Who

Malach, Maryam, Taryn

What

Before the Bazaar meeting, events are discussed and plans are made.

When

It is morning of the first day of the fourth month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

Where

New Akzhan House, Bazaar, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 12 Nov 2014 05:00

 

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akzhanhouse

New Akzhan House

What is the point of having money if people don't know you have it? The New Akzhan house is a monument to conspicuous consumption. The modest merchants' homes of ten turns ago have been replaced with what might just be the largest single residence in the bazaar, an elegant many-storied house that encircles a private courtyard. The entrances are guarded by stony-faced retainers with large chained canines, the hoi polloi kept firmly away. Those invited inside are ushered into a vision of riches, room after room decorated in the finest wares that Pern can provide. Towards the rear of the house the servants' quarters act as the beating heart of the house, loud with the noises of cooking and hot with the steam of laundry; the rest of the house is quiet as the grave, the very air muffled with the oppressive weight of well- and ill-gotten gains.


Morning, and the house is a bustle of activity. A boy applies a fresh coat of Akzhan red paint to the grand front door, wincing from the ache of knees on stone and tongue curled over lip in concentration. In the courtyard a preadolescent serving girl plucks feathers from game, sweating in the hot sun. The kitchens ring with activity; upstairs women gossip as they change bedsheets; in the Bazaar beyond hawkers shout their wares and a con artist fleeces visiting traders from their marks with an elaborate card trick set up on a blanket.

In the grand morning room it is quieter, now the breakfast plates have been cleared away in a bustle of activity. It is unusual for Malach to still be in the house at this hour, and yet there he sits on the cushions with the household accounts on his lap, listening intently as his wife moves through the month's spending. He does not seem very interested: the pain in his arm is worse now he is not drunk on adrenaline, and they expect Maryam's healer to be brought in at any moment. Perhaps he is distracted by the maid who is trying to find somewhere to put the inordinate amount of white flowers that he has had brought in on dragonback from Faranth knows where, one of the growing weight of gifts that have begun to fill the house since Maryam's belly began to swell. Or perhaps his attention is caught by the realization that if he leans the books just so he can slide his hand unseen to rest at Maryam's thigh, unmoving and heavy.

Of course, to remove his hand or speak of it is to call attention to it, and there is a maid in the room. There is naught for Maryam to do but abide such familiarity- and perhaps it is no hardship, for her recitation of figures, the finger that moves down the column of numbers, these things do not pause or waver. She is diligent in her record keeping. Possibly, also, she is newly diligent in accepting that there will be intimacies of this sort from this man. For gifts like those he's begun to shower on her- flowers, foods, jewelry- it might be no hardship. "And here you see, my lord, if we prepare the stores on the verge of spoiling, we might still offer charity to those feeling the rise in costs. Charge a pittance, and it covers labor expense, and can be put towards shoring up the kitchen budget…" Such tedious subjects. The poor man. But a reprieve is on its way, for the little mousy maid left at the door is relieved of having to stand in the cloud of paint fumes when the one she'd been charged to guide arrives. Taryn will be greeted with no smiles, only a nervous bob of her narrow head, before the healer is led into the great house, through the great courtyard and now into the grandness of the morning room- where Maryam sits with Malach's hand upon her thigh, beneath the wing of an account book.

The heat that will come with the aging season has yet to fully grip Igen, but a brisk walk through the sandy streets of morning-bright sunshine assures that there's a healthy glow warmed across Taryn's cheeks. It's the one sign of her haste remaining after the mousy maid leads her through the maze of the great house. The crossing of the courtyard gives her opportunity to subtly shake dust from the soft rose of her skirts, and during the slip back into shadowed passages there's time to touch at her headscarf to be sure it lies neatly. And so the blonde is smooth of breath and composed in manner as she's brought to appear before the master and mistress of New Akzhan. The girl toiling behind that effusion of flowers is noted with a flick of storm blue eyes as the healer draws to a stop across the threshold. But mostly her attention is upon the couple with their book. If her gaze lingers a little longer on Maryam, well. At least she confines her lips from curving to a smile. She also refrains from interrupting, though a turn of her head and lift of eyebrows may expect the maid to oversee her proper introduction to the morning room.

The maid does not get so very much of a chance to make those introductions: Malach's head has raised at the first sign of Taryn's arrival, and by the time the girl is stammering her way into the formalities he is already shifting. It is not so very obvious a thing, the slight adjustment of elbow that is the telltale marker of his hand leaving Maryam's thigh, but it would be visible to an astute observer. Malach himself does not seem concerned, deft fingers placing the marker ribbon at the open page before the book is closed and set on the low table. The push to his feet is easy, for all that it is one hand alone that briefly braces at the wood before him; it is the same hand which is half-held towards Maryam in case help is needed. No look is spared for his wife, eyes instead moving between the younger maid who has accompanied Taryn this far and her elder who has paused in arranging the flowers. A tilt of his head and both are gone in a flurry of skirts and curtsies, the door clicked shut behind them. Only then does Malach look to Taryn. "Healer. Thank you for coming." He is still not entirely sure what she knows. Presumably Maryam was not entirely forthcoming in a note.

Maryam was most certainly not forthcoming. Notes can be read. And though she might briefly avert her eyes, pale cheeks taking on a hint of pink to match the bloodless rose shade of her own gown- it would seem she and Taryn were of the same mood this morning- she is quick to explain what was not held in that simple message of summons for the Steen healer. Rising, her hand slipped over the arm given to her by Malach, though she does not need that support as yet, she dips her head low to her friend and says, "My husband has need of your art, Taryn. You would ease my fears for his health if you were to see to him, as I could not." It's only then that her eyes lift to find darker blue with paler. She has no smile for Taryn either but there might be something being said, in the gathered tilt of her eyes, a narrowness that hints at a thing like gladness- though surely not for Malach needing a healer?

Motion brings Taryn's gaze sliding surely back to the master of the house. She is carefully neutral in front of the servants, though the wide inquisitiveness of her eyes scans over the motions Malach takes in gaining his feet as well as the hand of assistance he offers her friend. Silent dismissals of the help are a thing common enough that it earns no glance after the hurried efficiency which leaves her alone with the couple. She's more engaged in noting that there seems no emergency so great it keeps either of her hosts from standing. Her knees will dip slightly for the weight of Malach's look, her head inclining in due respect. "Of course, sir." Her eyes may slide swift from him, but they meet the silent communication found in chiller blue for the full of her dip and the straightening that follows. "Of course," repeated with slightly more warmth for Maryam. Her chin is still turned towards the other woman as her gaze flicks back to Malach. "What… fear is this, exactly?" Because these aren't details for notes, are they? The question brings her swaying slow steps forward, the sturdy brocade bag lifting in her hand in a trajectory for settling onto the table.

