for her. Thanks.”

Malawaitha, Linsha thought as she jogged outside to join the noblewomen. Afec had told her the emperor’s daughter had been sent out of the palace for a while as punishment for her temperamental outburst to the Empress, but no one had said where she had gone or what was happening to her. It had been rather nice not to have to worry about the fiery Tarmak stabbing her in the back or ambushing her during one of their long runs.

The gods knew this place had taken some getting used to. Even her first few years in the Solamnic knighthood had not been as regimented as this. She and all the other royal women rose before dawn for a cup of foul dodgagd juice and a three mile run over the palace grounds followed by calisthenics and swimming. Then there was breakfast, more exercise, a massage, a light midday meal, more exercise, and any work the Empress saw fit to hand out. Then there was music lessons or weapons practice, gymnastics, a small evening meal, discussions on what Linsha could only describe as beauty lessons, and then it was bedtime when all the females had to retire to their personal cells for sleep. The routine was so set and so predictable that she was already perishing from boredom. She was too accustomed to setting her own times, making up her own mind, doing things in her own manner. She liked reading books, visiting with friends, riding her horses, eating different foods, facing challenges, using her mind! Here there was nothing to do but exercise, eat dull food, and sleep. It was enough to drive her mad.

On the good side though, she noted while she jogged along the same dull dirt path, the food, the rest, and the exercise had done her a world of good. After so many months of war and hunger and strife, she desperately needed the food to rebuild her strength, the rest to rebuild her stamina, and the mindless exercise to regain her old skills. She truly felt better than she had in months.

She was so deep in thought that she did not pay much attention to the grounds around her. She had already seen this path fourteen times in a row and examined it carefully for some means of escape. Unfortunately, the grounds were walled in by high stone barriers and frequently patrolled by Tarmak guards. There was no way out that she had been able to see, yet. This morning the sun was barely up and a heavy dew drenched the grass. The shadows were still thick under the trees, but the sky was clear and promised another warm sunlit day.

There were so many other women out running that Linsha paid scant attention to the footsteps pounding behind her. Suddenly a hand struck her between her shoulder blades and shoved her off balance. She staggered sideways, slipped on the damp grass, and fell to her knees. One knee scraped something hard, and pain streaked up her leg. Linsha looked up in time to see Malawaitha run by, a nasty little smile on her face.

“Malawaitha, wait! I’d like to talk to…” Linsha yelled, but the Tarmak woman kept running and soon disappeared among the trees.

Wincing with pain, Linsha climbed to her feet and continued jogging. She didn’t look at her knee. It was obviously scraped, and if it was bleeding, the blood would help clean out the wound until she could find some water and a bandage. This time she ran with her full attention pinned on the track ahead. If Malawaitha could do something like this, she wouldn’t put it past the Tarmak woman to try to ambush her in any one of the groves of trees along the trail. When she heard more runners come up behind her, she slowed a little to allow them to catch up with her. Better to run in a group than by herself. The other Tarmak women in the Akeelawasee tended to ignore her, but at least they didn’t shove her into the dirt.

By the time she reached the end of the morning run, she had blood dried in streaks down her shin. The Empress, waiting at the end of the path, spotted the bloody injury and snapped a word to Afec standing patiently nearby. There was no sign of Malawaitha. Linsha bowed to the Empress as was customary and said nothing about the petty incident with the Emperor’s daughter. She would bide her time and wait to see if this animosity would continue.

The old slave shuffled forward to meet Linsha. “Lady, you must clean that before you can enter the eating hall. It is unsanitary.”

“Undoubtedly,” Linsha replied. She looked down at her knee and frowned. The knee was scraped as she suspected, but there was a short deep cut just below the kneecap as if she had fallen on a sharp stick or a pointed rock. Annoyed, she followed Afec past the dining hall and through an archway into a large garden basking in the morning sun.

Linsha slowed to look around. A few small trees grew in the well-tended beds, but most of the plants she could see looked like herbs. She recognized a few from her own land-feverfew, thyme, marigold, and sage. The rest were new to her, probably culled from the highlands and jungles of the Tarmak island. Their scents filled her nose as she walked along the side of a building after Afec.

At the far end of the building, the Damjatt entered a small room and invited her to enter.

The room must have been Afec’s workroom, for the only pieces of furniture in it were a large table, a smaller work table, and row after row of shelves neatly stacked with bottles, boxes, jars, stacks of linens, and bowls. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling. Another rack held small bottles of powders, unguents, and liquids of various colors. A brazier burned on the worktable, heating something that slowly bubbled in a cooking pot and smelled similar to horehound.

“I wanted to warn you before you ran,” Afec said, indicating that she should take a seat on the large table. He bustled around the tables and shelves as if he was very familiar with the room. “Malawaitha has returned.”

Linsha studied the dirty, oozing scrape and the cut on her knee. “Yes, I saw her.”

She watched while Afec collected a basin of water and a clean cloth. His short stubby fingers played over the jars and boxes for a moment then plucked a stoppered bottle and a jar out of the rack.

“I know you’ve told me Malawaitha is betrothed to Lanther, but what if one of them changes their mind?” she asked. “Do the Tarmaks break their betrothal vows?”

The Damjatt poured a small amount of a clear liquid into the bowl of water and brought it to the table where Linsha sat. “This will sting a little.” Gently he swabbed her knee with a cloth dampened in the water.