AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chana got up from the table and went into the kitchen. Lin stared unseeingly ahead as Chana clanked about with the kettle.
“I’ve tried everything,” Lin said. “Every talisman, every tisane, every remedy in every book I could find. She was better for a while—a long while. But now nothing is working.”
Chana returned to the table with a dented mug of steaming tea. She pushed it across the scrubbed wood toward Lin before folding her hands—big, capable hands, strong looking, with knobbed knuckles. But Lin knew those hands were capable of incredibly delicategematrywork; Chana Dorin made the best talismans in the Sault.
“Do you remember?” Chana asked, watching as Lin took a sip of the hot liquid. It burned a pathway into her stomach that reminded her how long it had been since she’d eaten. “When I first brought you to the Maharam and told him he must allow you to study medicine?”
Lin nodded. It had been the first time she had been inside the Shulamat. Every Sault had its heart: the Kathot, its main square, and in the Kathot, the Shulamat. A combination of temple, library, and courthouse, the Shulamat was where the Maharam presided over religious ceremonies and heard small cases brought before him: a dispute between two neighbors, perhaps, or an argumentamong scholars over the interpretation of a passage in theBook of Makabi.
She had always thought the Shulamat was the most beautiful building in the Sault by far, with a domed roof covered in shimmering bluetesseraeand walls of creamy marble. One could see the roof even from outside the gates, like a piece of sky fallen to earth.
Lin could remember how small she had felt climbing the stairs of the Shulamat. How tightly she had held Chana Dorin’s hand as they passed through, and how her heart had soared once they stood in the main room, beneath the inverted bowl of the golden dome. Here the mosaic-work stunned with its beauty. The floor was tiled in patterns of green vines and fat red pomegranates; the walls were deep blue, against which patterns of stars were picked out in goldentesserae—the constellations as seen from Aram, she would learn years later. A great chest of silver held the hand-copied scrolls of theBook of Makabi;a thick cloth of gold draped the Almenor, the great altar. Woven into the cloth were the words of the first Great Question, the same words etched into the charm around Lin’s throat:
How shall we sing our Lady’s song in a strange land?
On a raised dais beneath the dome sat the Maharam. He had been younger then, though to Lin he had always seemed old. His beard and hair were pure white, his pale hands swollen at the joints. His shoulders were bent beneath his dark-bluesillon,the ceremonial robe of the Ashkar. Around his neck gleamed a large circular pendant that bore the Lady’s Prayer. The Book of Makabi instructed all Ashkar to bear some version of the Prayer with them wherever they went: Some embroidered it into their clothes, while many others preferred to wear the words as a charm: a bracelet or a pendant. Something that kept it always close to their skin.
The Maharam had greeted Chana Dorin with an expression of sympathy for the recent death of her wife, Irit, which Chana waved away with her usual stubborn refusal to hear anything that smacked to her of pity. It seemed clear the Maharam had known Chana was coming and even what she would ask, though he heard her outpatiently enough. Lin’s ears burned as Chana told him how clever she was, how quick-minded, and what a ready student of medicine she would make. She had not been so praised in years.
When she was done, the Maharam had sighed. “I do not believe it is a good idea, Chana.”
Chana stuck her jaw out. “I don’t see why not. The Goddess was a woman, before she ascended. She was also a healer.”
“That was in the time before the Sundering,” the Maharam had said. “We had magic then, and Aram, and freedom. Now we are without a home, guests in the city of Castellane. And not always welcome guests.” His gaze came to rest on Lin. “If you were a physician, my girl, you would have to traverse this city alone, often at night. And men of themalbushimare not like men in the Sault. They are not bound to respect you.”
“I can protect myself,” Lin had said. “All the boys in theDasuKebeth are afraid of me.”
Chana had snorted, but the Maharam had not been amused. “I suppose your grandfather put you up to this,” he’d said to Lin.
“Davit, no,” Chana had protested. “Mayesh is quite against the idea, in fact.”
Davit.So the Maharam had a name. He responded to hearing it with a shrug. “I will think on it, Chana.”
Lin had been crushed, sure they’d been brushed off. But Chana, brisk as always, had only told her not to mope. The next day a messenger had come from the Shulamat, bearing the news that the Maharam had given his approval. Lin could study to be a physician, as long as she passed every test. No mistakes would be allowed, and no second chances.
Now, remembering the exuberance of that day, the way she and Mariam had danced around the physick garden, Lin managed a smile. “I remember.”
“I always counted it as a great victory,” Chana said.
“I never understood why the Maharam agreed to it,” said Lin. “He must be fonder of you than he lets on.”
Chana shook her head, setting the colorful beads of her necklaces to swaying. “Not at all. He agreed to annoy your grandfather, that’s all. He and your grandfather cannot stand each other.”
“Then I suppose I ought to be glad Mayesh was against my becoming a physician,” Lin said. “So typical of him. He was allowed to choose to be Counselor, but the Goddess forbid I have a hand in my own destiny.”
“Is he so bad?” Chana set her mug aside. “I had hoped, Lin, that when you grew to adulthood, you could find some peace with your grandfather. He did send that carriage for you and Mariam today, did he not?”
Lin shrugged, uncomfortable. “It was not meant as a kindness. He was simply showing his power.”And that he made the right decision,she thought,choosing the Palace and its opportunities over Josit andme.
Chana did not respond. She was examining the books flung across the table—theBook of Remedies,theSeventeen Rules,theSefer Refuot,theMateria Medica.Well, not quite examining them, Lin thought. She was staring as if she could bore a hole through the pages with her eyes. “Linnet,” she said, “there is something I ought to tell you.”
Lin leaned forward. “What is it, Chana? You’re scaring me.”
“Your grandfather was never opposed to you becoming a physician. When I consulted him, he merely said it was your decision, not one for him to help or hinder. I told the Maharam otherwise because I knew it was the only way to get him to agree to allow it.”
“Mayesh said it wasmydecision?”
“Yes,” Chana said. “I should have told you before. I didn’t realize you even still remembered what I said that day, much less that you were still angry with Mayesh for it. There is much he has done that has earned your anger, Lin, but that was one thing he did not do.”