For the first time Malach looks to Maryam, a thing that draws a furrowed intensity to his brow for all that it lasts only moments. Something seems to be decided in the second that his head is inclined towards her, for when his arm is drawn back from hers the gesture is firm in resolution. "The shutters, wife." It is clearly an order, said with neither please nor harshness. Perhaps it is a kindness, bidding her to turn away as he begins to disrobe in front of another woman. Maryam may have only been examined by women, but Malach is quite the opposite. Nudity before strange women — that he has done often enough. But his wife's confidante with said wife in the room… His eyes remain steady on Taryn as he removes his tunic, movements made awkward by the aching of his left arm: the thing is pulled up first at one side and then the other, the final inevitable movement of the damaged shoulder eliciting a pained grunt that falls heavy in the hushed air. The body revealed is more animal than man, scar-marked and traced in the blackwork of a gutter-bred convict. Beneath the skin heavy muscles shift, those at bicep and shoulder tugging at the wound which Maryam inexpertly stitched the evening before. It is only as he throws the tunic over the cushions that he speaks again, voice low and steady. "No one can hear of this, Journeyman." With that body in this house the threat needs no more voicing than that.

"It has been made clear to me that my education in needlework was neglected in favor of account books." Maryam's answer for Taryn might well be worth a look from Malach- it carries a conversational air, a hint of humor, that, until recently, was entirely lacking in her demeanor towards him. Of course, she is only repeating something he declared to her but such nuances might well be lost in shock. Trust is given in a fresh dip of her head, scarf set to swaying about her unveiled face. And then she goes to obey with a quickness that is meant to spare her husband the embarrassment of being observed by his wife while he disrobes before another woman. She goes quickly but the shutters themselves take rather more time to unlatch and swing shut, them more time still to secure. When he has finished, stripped himself bare to the waist, and she has no excuse not to turn back to face friend and spouse, her gaze is kept demurely lowered. "I speak for her, husband. She can be trusted," she murmurs into the silence that hangs in the air after the threat is made.

Taryn will fit another peek upon Maryam, all the better for sharing the smile which escapes her control at one corner of her mouth for her friend's misspent education. Maybe it's unfortunate to have such a reaction lending storm-dark eyes warmth as they settle back upon Malach. Then again, perhaps the healer is familiar with both unclothed men and the wives who might worry over them. The shift of her brows could possibly be judged as overly familiar as her practiced eye assays the lattice of hurts sketched across his torso. The fresh slice and its over-wide stitches put a low hum to her breath as the healer gets her bag set down.

Taryn starts prying fingers at its opening while the lady of the house swings shut windows. Inside are things that rustle and a bottle of liquid that makes low plonk when the bubble of air within it shifts. She is not unconscious of the threat, and that she takes Malach's words seriously may be seen in the pause of her movements and leveling turn of her gaze. A blink dips her eyes more demurely, the nod of her chin following, when Maryam speaks for her. "You shall have my silence, I promise," she vows. Not everything comes with her as she leaves her opened bag to approach the wounded shoulder. "How old is this? What did you wash it out with?" These questions are pitched to reach Maryam equally, though the fix of her gaze is on the flesh bracketing the stitches. "I need to see if it's inflamed," is a more murmured explanation for the lift of fingertips that would test the heat surrounding torn skin.

If Malach notices that lingering warmth in Taryn's eyes, he is not stupid enough to show any response to it. Anyhow, he has promises to be distracted with: a beat after Taryn's voice follows Maryam's he nods, the dip of his head sending the thin tail of his tied beard sweeping over the skin of his chest. Eyes are cast over one shoulder, a sidelong glance given to Maryam that skims over her downturned face and lingers for a hanging sweep over her belly. There is no visible change, no swell yet defined through layers of fabric, but such things are unnecessary with the expression that treads fleetfooted over Malach's features. Pride, fierce protectiveness, a want: the thought of her belly full of his child is clear on his face. The thought leaves his words to Taryn almost absent. "Less than twelve candlemarks ago. My wife was obliged to deal with it promptly." As he speaks his body is inclined appropriately to Taryn, arm hanging loose and easy by his side. The turn brings his face to a better angle to find Maryam's eyes, expression softened at so well-behaved a wife. "Perhaps while the Journeyman tends to this it might be the best moment to," the briefest of pauses, "make your suggestion. As we discussed."

“I used warm water to wash the wound.” The admission of how the wound was cleaned is worth a touch of shame- Maryam knows the job she did was poorly started, poorly finished. The stitches meander, some narrow, some wide, deep and shallow both. Small wonder that Malach remains in such discomfort. But she is not so shamed that she doesn’t cross the floor again as if the mix of bright pride and fierce tenderness that shows in the man’s face was a lure. She does not touch him, nor position herself in any way to interfere. In fact, she aligns herself more with healer than husband, no squeamishness present to keep her from surveying the effects of her handiwork- and then sighing over the redness and swelling that is visible, the crust of old blood, the shimmer of less pleasant fluids starting to collect. Reassurance is given not to Malach either but to Taryn, through the press of a light touch to the back of her elbow. Mind not the wolf’s growling; he cannot help himself, that touch says. And for him? Why, for him, when he opens the floor to the most generous of husbandly allowances, she lifts her eyes to meet that softened look…and she allows him the curve of her smile, made sweet with gratitude (though it does precious little to affect icy eyes). “Thank you, husband. You are good to me,” she says- making it clear she doesn’t care if Taryn hears such a compliment! Small concession to the pain he’s about to suffer, she’s sure. “He wonders, Taryn, if you might like to come work for the New Akzhan. Here, in this house. He is willing to double your salary, to give you your own suite. And a still-room.”

Taryn is not the shortest of women, and yet the incline of Malach’s shoulder is more than appreciated — it is effectively necessary for her to get a good view of the wound without balancing precariously on the very tips of her toes. There’s plenty to take up her attention around the injury. Fingerpads prod lightly at the further edges of swelling, testing the heat of flush and getting a sense for the rise of inflamed tissue above the base curve of muscle. The close of her teeth further muffles the soft sound of her tongue pensively tutting against the roof of her mouth as the hovering bracket of her fingers assesses the mismatched march of stitches. With all this, she spares only the briefest of flicked glances to observe the expressions that the man turns away to his wife. For the information they both provide, the healer merely has a nod at first, fitted in between the careful toe-lifted lean she makes to take a sniff at the seeping slash. And while Malach’s mention of a suggestion puts a small lift to her brows, it’s Maryam’s soft touch that storm dark eyes turn towards. Hard to say whether it’s the reassurance or the overheard spousal compliment that puts the smile across her own features. “Oh.” She can’t be completely surprised, given previous conversations with her friend, but the blink of her eyes is not a thing feigned. “That’s very generous, sir,” is answered back to the master of the house, the brightly spread smile offered Maryam dampened as she dips her head to him. She doesn’t really have to look down to demure from meeting his eyes, considering the sharp angle she’d have to look up to find them at present. “I… would be pleased to accept,” it doesn’t take her more than a beat to make her answer. As she does so, she sinks back to her heels, the metal of the little scissors she brought from her bag creaking soft in her hands as she pauses to tip another, grateful, curl of mouth towards the house’s lady.

