Ballad Of Saymon

The next month passed uneventfully. Lila, with the help of an antibiotic prescribed by her master, grew health. Sylain looked after her, moved her to a room with a window, and helped her adjust to daylight. Lila, having never seen so much light at one time, kept away from the window for a long time. Eventually she was able to stand before it and look out, getting to this point was an uphill battle.
No matter how much she tried to ignore it the way everyone else seemed to, the vastness of the sky never ceased to scare her.
This fear aside, she adapted to her new life well. She put on weight, growing until her ribs were hidden beneath fat. Sylain doted over her in the early days, helped her bathe, brushed out her long hair until it was soft and shining, taught her to tie up lengths of cloth into skirts.
When she was well enough to move around, Lila became an errand girl. She didn’t think to complain, didn’t want to. She was happy to work, released from Sylain’s overbearing attention. Having never been cared for so meticulously, she felt she was ungrateful for disliking the woman’s help. Now, though, she carried out her orders contently, traversing her new home as she did so.
In size it was triple the size of Nomare’s home, a network of rooms jutting out of hallways centered around courtyards. The courtyards, the more lived-in ones at least, seemed to be as much a part of the working house as the halls. Laundry was hung there, cloth made, dyed and dusted, spices grown, collected, mashed into the fixings for marinades.
There were less people than there was space, and the work was copious. Lila woke early and, by virtue of being in the right place at the right time, would be asked to this or that. She was happy to help, and asked if there was work for her when no one approached her. Had she looked at herself at this time she would have seen what most of the staff of the house saw; a helpful, if quiet, girl who was blessed with beauty.
Of her master she saw almost nothing. He was, she heard, a very busy man and was eternally working away in his study. Lila, glad to have slipped his notice for so long, made no attempts to gain his attention.
As she came to the end of her second month there, it was Sylain who finally reminded her master of her existence.

“She just doesn’t seem to be… connecting the way she should.”
Kyichi looked up from the papers he had been reading and rubbed his eyes. They stung more than usual. When he opened them again he caught the glare Sylain shot him.
“What?”
“You aren’t listening.”
He put the papers aside, took out and lit a cigarette, and looked at Sylain.
“I am now. What’s the matter?”
She sat heavily, sighing.
“Lila.” She saw the confused look the flicked across his brow. “The girl you bought a few months ago. Tall, black hair,” He nodded, gesturing for her to continue. “She’s not connecting right.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Syalin sighed, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. “She seems happy enough, never complains, but it’s just… She doesn’t seem like she belongs here. It’s like she’s here but she could be gone tomorrow and no one would bat and eye.”
Kyichi waited for a moment, blowing out a long breath of smoke.
“Is that a bad thing?” He asked dully.
Sylain gave him another accusing look.
“Yes. She should be part of the… the family. She’s not expendable—”
“She’s, what, an errand girl? They’re not that important.”
“One you bought. God knows you spent more buying her than she’ll make back. You must have bought her for a reason.”
He thought back, trying to come up with a reason that would hold water so long after the fact. He shook his head, closing his aching eyes.
“I can’t think of anything.”
Sylain snorted, then grew serious.
“You can, you just don’t want to tell me.”
He shrugged and snuffed out his cigarette butt.
“Maybe. Or maybe I can’t remember.”
Sylain tried to get mad, find something that could help him see the trouble. Thinking of nothing that could illustrate the problem to someone so far removed, she sighed.
“Take my word for it, there’s something wrong.”
He nodded again, rubbing his eyes.
“What do you want to do about it?” He asked, not opening his eyes as he spoke.
“I don’t know…” She chewed the inside of her cheek, watching the fingers on her right hand curl and flex under her cheek.
They were silent for a long time, the smoke drifting drily around above their heads in disinterested gray clouds.
Kyichi was the first to talk, coming out of a sleep-like trance.
“Can she read?”

When Sylain showed Lila the book, the girl managed to squeak ‘That’s very nice.’
When Sylain held it between them, its pages wide open, Lila averted her eyes.
When Sylain asked her if she wanted to learn she said ‘Yes,’ but added, ‘but I am not allowed to.’
The other woman’s pale green eyes made a circuit of Lila as she sat there, face turned away from the book. She wet her lips and said evenly,
“You don’t need to be.”
Lila looked at Sylain, her mouth a dark red line across her tanned face. She shook her head.
“No, no. That is bad. Reading is bad.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. For you,” Lila pointed one shapely finger at Sylain, “it is good. For me?” She pointed at herself. “No.”
“But, Lila, why is it bad?”
Lila just shook her head.
“That’s not an answer.”
She turned to Sylain, putting her hand on the book.
“If Master find out he will be mad. It is bad for slave to read. Yes, I want to learn. But I want to keep this,” she held up her right hand, holding it around the wrist as if she were showing it to Sylain after it had been cut off, “more.”
“Lila, don’t be scared of him.”
“He is Master. I should be scared of him.”
“No you shouldn’t.”
Lila sighed and stood up, moving away from Sylain. She looked out of her window, at the trees out and down from her, avoiding the blue vault of the sky. Suddenly she missed Nomare. She rested her brow on the cold glass of the window, frowning and closing her eyes.
Nomare wouldn’t ask these things of her. He understood her world, the rules of her life. He could love her without literacy.
A hand on her shoulder made her turn to see Sylain, without the book. The woman took Lila into her arms, then dabbed at the tears Lila hadn’t noticed she was shedding. Sylain walked her to the bed, sat her down and listened as Lila told her everything about Nomare.
As she remembered, explained the way he looked at her, the way he touched her hair, the way he smiled at her like she was the prettiest girl the world, the way he kissed her cheek before they said goodbye everyday just in case that was to be their last day together, Lila felt her bitterness at leaving slip out of her. Sylain, being kind enough to listen, gave her something to be thankful for here.
When Lila had exhausted her memory, she looked at Sylain. Awkward, cautious and hoping that her need to be near someone didn’t show, Lila rapped her arms around the woman, resting her head on the curve Sylain’s hips. Sylain patted her worried brow and stroked her long hair.
“It’ll be okay, honey. It’ll all be okay.”
Lila closed her eyes and rested there for a long time, enjoying Sylain’s gentleness for the first time since her arrival.
“Can I,” she started after a time, “can I send Nomare a… a…”
“Letter?”
Lila nodded, humming.
“Yes, I can help you write it.”
Lila nodded, wiping the last of the water from her eyes. She sat up and looked meekly at Sylain.
“I do not think I will be good at writing.”
Sylain smiled.
“There’s only one way to find out.”