A full moon hovered over the sprawling, pale city, kissing its stone walls and grand promenades with silvered beams. Scattered squares of golden light belied those souls who forsook sleep, whether by intention or misfortune. But the air was still, full of summer’s warmth, and the scent of sculpted gardens in full bloom.
In one of the upper bathhouses, a woman strode beside a long, narrow pool of black water. Her pleasantly balanced figure was wrapped in a silk robe of midnight blue, and her hair flowed to her waist in ebon waves like a river of ink. The domed ceiling above was open to the sky in its center, and a shaft of cool starlight struck the water’s surface and was swallowed up.
A man stood expectantly at the far end of the pool. Her eyes took him in quickly as she drew near, but she did not know his face. His garb was simple; a dark grey tunic. A working-class man of the city. Her fingers tugged lightly on the strip of fabric that was wrapped around her waist as a belt, and she smiled. Her lips parted for a greeting, but the man spoke first.
“Nindeth?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied the woman with an accommodating dip of her head. “I was told that you asked for me by name. Tell me, my lord, what brings a man to this house in the deep of night when all are abed?”
The man averted his eyes, and drew his bushy brows together. “Is your daughter yet awake?”
Nindeth’s posture went stiff all at once, and the welcoming smile bled away. “What do you want with my daughter?” she asked, and crossed her arms.
The man lifted a hand to rub his fingers over the short, stubbled beard about his jaw. His gaze wandered low for a moment or two, before meeting Nindeth’s again. “We have need of her. Elsewhere in the city.”
The delicate hollows of Nindeth’s nostrils flared, and from her demure figure exuded a fearsome air that made the man’s pulse quicken in his chest.
“You’ll not take my daughter away from here,” she answered flatly. “She will remain here, with me. She is safe here.”
The man held both hands up towards the woman, palms outward in a gesture of peace. “She will be safe in her new home as well. You have my word.”
Nindeth’s eyes grew vivid in the dim light. “Where is this new home you speak of?”
“That, I cannot tell you,” replied the man with a shake of his head. His brows lowered for the expected backlash.
“You would take my daughter away from me, and not tell me where it is you intend to take her?” cried Nindeth softly. Her arms uncrossed, her hands balling into fists at her sides.
The man nodded firmly, and though his own gaze was moved by the woman’s passion, he did not relent in his message. “For her safety, as well as yours, lady.”
Nindeth sucked in a quick, sharp breath. “I see your mind now! You will take her and secret her away in some locked-up room, and there sully her, out of sight, where none might protect her! Now that she is a woman’s age, she is to be sacrificed?” She looked the man up and down with a jerk of her head. “Who sent you here?”
With his hands still raised, the man closed his eyes and took in a deep sigh. “No, Lady Nindeth. Where she is going, none will abuse her in such a manner. I swear it.” Lowering his arms again, he looked at her. “You have trained her well, in all the knowledge and skill that you yourself possess.”
Nindeth’s forehead tightened. The fairness of her countenance only seemed to increase with the ferocity of her stare. “How do you know these things of me?”
“That matters not,” replied the man. “Your name is known and spoken from tongue to tongue, in low places and dark holes, alleyways and shadows. The widow’s fall, you might say.” He glanced swiftly at her face. “No, I am not here to insult you. Only to remind you that you are not in a position to refuse this request.”
Bitterness arose upon the woman’s visage, steeling her jaw and lifting her chin. “And this is the price I must pay?” she spat. “My own flesh and blood? To be separated from the only thing that is dear to me still?” She shifted in place, restless like a cornered she-wolf. “The debt is neverending, is it? Is that how the honorable men of this land treat their widows?” She waved a hand in the air, silencing any possible answer from the man before her.
From the soft gloom at the far end of the hall, a sweet voice spoke, like a distant bird. “Mother?”
Both pairs of eyes looked to the sound. Nindeth whirled in place, her silk robe rustling around her ankles. “Mornil!” she said, and stepped back the way she had come. “Go back to bed, my daughter. There is nothing here to trouble you.”