Perhaps not all wolves can be brought to heel by a woman’s smile, but Maryam’s look to Malach keeps snap or growl from him as Taryn takes the measure of his poorly-stitched wound. Pain draws taut the muscles of arm and shoulder, thinning lip and furrowing brow, but for conscious movements there is only a steady fisting and loosening of his other hand, fingers braced rigid at the apex of their stretch and then curled back to his palm. As the offer is accepted and Taryn dips back to gather the scissors Malach inclines his head, the picture of courtesy in a beast’s body and a thug’s markings. “It is Maryam you should thank. It is her decision who works in this house.” Perhaps that is news to Maryam, but Malach does not pause as if he has said a weighted thing. “She speaks very highly of you. If a man can’t trust his own wife…” The thought is allowed to linger a moment before being swept away on the shrugging rise of the shoulder that isn’t a low smoulder of pain. “You will be asked to do unusual things. Is there somewhere easier that I can sit for you?” The two sentences are strung together in the same even voice as if the first is not entirely dissimilar from the second.

Indeed, Maryam lofts an eyebrow at Malach for his declaration. True enough, she’s already dismissed this nurse, and made that recommendation. But blanket permission for the hiring and firing of house staff? Let the cooks and maids be afraid. Very afraid. “One strives always for trustworthiness,” is her proper wife’s answer for such indulgence. And to prove it, even before Taryn might be able to speak, she takes the chair she had been using when the healer arrived and lifts it to position it beside Malach. There. He may sit there, and save his back, and Taryn’s neck- and all may be glad this room uses more traditional sitting furniture than that favored by the Steen. Her hand slides up to find Malach’s uninjured shoulder, not only for the sake of touch but because if he sits and she is behind him, she can exchange another of those looks with the other woman tending him. This time, her smile tugs at only one side of her mouth. “Unusual things are possibly the order of the day in the Pit, husband. I do not think she will find it difficult to lend her hand to the needs of your house.” Not the needs of his men, mind. That will be a boundary she will need to dig deep in the sand, so it’s clear.

“My thanks,” Taryn can be free to murmur, then, with the man of the house giving her leave to express this appreciation to Maryam. It is useful, to have the broad of Malach’s back for exchanging these knowing looks behind. “If you would,” is the healer’s request that her patient take a seat, though her hostess’ providing the chair saves eyes of darker blue from having to look for an appropriate spot. She slides a step clear for a moment to give the man time to settle beneath his wife’s palm. There’s a bit of gauze tucked into her hand while she fits the little scissors over her fingers. “It is true. Between my turns at the Pit and the falling of the sky centuries ago, I don’t know that usual is very usual at all.” It is somewhat of an idle ramble of words, and perhaps that verbosity in itself is reminder of her unusual founding in the past. She spends it fitting her smile in aside at Maryam before repositioning herself aside Malach, not so far back that she’s out of his view. It is probably not wise to linger in a predator’s blind spot, after all, if one wishes to keep them relaxed and positively inclined. “I’m going to cut these out and rewash this,” is her narrated intentions for his injury. “We’ll see how it looks, and I’ll likely be putting new stitches in. Did you get an idea of how deep it was?” While the start may be more for Malach, that last question comes with a lift of storm blue back to ice as Taryn nudges up her pinkie and drags the trace of her short-trimmed thumbnail in query for a similarly measured estimate.

Maryam’s touch may be light but Malach folds easily beneath it, lowering himself into the chair with a smooth flex and press of muscles under scarred and darkened skin. The injured arm is allowed to fall in a dead weight at his side, the other bent and shifted so that the weight of his forearm is draped at his thigh. It is a slight thing, the shift of his good shoulder upwards against Maryam’s hand, perhaps not visible to the naked eye — a bunching rise of muscles that presses his skin to hers. Eyes remain fixed on Taryn as she moves, tracking her sidelong even as his head remains more or less forward. Perhaps the comparison to a predator is not unfitting. “Everyone knows what happens at the Pit. I assume everyone knew what happened in your time, Journeyman. But here…” It could be hard in this moment to imagine what he refers to, in the room full of flowers and soft furnishings and a nowtimer’s version of tenderness between a husband and wife. In this space it is only Malach’s body that hints at darker things, the price paid for all of this luxury and peace. How much he expects Taryn involved with his men is, perhaps, a thing still to be fought over. For now though practicality calls. “It shouldn’t be too bad. He was never particularly gifted with a knife.” The allusion to the night before is left light, Malach’s head instead turning in the other direction to cast eyes towards the corner of the room and voice to Maryam. “Have you shared with the Journeyman her other duties?” Which perhaps is unclear, Malach stepping delicately around any overt mentions of Maryam’s condition.

In answer to Taryn’s unspoken query, Maryam holds her own hand up, with thumb and forefinger position half an inch apart. Not so deep that muscle will need repair but deep enough- especially given that she’s butchered him once already. Her other hand remains curved over Malach’s shoulder. He’s fitted it so neatly into her palm, it would be a shame to shift it away. And it does no harm to sweeten his mood with these small tells of affection, when dealing with the introduction of an unknown into his household. “He will not mind if a scar is left,” she helpfully supplies, in case there is any anxiety on that count. And then…ah, then. The hand she’d used to measure his wound now lowers to settle over the shape of her stomach beneath obscuring robes. There is no real shape to be seen yet but there is satisfaction enough in the deeper curl of her smile to present the illusion of such. “She is aware, yes husband. The child remains. We should soon be passed the time in which we need worry of losing it. I have some sickness, in mornings. Some tiredness. It would be…prudent if you were to come as soon as possible, Taryn.” She pauses for a beat and this time, she looks at neither husband nor healer. Her gaze ranges down to the bump that is yet to be. “We will need to tell Yishai soon.”

