Nua’s determination to learn the alphabet was great but not as great as her eagerness to taste everything the servants brought to their dining chamber. There was again a type of hearty stew, with some kind of wild poultry, turnips, leeks, and onions added to the broth, but also deep-fried sliced eggplants, beet and yogurt salad, and flatbreads. There were also sweets, small crumbly and sticky cakes soaked in honey. For Nua, most of these food items were unfamiliar; she’d seen raw vegetables at the market, but except for the onions, turnips, and – sometimes – cabbage - they never appeared on the menu. She had also no idea what that meat was. Anki provided her with answers, and when he didn’t know, she asked others. Oshana turned out to be the most talkative when it came down to the food, so Nua had to endure a lengthy explanation of how yogurt was made, and what it was good for, including the types of desserts and dough kneaded with it. Bel, with his gaze firmly stuck in the bowl, uttered just one phrase that made everyone pause.
“I didn’t know either.”
There was something fragile about Bel, large as he was. He helped Ezekiel, but he wasn’t his apprentice like Nua was to Hessa. The old stargazer had weak legs, apparently a remainder of a childhood paralysis like Nua’s brother’s, Ursan. He needed assistance with his daily tasks, and the boy was always there, a silent presence beside the talkative scholar. Nua didn’t know if Bel’s demeanor was an effect of past events, or if he was born like that – whatever the reason, he stayed in the background, reliable and unassuming.
Zamar and Oshana did not cater to any of the merchants in particular. They were tasked with packing and unpacking for the night, fetching food and beer, caring for the bashmu, and all types of odd errands that could crop up. Zamar wanted to travel the world. Oshana’s ambition was more down-to-earth.
“A year or so and I’ll have a lot of money for my dowry. Then, I will marry a shopkeeper in the city and I’m going to be fat and happy for the rest of my days.”
Nua appreciated that goal. It was more feasible than world conquest.
After the evening meal, people went in their separate ways. Ezekiel directed his steps to the bedroom, Ashra with two other woman merchants went to the public bath area, Oshana and Zamar returned to the stables where they had some duties to finish. Hessa stayed with Nua in the dining room, where they put the wax tablet on the table and the lesson began, uninterrupted except for servants taking away the plates with leftovers (Nua could not resist and hid a flatbread under her shawl). Hessa was reading the letters, and her student was supposed to repeat after her.
Nua started out with enthusiasm. She already knew that this time, her efforts might actually bring progress. She studied the characters while traveling, and realized that they were staying in her head, almost like the etheric Matrix for jumping, days before. Her high hopes, however, were quickly met with a resistance she did not expect. Was it because she spent most of her day on foot, or because she was stuffed with food to the brim, she could not focus. After the third repetition, she was fidgeting on the edge of the bench, and the effort at keeping her attention on the letters was almost painful. In spite of herself, she wanted to persevere. She would prove that she can succeed in monotonous tasks. But it was like peeling tubers all over again. It seemed that Anki jumpstarting her healing did not help at all in that aspect.
Finally, Hessa noticed.
“Get up, walk around the table.”, she said.
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“What?”
“Seems like I’ve got two of you. I mean, you’re like Shadow. You need to move all the damn time.”
Judging by what Hessa told her about Shadow, Nua didn’t know if she should feel offended or honored by the comparison.
“Normal people aren’t like that, right?”
“Half of the warriors, hunters, and explorers are just like that”, Hessa answered. “Repetitive tasks are boring. If you’re bored, do something interesting. Learn while walking.”
So she did.
Halfway through the second time she got up and walked around the table. She realized that picturing letters at once, as if the wax tablet was etched in her mind, worked better than repeating them one at a time. Once she had had this breakthrough, she figured out that she could imagine the picture rotating or in close-up, and that the alphabet in general, was like everything else in her memory. She had always been thinking in pictures, but now she could make them last.
It was like stumbling upon a treasure trove. She wrote down her name on a cleared-up tablet, then asked for another. After a few minutes of hunting for the letters in the mental image, she managed to write it down. It would be a while until the process became second nature, but she was succeeding.
She asked for a new name.
“Gods above”, said Hessa. “I’ve expected you to pick it up fast, but that’s… fast.”
“I knew some of the letters already”, Nua said. “I just needed to put it all together.”
The huntress grunted.
“That’s where people struggle, you know. Going from remembering the characters to linking them all. I’d know, I learned as an adult, too. Good job.”
“Thanks.”
“I think that we could start with the songs in a few days. Do you know “The wings of poppies”?”
Nua nodded. It was a well-known folk ballad, usually sung at the Midnight Festival. Not in the company of strangers, of course, because while Unsagga folk songs weren’t banned, they were also considered improper by the Azurians, and the less law-abiding ones could use the opportunity to mock the singers and start a ruckus. It told a sorrowful story, suggestive of a forbidden union between two lovers in the long night season.
“Let’s sing it together, so I know that we’ve learned the same version.”, Hessa said and started in a low, uneven tone. Nua joined after a while. Neither of them was a good singer – Hessa with her throat charred by the time and her lifestyle, Nua with a stifled mezzo-soprano that never quite hit the notes, and so, the melody ebbed and flowed like a farmer’s cart on a road full of potholes, until the end.
Silence has fallen over the fields.
Utu was burning, drying the tears.
Trickster, his brother,
Hid in the night
Oh, golden ether, where was your might?
Nobody calls
Hush, let us fly
On the wings of poppies in the long, sunless night.
My hearth was kindled, your brow was wet.
Sunset was spinning one final thread.
There is no twilight
To flee our fate,
Embrace the sorrow, lest it’s too late.
Nobody calls
Hush, let us fly
On the wings of poppies in the long, sunless night.
“Now then”, Hessa yawned. “I’m off to the baths. You can go too, or go to sleep, I don’t care. If you don’t, please wash in the basin in the morning. No offense, but you need to rinse the smell off at some point. The mounts are getting restless. Today, Shadow was looking for something in my sack, and I bet she was thinking about dried fish.”
Nua nodded.
Then, she realized that Anki – who occasionally commented on her learning before – was awfully quiet for the last several minutes.
The king was hovering over the table, a dark, condensed cloud that followed Hessa with a forlorn gaze when she left.
“Anki? What’s the matter?”
“What do you know of this song?”
“That it’s old?” she shrugged. “As old as you, perhaps.”
“It is younger than me, Nua.” He said. “It must have been created after I was gone. I can decipher its meanings, though. The metaphors, line by line. Do you realize what it’s about?”
“It’s a tragic romantic story”, she guessed. “Do you know the… probable real version?”
“I can see that the meaning is lost, then.” He answered, and there was a void in his voice that made the girl shudder. “It is about the plague, Nua. The plague that ended us all.”