Timshala by Leah Cypess

Author:Leah Cypess [Cypess, Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-10T20:00:00+00:00

4

My grandmother was not an easy woman to find. First, she was on a tour of the estate, then she was holding an audience, then she was deep in her weekly meditation. I started every morning by asking my maid for a meeting with her, only to get a vague answer, soft as a brush stroke, delivered with lowered eyes. I was sure the maid was secretly laughing at me, but there was little I could do about it.

On the fourth day, though, my grandmother came to the women’s quarter—a surprise but not unexpected inspection, judging by the other girls’ resigned panic. By then, I knew the hierarchy of the women’s court and my own place in it—low, but temporarily so. I allowed the higher-ranked noblewomen to direct us into a line, and to do the talking. I lowered my eyes as my grandmother passed, and her gaze passed over me as if I was nothing to her, no different from the other girls whose lives she directed and protected.

That neither surprised nor angered me. But as she turned to leave, having delivered a few curt words of praise and a far longer list of reprimands, I lifted my head.

The silence around me was soft and thick as a wedding veil, and every bit as inevitable. Even the act of looking up had earned me a few sidelong glances. I felt my throat close, and when I forced my mouth open, it was dry as sand.

“Honored Lady,” I said. “May I speak to you?”

Everyone turned to stare at me, and the closer girls drew slightly back. But all their combined scorn was nothing compared to my grandmother’s. Her eyes flickered in my direction, as if I was a slug she had found in her morning tea.

“No,” she said. “You may not.”

She left without looking at me again.

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