There is a deferential incline of Taryn’s head for the difference between what is housed in these fine walls and the presumed knowledge of things past that have occurred outside them. She can’t be a girl unaware of the finery, the expense of the luxury, not with her indulgence even now of crystal-cut pretties holding the translucent draping over braided blonde hair neatly in place and out of the way. But it’s the signs of sharp edges and the brutal weight of muscle beneath her touch that the healer is absorbed with, and these things are as — if not more — familiar to her. She nods to Maryam’s estimation. Her smile quirks for the lighter words offered by each half of the couple. The curve stays in place on her lips, smoothing, as she bends to her work. The placing of her fingers is unhesitant but soft in the guidance of the snip-snip that undoes the other woman’s embroidery. Focused on this, the lift of her eyebrows at Malach’s question doesn’t quite become a glance to her friend until Maryam nears the point of her pause. It’s a moment of stillness that Taryn joins her in, lifting steel from skin briefly in order to weigh the implications. Her lip has wandered under the press of her teeth by the time she returns to removing the last of the stitches. “Tomorrow? If it would not be inconvenient for your staff.” It can’t be much of a wonder, that a woman who’d leave her whole world behind would be ready to move quickly.

Malach nods to Maryam’s confirmation, his neck twisting as his jaw is turned once more towards Taryn and her work. It is his wound rather than her face that he looks to, inasmuch as he can see it, a frowning assessment of whatever is visible beyond the curve of his shoulder. Given the other marks on him he has had much worse, but that doesn’t make this moment any more pleasant. The bite of metal through stitches draws a sharp huff of air from his lungs as tender skin is tugged, the jaw hidden under thick hair bunching at the joint. Under Maryam’s hand the trapezius muscle draws tight with pain. Maybe some of the extra cut added to frownlines is due to the mention of Maryam’s brother too, but who could say? Instead he is forcing himself to speak, words harsher as thread is pulled from his skin. “Whenever you’re ready. There are room set aside for you. I’m sure —” but sure of what will remain unclear, a deeper grunt of pain coming with the last tug of thread and eyes pressing closed. The rest of him stays rigidly still, still as a man can only be when he wants more than anything to jerk away and yet holds himself firm through a whiteknuckle grip on self-control.

One consolation to Malach might be the way Maryam presumes to stroke his shoulder as she feels the marks of pain quiver through him. Perhaps it is more distracted a gesture than loving but it soothingly meant, all the same. It does not occur to offer this beast of a man something to help dull his discomfort, nor inquire of Taryn to see if the healer even has something like that on hand- fortunate that Malach seems willing to suffer through it, living to the same standard set by Maryam’s own brothers. Her mind is elsewhere, an elsewhere that proves to be logistical when she says, “I had the rooms cleaned and appointed when he gave his permission for you to come. The stillroom was only cleaned, I did not know what you might need. We can send a man to help you carry your things. Just name a time. And there is, of course, a budget set aside for whatever you might need to stock your…healer things.” There the terminology fails her- what do healers need? She has no idea. But there’s money for it! And for Malach, the warm press of her body against this half of his back, timed to the grunt he makes at a deeper twinge. Some apologies require more than words. “Will it become infected, do you think?”

Taryn remains steadily at her craft as Malach tenses beneath the moving graze of her fingertips and the un-dulled tug and release of thread. Another absent nod replies to further details about her rooms since her eyes are fixed on the slice and small puncture of skin glowing red and oozing pearlish. “Uhm,” is a scrap of half-thought caught on Maryam’s mention of time. But her brow is furrowed over her concentration on the rend in flesh now that it’s unlaced. Between the time and the swelling she may not get so full a glimpse of its depth, but there will be further stinging to endure as she takes better survey of the condition of parted layers of skin over the thin pad of cottony adipose that cushions over purposed muscle. “I think…” It takes a moment for her answer to solidify. “I’ve seen worse.” And as she straightens, the drag of her eyes along the Akzhan’s torso are probably aware that he has endured worse. “You got it clean,” is offered with a slim smile across to Maryam. “The body can do a lot if you give it a chance to.” It may be a somewhat avoidant answer, but at least the healer sounds positive. “I’ll rinse it again with the solution I’ve brought,” she notes as she steps towards her bag. “I’ve Fellis if you’d like to wait for it to take hold.” This offered with a sideways slide of gaze that aims more at the man’s chin than his eyes. “I’m going to have to work the new stitches in around the holes.” So it’s that task that is perhaps expected to be the least comfortable — and with it looming, scheduling the time of her moving service can wait a minute.

At another moment Malach might appreciate more the stroke of Maryam’s fingers at his shoulder or the press of her body to his as pain flares. As it is the heat and sting in his arm is too pressing a thing for him to acknowledge her touch. His body stays fixed precisely where it is, eyes remaining closed for a long moment as the dimensions of the hurt are explored, both by Taryn’s probing fingers and his own senses. He has always found this the way to deal with pain: not a futile attempt to ignore it but rather a measuring of it, a testing of the limits of the thing. His arm is throbbing with a pain now that was dulled with adrenaline the night before, the ache somehow twice as bad as it was yesterday — but it is only one arm. Still, surely fellis would be wise, but the suggestion is met by an opening of his eyes, a terse shake of his head. “We don’t do that.” The ‘we’ is unclear, since surely there are nowtimers, men included, who make use of fellis at some point. But not Malach, not for this, not watched by a Steen wife who has been raised as surely as he has to respect a man’s ability to bear pain. This familiarity with the necessity of performed masculinity will perhaps mean that Maryam stands a better chance of being prepared for Malach’s movement than Maryam does: his good hand raises, fingers deftly twisting the leather of his belt from the buckle before brushing each end to fall over his thighs. A cant of hips and the thing is pulled free, the softer end pressed against the hard ridges of his stomach so that it can be folded to a thick strap, the perfect size to be taken between his teeth. For now it is held there lightly, eyes shifting meanwhile to fix at Taryn’s work. The anticipation of further pain does not have Malach pressing back to Maryam for comfort, a thing only appropriate for girl children and the youngest of sons; of course if she in tender femininity is happy to lean and touch…. well, perhaps that is appreciated.

“He was fortunate it was to his arm. There, at least, I was no further threat to his life,” Maryam returns to Taryn’s reassurances, her own blade-thin smile an answer for that given to her. She recognizes what is not said as much as what is and surely appreciates the healer’s diplomacy. But, “He is strong,” will likely not help with Malach’s determination to avoid pain-deadening drafts, the shake of her head timed to the man removing his belt. In that, it would seem, husband and wife are of one mind. But she does continue her bodily reassurance of the man, hand to his shoulder, belly against back- and eyes on Taryn, always, as if she were genuinely curious about what might come next. So much for tender. So much for feminine. At least her stomach is holding steady for now. “If you need my hands…” The offer is left to dangle there to be plucked or not as the other woman cares to. But for now, one hand remains occupied. Her fingers scroll up and down the swell of muscle that caps Malach’s arm and joins it to shoulder, as if she could feel the difference between inked skin and un-.