The man looked after the retreating woman, and was swift to follow. “Stay where you are, young one. I have need to speak with you.”
A figure emerged from the argent shadows. The girl might have been mistaken for a younger sister of Nindeth upon first glance, though she was not so dark of eye or hair. An ebon robe was bound about her youthful shape, and she came forward on bare feet, looking between the two faces before her. “What is it, mother?”
“Nothing,” said Nindeth breathily, her shoulders lifting and falling with the fervor of her anxiety. She moved between the nameless man and her offspring, and placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Come, back to bed, and I will explain all.”
“Mornil, is it?” the man said, and continued forward until he was looking right down over the top of Nindeth’s head. “Stay. I have words to speak with you, and even should your mother hide you away tonight, you will be found again tomorrow.”
The younger woman looked upon her mother’s frantic eyes, and then to the man looming behind. She lifted her arms slowly, gently removing her mother’s hands from her shoulders. Nindeth trembled, and her posture softened and drooped. Her daughter looked then to the man and spoke. “What words have you to say to me?”
Now unimpeded, the man drew himself up straight and took a breath before answering. “There is need of you, elsewhere in the city. Need of the skills your mother has taught you.” His eyes flicked to the distraught loveliness of the Lady Nindeth as she stood beside her daughter with her face downcast. “You must here say farewell to your mother.”
Mornil glanced at her mother. The girl’s face was cool and pale, solemn in its expression, her fragile features like white stone carved by a master sculptor. A thoughtful furrow creased the smooth skin between her eyes. “Why must I say farewell to her?”
“The work that awaits you is of grave importance,” said the man, and Mornil saw the moonlight flickering in his coal-like eyes as he regarded her. “And will require the utmost discretion. Are you a woman who may be trusted?” He looked over her with an appraising eye. “For you are a woman now, and a girl no longer.”
“This is unconscionable!” Nindeth whispered, lifting her face to glare at the man. “Do not listen, my daughter! No one can force you away from your mother. They seek only your beauty and purity, that they may despoil it behind locked doors and hope the gods do not see their shame!”
The man turned a frown upon Nindeth. “You speak foolishness, lady. I gave my word that your daughter would not be harmed.” To Mornil, he continued, “You will not follow your mother’s path. I am offering you a chance to walk another. The things you have learned from her will serve you well. You know your father’s debt. Do not place blame upon me for it. Your mother has risen into a better reputation than many in her position might do. Be thankful that you are being summoned to aid your countrymen outside of a place such as this.” His grim eyes darted over the quiet hall and its damp, pale shadows.
Mornil turned to her mother. “I will go.”
Nindeth’s chin trembled. “Then I will never see you again,” she whispered.
The man stood patiently and watched. His gaze lingered most upon Mornil, expecting a scene of tears and heartfelt declarations. Instead, the girl placed a hand lightly upon her mother's arm.
“And I will have you to thank for whatever success and honor I might find in this new work, mother. I will not forget you,” said Mornil, quietly and calmly.
Nindeth moved as if to embrace her daughter, but halted at the last. She glanced at the man who stood there, hovering like a predatory shadow, ready to spirit her only child away forever. The woman’s face twisted in bitterness and grief, and she thrust herself away all at once, hurrying into the darkness beyond the bath-hall.
Mornil turned to trace her mother’s retreat with her eyes, and then turned back to the man. There was little evidence of any emotion on her face, though the man fancied that the wide, dark circles of her eyes were like the surface of a pond, concealing untold depths that could not be plumbed.
“Have you any other garments?” he asked, gesturing at her with an up-and-down wave of his hand. “Black is rather grim.”
“I like black,” replied Mornil, in the same soft, unaffected tone with which she had entered the scene.
“Hrm. Well,” came the answer. “Beauty will not serve you where we are going, so it matters little. Best find some shoes for your feet, and bring along whatever else you deem as important to you. You will not come here again.”
The young woman bowed her head in subservience, and the waves of chestnut hair sank low about her cheeks. She folded her slender hands together, then turned to depart the room with a faint whisper of bare feet upon cold stone.
