Escape of the Concubines by Ben Wolfe

Author:Ben Wolfe
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: KDP
Published: 2019-09-23T18:30:00+00:00

They arrived to see the groomswomen leading the horses, belonging to the women they had escorted, towards the stables. The baths were a single-story stone building buried halfway into the ground. The low stone building was covered with grass and goats stood atop the building grazing lazily. One of them stared at Esther as she dismounted. She and the others handed their reins to the groomswomen, but as she handed the reins to the woman, Esther made a last-minute decision. “Ariane, go with them and see to the horses and our gear. One of us will be out shortly to relieve you. Find out where we can have our things washed.”

Ariane nodded briefly after looking around. Esther was the youngest of them but with Azar and Margot gone, she was the ranking member of their group. Membership in their sisterhood was not by rank but by time in service and Esther had been indoctrinated at a very young age.

As Ariane went off with the groomswomen, Esther followed the other two into the shade of the building. Truth be told, she was looking forward to a bath. Winter this far south was not felt yet and there had been a great deal of both dust and heat on their journey. Weeks in the saddle had compiled so many aches that they had gone unnoticed until now.

They walked into a large grotto with stone pillars and hanging plants over a very large pool that seemed to be fed from two places. The far wall seemed to flow into the pool as it spilled out of a spring near the ceiling. At the other end, closest to them, it bubbled up from below the surface. There seemed to be blocks of stone set beneath the surface in rows such that the women could sit in the clear water towards the center as well as closer to the edges. It seemed that the women they had escorted had already broken up into groups that the wraiths had noted on the journey to Karsova. There were the wives and there were the concubines. The women from the west divided themselves along the lines of the great rivalry between the houses of Medrigor and Eisengard, forcing the few from smaller houses to choose between the alliances as though those mattered anymore. There was a great deal of distrust and the women had a great deal of difficulty crossing social boundaries as well as political ones. Most had already removed their clothes and were placing them in baskets before making their way into the bath. Lisei and Tarla looked to Esther for guidance. Revealing their faces to each other was one thing, though still forbidden by their order. To do so before outsiders was taking things to another level.

“Our circumstances have changed,” she whispered. “We can either change with them and adapt or we can return and die. It is too late now to question our choices or where our loyalties lie. Just as it is up

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