After turns in the Pit, it is probably the response Taryn is expecting to her offer. Still, her eyes go first to Maryam’s nod before the healer turns with a succinct one of her own to gather further supplies out of her bag. “I’ll ask if you could hold what I bring over, if you please,” is her semi-formal acceptance of Maryam’s offer of hands. For the moment, she’s capable of setting up her supplies on her own. Another glance aside at the quiet strength of the husband and wife team, particularly upon noting the leather strap Malach prepares, assures her own preparations are done swiftly. Tucking rolls at her sleeves bare her forearms. There’s a pair of nested metals bowl that ring softly upon being set down, the sound well muffled by their wrapping of gauze. There is an abundance of gauze, and also thread and hooked needle and the bottle of disinfecting solution. Taryn gets her hands cleaned off quickly and then moves back towards the chair, reaching the bowl bearing stitching supplies to the wife’s less occupied hand. She’ll use the other for collecting what she mops up in the effort of rinsing a deluge of sharp-scented solution across the knife wound, its quick evaporation contrastingly cool against skin heated with inflammation. “If you could tell your man, two hours after dawn.” Maybe she means to distract, by picking up this conversation with Maryam. “I’ll see to getting things in order at the Pit tonight. Though I imagine you would like me to do so quietly?”

This part of the conversation will be of necessity left to the women: Malach, perhaps in a grim desire to get this over with, leaves the leather strap pressed light between his teeth. The metal at the buckle of it makes a faint clicking as it sways where it hangs between his legs. If the coolness of the solution as it is pressed to his wound brings relief then that feeling must be a fleeting thing against the greater apprehension of the moment, for muscles remain tight and his free hand has resumed its rhythmic clenching and relaxation. With Maryam out of sight behind him it is Taryn that he watches, the way that she looks at his wife and speaks to her allowing him to see one half of a thing that he had not expected. A friend, for Maryam? Perhaps no stranger though than his usually ice cold wife stroking his arm, however distracted the touch. As Taryn dips her head to mop the remainders of the rinse from his arm, bright with fresh-drawn blood, and as Maryam is behind him, he takes the second to let his eyes skim over Taryn’s face. There is no real heat there, the only half-attending inquisitiveness of a man presented with any woman who looks better than a vendor’s wife. Whatever his opinion on what he sees it is not enough to hold even that minimum of attention for long: his wound is apparently more pressing.

Maryam had used the word friend to describe Taryn and so it proves to be! It likely helps that even here, in the midst of her own work, Taryn is thoughtful enough to phrase things in no threatening manner. Ask, and ask nicely, and she shall receive. In fact, Maryam is so certain of Malach’s strength that she brings both hands to bear to holding things. That she can do without causing further harm. “Two hours,” she confirms, as if it were normal to converse while watching another woman prepare to stab her husband with small pointy things. “Quietly is preferred, though if you feel it might serve you better to leave a note for Feroz. Or his wife. Whatever will cause you the least trouble.” Such consideration! But Taryn and her famed discretion have earned that trust. Her eyes shift sidelong, looking at Malach though she is presented with just the back of his head for study. “Does that suit you, husband?” The question shows she’s either forgotten he has something in his mouth and can’t answer, or she’s looking to add to the distraction that the healer has started. Certainly, after voicing this question, she keeps her eyes averted and draws a sharp breath through her nose. It is possible these mingling scents are working a different sort of magic- healing for Malach, slowly shifting stomach for Maryam.

Stormy blue eyes don’t divert for the held conversation, much less to note the scrap of Malach’s attention drawn while Taryn closely attends to her work. She is neat in motion, catching up every drop of blood and tincture before they can roll free and make threat to the house’s fine furnishings, but not particularly delicate about it. Away from torn skin, the swipe of gauze is brisk and firm. The scraps of fabric pile up in red and rust stained crumples within the second bowl until she’s satisfied with the clearing of crust and pus. “It seems like it might be less strange to leave some form of word,” is the voicing of her thoughts to go along with what Maryam suggests. “And a note may not be read until tomorrow afternoon.” By when, presumably, the healer might be more safely beneath the protection of her new patrons’ roof. Done with her rinsing, the blonde straightens a moment to roll out the more slender muscles of her own neck and shoulders before repositioning for the next phase of care. As the wife early found, the taut pull of skin over a man’s powerfully bulked shoulder makes for greater difficulty in holding together the rent edges. “If you think it would minimize the trouble.” For all of them. This is her deferral to the Akzhan man’s judgement, offered up alongside her friend’s. But, she also has a request: “If you could raise your elbow, sir? M-my lady,” the hummed consonant slips into erring on the side of formality over familiarity, though this quirks a brief twist to her lips as her eyes flick up to Maryam. “Could you support his arm? Slack will be helpful.” Because the healer is ready to get her needle and thread out to start the professional weave of small, neat stitches between the homemade holes of before.

It is only a grunt that Malach offers in return to Maryam’s question, the gutter-born boy showing through more clearly — no matter the cost of the house that they sit in or the fine cuts of fabric that make up the clothes of husband and wife. The sound seems to say that it is all the same to Malach whatever time they decide to make it. Soon, that he should like, for his sake and for the needs of his still sickly-pregnant wife. Other things are women’s details. Far more pressing is the need to get this over with, and it is with this in mind that Malach’s arm is raised abruptly for Maryam to hold. Too abruptly as the thing turns out: a hiss escapes between curled lip and teeth where they grit at the leather, muscle about the wound spasming with pain. If only it were men present and he could swear…! But he has seen how that was received by Maryam and has no desire to repeat it. Instead teeth grit over leather, a prickle of chill sweat breaking out over his sun-ruddied skin, and the arm as it waits raised for Maryam’s finger quivers with the pained effort of bracing.

The hiss defers Maryam’s answer for a time, as she hastens to do as healer as suggested and as husband is demanding. The bowl she’d held is set quickly aside to leave both hands free for cradling Malach’s arm at the level he’s dictated. Her cool regard skims the signs of stress in his appearance- the teeth marking leather, the fresh glistening sweat at brow and temple and nape- and then lifts a questioning look to Taryn. Surely these are normal signs? If the other woman shows no concern, neither will Maryam. “A note would be fine. They have been good to you, I know. And Feroz’s wife will worry if she does not hear.” Then, quiet. Presumably to give Taryn opportunity to ply the needle. Presumably to give Malach some peace from the nattering of women, while he suffers for their welfare. But the healer’s stitching hand will be put to the test for quiet conversation does not end there. As if they were alone in the room, eventually- perhaps while Taryn pauses to rethread her needle, to minimize the poking risk to Malach- she murmurs, “Yishai lied to me. About the Tea Room.”

