White Lotus: Part 1 of the White Lotus trilogy by Libbie Hawker

Author:Libbie Hawker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Rabbit Press
Published: 2016-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

11

The Needle

A violent clatter ripped Doricha from sleep. She gasped loudly as she lurched up in her bed, half convinced she was still sleeping, and was caught in the grip of a nightmare—for a woman’s hard, angry face hung inches from her own, glowering and severe. Doricha jerked the covers up to her chin, her teeth chattering with fright. But even in her shock, Doricha’s careful training in observation—that crucial skill which Aesop had so patiently instilled—rose to the fore. She looked carefully around. The furious woman had knocked aside Doricha’s curtain—that accounted for the startling sound. The sleeping alcove was still cloaked in gloom, but the quality of its dimness had changed. There was a warmer cast to it now: the sun was entering the great chamber of the Stable, probably via the long stone shafts of the wind-catchers, and gently suffusing the whole room with its light. Morning had come.

Doricha decided that she was not dreaming after all; the angry woman was all too real. She scrambled from the bed, naked and shivering in the cool air of morning. The woman seized her by the arm and dragged her roughly from of the alcove. She heaved Doricha across the room. Doricha stumbled and flailed, crossing the whole of the chamber with a terrifying momentum. Archidike caught Doricha in her arms, just in time to prevent her from sprawling across the floor.

Archidike righted Doricha, then turned her about to stand beside her, facing the wrath of the pinch-faced older woman. Only then did Doricha notice that Archidike’s curtain was tucked neatly back, revealing her perfectly made-up bed and her orderly shelves. The older girl was already dressed in one of the white tunics from the dressing closet, which, though plain, was soft and well-woven. Archidike’s long, black hair had been brushed out, and was now pulled back with a wooden comb. The curls she had worn at the previous night’s party now hung in loose waves down her back.

The woman stalked toward Doricha and Archidike. “Sleeping the morning away like a cat in a patch of sunlight,” she boomed. Her voice filled the whole chamber—startling, from a woman as thin and wiry as she.

Doricha risked a quick glance down the length of the Stable. The other girls were up, too, dressed in white tunics with their hair combed out, like Archidike. Each of them stood beside an open alcove; their beds were neatly made.

“That won’t be tolerated a second time,” the woman said. She was not shouting, exactly—yet Doricha was sure that every word could be heard throughout the chamber and beyond—in the corridor outside, in the farthest reaches of Xanthes’ estate—across the whole city of Memphis. “You will be up with the sun each morning, dressed and presentable, unless you are nearly dead from illness. Or unless you would like the strap. Am I understood?”

Archidike dug her elbow into Doricha’s ribs. “Yes,” Doricha said at once. “Yes, er… Mistress.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Doricha and leaned in closer.

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