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I served this tea not long ago to the neife, with her fifth child already at the breast She sprouts children like berries, this one She is very beautiful in her white veils, and her black eyes are so deep they seem to have no pupils at all Her hair falls past her waist in long black curls, and it shines ht, like the skin of a salamander She fixed those depthless eyes on olden cup with both hands
“I aainstmillet “But if you would not waste to less than an old brown leaf in this place, come to my bedchamber on the third day of the new moon” She set down her cup and put her hands tobefore I knew it, the nearness of her bright and awful and endless “I swore to him not to incite the harem,” she murmured, “but an odalisque is not a wife, and I can see the leaf your father placed in you, glowing still Because of it we are sisters, and I cannot abide a sister’s suffering Tell the eunuch who keeps you that Zmeya commands you to attend her”
She kissed
THE TALE
OF THE EUNUCH
AND THE
ODALISQUE,
CONTINUED
“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND,” IMMACOLATA SAID “For you, this is a pleasant world, no different from an open pasture speckled with sheep and horses But we are not sheep, and we are not horses, and we did not ask to be shepherded, nor corralled for the use of the biggest bull”
Her last words stung like a crop—had I not done the penance of a hulking bull? I hung my head
“I will take you to Zmeya’s chamber”
Iainst ainst s in the world than this, I swear it Why would a eunuch care so to deliver bound wo—come aith me! I have watched you; you have watched me Let us not pretend otherwise” She cupped my face in her hand “I know you are Gaselli, yet you have never hurt us, never”
I tried to protest that this was no act of chivalry, but she stopped ed hand, cheap baubles ereen bands on her fingers Before s inward and pressed it into her neck so that blood welled bright as her veils and trickled into her collarbone I did not understand—but she pressed ain that I did not want her flesh, and her blood slipped between my lips
She tasted like tea Of all the dancing women in their shawls, she alone tasted sweet
I took her gift, and her hand When she walked with —and no onefrom that place