“Yes,” Taryn murmurs agreement about the elder Steen’s wife while she threads her needle. And, “they have.” A displayed capacity for gratitude, as muted as it is, perhaps can be taken as reassuring in those moments in which she prepares to prick Malach’s already pain-seared flesh with sharp steel. Gentleness is probably hopeless. The healer, instead, goes for firm and precise. It may be nothing to a man who’s lived by fists and knife, but there’s worked-for strength in the hand that holds the torn edges of skin together with a steady pinch of broadly set fingers. The hooked needle is a much finer thing, cold as it finds its spot between previous punctures and then a swift stab and drag as small knot-ended bridges march their way along the slash. It is good Maryam waits for one of those pauses in between. While first it’s just a furrow-browed flick of reflexive sympathy that turns up to her friend, once the words sink in beneath the focus of her work Taryn falls momentarily still. The wide of stormy eyes fixes back upon ice blue before they’ve fully left. Greater understanding softens a part to lips that’d been pressed closed in her concentration. “Oh,” is still the only word Taryn can find to fit to her breath. She searches Maryam’s features a moment more, and will take that frown of forehead back with her as she returns to finishing the husband’s stitches.

Perhaps Malach was curious what a woman would be like as a healer, having only been treated by men in the past — some official knotted members of the Craft, others dismissed for one misconduct or another and forced to practice their trade in less respectable manners. He is not given long to think on it, the flesh so irritated by the night’s inexpert stitching that this new care is significantly more painful. The punch and tug of metal through skin brings the muscles of stomach and chest tight-drawn as the sounds of pain are suppressed, eyes pressing shut and molars digging their mark into the damp leather that lies heavy over his tongue. A grit is set to work over the belt, a rhythmic clench and release of his jaw as teeth wear into the hide. Beyond Maryam’s hold on his arm the hand contracts, heavy fingers curling into broad arm so tight that short nails leave crescent marks over his hard-worn palm. In all of this pain it comes unexpected when his mouth opens and the belt is dropped, pushed over his lips with a press of his tongue to fall heavy to the ground between his legs. There is no move made to catch it on Malach’s part, head instead twisted to look to Maryam, voice ragged with pain but beyond that hard, a promise spoken like a threat. “You will have your Tea Room. A dozen Yishai’s would not together be strong enough to renege on a promise to my wife.” Evidently this has touched a nerve, anger flaring bright as a spark — but it is interrupted by Taryn’s continued stitching, the forearm’s muscles beneath Maryam’s hands twisting tight again and a low, lingering grunt forced from deep in Malach’s belly.

With Malach looking at her, Maryam cannot go on to look at Taryn, however much she might want to. So much can be shared in a simple glance between women, even when one of them is of the old time- or at least when the other is this woman from the old time. But with darker blue eyes fixed upon her, showing that fierce blend of pain and anger, she dare not look away from the wolf in the room with them. In a setting such as this one, perhaps her cool calm can be a soothing thing, rather than something to incite more of that rage within him. Especially as she couples cool demeanor with a lady’s murmur of, “Your most fortunate wife. But peace, husband. I would have you hale and whole. Taryn needs a steady hand to see you to that.” And to that end she winds both of her arms about his, pulling his elbow snug into the little dip between ribs and hip where her waist has become more defined with pregnancy’s softening. Not for her the gentle ministrations of a hand to brow, or a caress against his cheek. No, Maryam holds him still for the healer and looks to influence anger’s heat with her own pale and unflinching gaze.

Taryn doesn’t look up from her work, but the raggedly vehement promise Malach makes to his wife doesn’t pass without effect. The lines of frown are chased away by the loft of her eyebrows, and this in turn is making space for the wider blink of storm-hued eyes as they stare at that last top end of the tear she stitches. She does need a steady hand, as well as a steady canvas, and so her tieing of of thread’s end pauses a moment while strong muscle ripples until Maryam can collect her husband more sturdily against her waist. “Two more,” is her lesser promise, made in murmur as she’s quick about snipping off one end of thread and feeding through the next. At the end they’re smaller, the wound shallower, and perhaps the wider lacing of last night didn’t leave this span of skin as violated by previous puncture. And then she’s done, finally a full breath taken as she straightens from the close huddle made over Malach’s arm and shoulder-to-shoulder with Maryam. A back-slip of heel lets her observe her work a moment and judge it with a small nod. “I’ll put something on top to ward off infection,” she tells the wound, but then the small of her smile lifts to her unflinching, fortunate friend. It’s just a moment before she moves to go fetch that ointment — and though it is also laced with numbweed, that hardly seems a fact that either of these nowtime Igenites will find particularly relevant.

Practice must have made Maryam better at managing her new husband’s violent moods, for no resistance is given as she draws his arm into a tighter grip. The outburst seems to fade as abruptly as it had come, leaving only a quieter man. The smaller stitches now made by Taryn seem to sure enough be slighter things, borne as they are with a stoical silence. No grunts or hisses are drawn by the press of needle through skin, pain shown only in the press of teeth together and the working of his jaw. Maryam’s gaze is held throughout, Malach’s blinking kept to a rate so slow that it hints at calculation, a fight against the desire to close his eyes entirely against the sting. It is only a few seconds, but it is a long time to look without speaking, and it is unclear whether Malach searches or watches or wishes to ask — what? Who knows, for Taryn pulls back and Malach shifts his arm as if to take it from his wife and draw it over his chest to inspect the healer’s work. It is Taryn whom his eyes follow as she moves, a thin-lipped smile given with a nod of his head. “Thank you, Journeyman. You have done a fine job.” Perhaps a more sensitive man might offer some sort of reassurance to his wife here in regards to her own handiwork, but Malach does not seem to think such a thing necessary.

It’s true, Maryam is hardly expecting lauding for the insult she’d initially done to the wound. But she had warned him and it looks so much tidier now- and was it not she who’d insisted that Taryn come see to it this morning? So it is with no guilt that she allows Malach’s arm to pull away from the circle of her arms, that gaze between them broken not by her, but by him- with or without whatever it might have been that he’d been looking for. She slides a step to the side to also study her friend’s handiwork. That is worth a nod, but more than that it is worth an opportunity to look up at meet those stormy eyes. Catching and holding that gaze- while her husband is occupied with his own studies- she inclines her head and lets the subtlest of tugs pull at her lips. Yes, thank you, Journeyman. A fine job and fine advice indeed. “It is well done,” she concurs. “It is of course the hope that your skills are not needed but…with Yishai’s lies, you understand why we would have you move sooner rather than later, Taryn.” How comfortable she seems, speaking plainly before Malach! Some of it must be simple brazenness than confidence though, for no sooner has she said the one thing than she follows it with a more solicitous, “Would you like some klah, husband? Or tea?”

“You are most welcome, sir.” Warmth comes easily into the oldtimer’s voice, even when the volume is held sedated. It is surely only helped there by that glance shared with Maryam, a crinkle about eyes communicating even deeper gratitude. But such things are meant for friends, and Taryn is not so brazen as she crosses to her bag to allow so openly ready an expression to meet Malach’s nod. For him the true simplicity curved upon her lips is sufficient, and his praise is received with a downcast flutter of lashes. “I do.” Simple, also, are her words of understanding — but the weight of lies and hopes have them echoing with more complex appreciation in the healer’s chest. A squat jar with a widemouth cap is drawn out, the concoction within milky behind glass. It’s this she’ll bring back to the couple as Maryam queries her husband, the healer’s final interruption to their routine. She spins the top off as she walks so she can have a dollop ready upon her fingertips as she arrives back before the Akzhans, this time aligned with Malach’s toe given how Maryam has shifted to oversee the stitches. It’s fortuitous, really, as the healer intends to make demonstration of the quantity of application before offering the jar over into their keep.

Taryn’s warmer mien is not unnoticed by Malach — a curious complement for the wife who wraps herself in a chill shroud, but not one he’s stupid enough to ask about. Women: there are things about them that will never make any sense. His eyes instead move to Maryam, neck turned and jaw tilted upwards for a shake of his head. “No. I should be going. There will be,” a pause and then the slightest of inflections, too light a thing to be sure of hearing, “a number of matters to attend to today. I’ll be late home.” Who knows if it is the presence of the healer or Maryam’s status as wife that limits his revelations there, or whether it is so simple an impediment as the approach of Taryn with the jar. Malach’s arm is held forward as obediently as a runner raising its foot for a farrier, held steady now as the healer works the ointment into his skin. When the words come they seem an afterthought, head turned towards his wife again. “You could show the Journeyman her rooms. I’m sure that you have many things to discuss which you’d rather not share with a husband.” It is said in a tone of idle, indulgent benevolence, the throwaway comment of a man who has absolutely no idea that sometimes the two women might discuss mariticide among other frivolities.

Their agreement, unspoken, is that before witnesses Maryam play the perfect wife. Even before Taryn, she keeps that guise. When Malach says he’ll go, she inclines her head in acceptance. “I will inform the kitchens, they will have something prepared late if you return home hungry. And that seems a fine plan, yes, thank you, husband.” It sits easily on her, this decorum. In that same vein, she drifts to the door and opens it- in a house this size, unfailingly, there is a servant within hailing distance. This one is a child sweeping cobblestones in the courtyard, sent to the kitchen to have fresh tea and dainties delivered to the mistress’ chambers. That should give Taryn plenty of time to grease up Malach- his wife is certainly in no jealous hurry to see the healer’s hands off of her husband. When she drifts back, pale eyes drift without upset between man and woman. Idly, absently, her hands fold over her stomach, a gesture that will suit her better once it properly begins to grow. Her smile is small and impeccable- a strange expression for someone who’s just watched their spouse be stitched back up. But… “Already, it looks better.”

As a farrier would brace fetlock to knee, so does Taryn prop her wrist beneath Malach’s obliging elbow as her fingers remained curled about the little jar. Her eyes give husband and wife privacy even if her presence doesn’t. The brief, thankful curve of her smile may be meant for the man, but she doesn’t look to see if its landed. Instead, the healer occupies herself quietly by painting with deft fingertips. A gleaming layer over the wound thins out quickly so as not to leave excess grease to get on the Akzhan’s fine clothing. “This should help it close faster, sir, as will washing it in salted water.” The murmurs take up the span when Maryam goes to the hall, filling the moments as she dabs at the edges of inflamed skin. At least the lacing of numbweed should be starting to take hold in a cooling seep along abused nerves. That its on her fingertips makes her hold fingers wide when again she steps back, as unhurried as the wife to whom her smile lifts. The cap is broad enough to be easily spun closed with the cupping of her palm. “You did well to wash it and keep it from tearing further.” Now that she’s done, Taryn finds space to make praise for the previous night’s triage. “Is there a servant I should give this to?” The jar, lofted a little as her eyes check briefly with Malach though she’s mostly asking Maryam. Do they have dressing servants? And perhaps, if she’s to be shown her rooms, the healer would do just as well to keep it in her own possession.

Taryn is a pretty woman: if Malach had been introduced to her in other circumstances it might be different, having her bent close over his naked torso and rubbing her fingers over his skin. As it is he is a man who is (at least for the moment) happily married, and he has no desire to risk the sort of reaction any hint of enjoyment would surely provoke from Maryam. He remains still and obedient under the healer’s touch, eyes on her bent head with no particular interest. Maryam’s public show of subservience and domesticity is apparently enough to keep him to heel, at least in this moment; the small smile she gives upon returning with her hands pressed in that sweetly suggestive way over her stomach would make him ignore any number of women. His smile back to her is easy, a flicker of something like tenderness there that is replaced with politeness as he turns the look to Taryn. “It does look better. You are a very welcome addition to our household, Journeyman.” Taryn’s further questioning he seems all too happy to leave to the mistress of the house — perhaps that is a benefit of marriage, the ability to offload certain concerns to a wife. With the aid of the numbweed soothing his arm it is less of a clumsy thing to stand and draw his tunic back on than it was to take it off, though any helpful tugs of fabric Maryam offers will be gratefully — if silently — received. A bend then to gather his belt from the floor, though the thing is kept held in his hand as he looks to the women. Taryn receives a polite incline of his head, Maryam a deeper nod. “Journeyman. Wife. I hope your day is pleasant.” And, if he is uninterrupted, here he will go to do… whatever dastardly deeds need seeing to.

“I will take it.” But first Maryam will step forward to help Malach into his shirt, adjusting collar and hem where needed to help it lie correctly, covering the marks of crime and violence that he has decorated himself with. It isn’t a duty she lingers over; more of an interruption might be the presentation of her cheek for a chaste kiss. He is allowed the warmer expressions even if they still come only with difficulty to the Steen daughter- and provided she has control over them. But things seem well in hand and she will send her husband off a contented if not a happy man. Only when he’s gone does some of the serenity she’s draped herself slip away, enough to let shoulders lower and a trace of her first trimester tiredness show through. “Will it offend you if I lie down, before we commence with the tour? We can take the tea in my rooms and when I have rested a little while, I can show you yours.” It’s questionable, how offended Taryn is allowed to be, given that the tea was already ordered to be sent to Maryam’s chambers. But friends, at least, are allowed the appearance of objection- even as the robed one is turning to lead the way from the morning room to the stairs that lead to her own suite. Signs of her supremacy over Yansa’s tastes in decoration can be seen as they go- Maryam tends to a more restrained display of wealth, with the weight and subtle gleam preferred by old money and older names- with her concept of extravagance tending towards potted plants requiring a fortune in water to maintain. Her rooms show even more greenery, and the ridiculous expense of fresh cut flowers flown in from regions tropical. Hopefully Taryn has no allergies, for Malach has been profligate in his appreciation. “You found him in a good mood,” Maryam says as doors are held open to admit the healer through.

“Thank you, sir.” Did Taryn say that already? She’ll say it again for his emphasis of welcome. With the jar remaining in her hands while Malach is seen out, she’ll bring it in to closer cup beneath her ribs as she waits by her bag so that she can dip a curtsey of farewell for the master of the house. It will be left out for delivery into Maryam’s care while the remainder of the healer’s supplies get neatly bundled back into her brocade bag. “Maryam,” her fondness may border on presumptive, but at least this extent of it is reserved for solitude, “of course not.” Her smile is wide, her nod readily accepting of the proposed tea time. The bag is duly collected and off she sweeps in the wake of the New Akzhan wife. Surely the changes are noted, as compared to her previous visit when the teenage wife was still in residence. The oldtimer may trend more to a taste for gaudy opulence instead of potted plants, but the brightness and heady perfume of all those cut flowers doesn’t fail to draw in her breath and brighten delight across her expression. She’s looking around with a swivel of neck and step both as she moves through the door. “I am glad of it,” is a truth that lands with a franker note despite her breathy touristing of Maryam’s room. “I’m sure I wouldn’t enjoy him in anything less than a good mood.” The scan of Taryn’s gaze makes it back to her friend and her smile falls lopsided even while blue eyes remain openly bright. “He is very fond of you.” This observation could so easily be whimsical cooing, and yet here it is founded in grounded practicality.

“He has an incredible temper. But it softens him, my being pregnant.” And tires her, if Maryam’s direct route to her bed is any indication. The maids have already been in this morning, the bed remade, the room tidied and the requested hospitality of tea and pastries sitting on a silver tray on the main table. She introduces fresh wrinkles to the linens as she climbs up onto the impressive piece of furniture- four posted, wreathed in gauzy curtains and boasting a Master’s wealth of carving- where she promptly gives in to informality by stretching on her side. Still dressed, no less! Slippers and all! There’s a sigh as her head sinks a little into the pillow, a drifting away of the cool formality that had kept her body so erect and proper. Half-lidded eyes follow Taryn in her exploration. “Whether it is proper fondness yet remains to be seen but he would do a great deal for me now, I think. He has promised me Yishai’s head. He has fresh greens brought from Southern, while bread is more and more expensive in the Bazaar…and he accepted you without question. You were right.”

The thought of Malach in a temper sets Taryn’s head to shaking, her braid swinging heavy beneath her back-tucked headscarf. But she is kept soft of expression by the sight of Maryam’s retreat to the bed. It doesn’t stop her from wandering. Her awe of the flowers surely can only add to their effectiveness as a gift from happy husband to pregnant wife. “Southern,” she breathes. This, chosen as focus between promise of a man’s death and the securing of her livelihood. Can those things seem dull, compared to the novelty of exotic plant life? There’s no artifice to the reverence that touches the healer’s fingertips to the waxy broad of one deep-hued leaf arrayed beneath an effusion of brightly tropical blooms. Now the shake of her head is made wonderingly as she rounds to approach the bed by way of the tea service. “I hardly remember what I said,” Taryn claims with a self-deprecating grin. “That he would value you for speaking your mind,” is perhaps what she thinks she recalls. And as her hands touch to ceramic, it’s as if she’s reminded: “Your Tea Room.” Her lips pauses under the catch of teeth. “You said when things happened, you hoped they would happen fast.” And while this may be a leading statement, she’ll also insert the interference of a question. “Can I bring you a cup?” Since her friend looks too comfortable to stir.

“If I put anything in my stomach, I will disgrace myself again. Help yourself.” To tea, to pastry, to flowers. Maryam flicks her fingers out in a starburst of generosity before tucking them beneath her cheek, that simple gesture reducing her to a maiden abed at a glance. “That was it. And I did speak my mind. He was…taken aback, at first.” To put it mildly. Her half-smile, skewed at an angle made odd by her reclining, acknowledges what’s not spoken more than what is said aloud. “But now…I think maybe it puts fire in his blood. To have a woman with a mind, who will behave where others can see but intelligence in private. Who would have thought it, of a man born to garbage?” There’s her inborn snobbery! Lest Taryn think her friend has grown soft in all of this luxury. At least it’s spoken with flippancy enough to make it less a statement of judgment and more a dismissal of what was- what is now matters more, when it comes to Malach. Which leads to a sigh of, “My Tea Room. I should have known Yishai would lie about it, the snake. I should have seen it in him. I hate having to wait to see him punished for it.” But. She has gestating to do. And, more immediately, pins to remove from her headscarf, which she bestirs herself to do without sitting up. Maryam shifts to her back instead and begins patting over her covered, braided hair in search of them. “But once Feroz is dealt with,” she says easily, as if not discussing the murder of her brothers, “it should happen quickly enough, yes. He was angrier than I was, I think.”

Taryn fits a twist of sympathy to her features for a moment in consideration of the fickleness of Maryam’s gestating belly. One cup for her, then, and the pastries can wait. The flowers, though… if her hostess will invite her to them, the healer will pluck at a lesser bloom that’s starting to droop on its stem anyway. It will look much finer tucked against the rim of her headscarf and behind her ear. Won’t it? Perhaps the tilt of head and flash of smile would invite judgement if there weren’t so much else to take her focus — but Taryn isn’t one to forgo these little moments of pleasure simply because of outstanding dire conspiracies. The knowing grin for Maryam’s husband’s heated blood is perhaps corroded a little, a very little, for the snobbery which concludes the thought. It puts no hitch in the easy crossing the blonde makes of the room, helping herself to the foot of the bed as a seat. Her mouth quiets, both for blowing across the tea’s steaming surface as well as in listening to the Steen’s comments regarding her brothers. Stormy eyes are watchful and wide, even absent the kohl which she didn’t pause to put on this morning before hurrying in answer to the short note of summoning. “Your husband was,” angrier, she makes the obvious assignment. Her lips roll on the first non-sip of hot tea as she gives a little turn of her head. “How did you find out he’d lied?” And a furrow marks the unfully shaped surfacing of another question. “Without Feroz and Yishai…”

The decoration of blossom against headscarf earns a smile of approval but Maryam is likewise distracted, so it doesn’t linger. Four pins, five, six, they’re searched out, collected in her cupped palm and tipped onto the bedside table so she can slip her own scarf free. With a sigh, she rubs fingertips through the thick plaits that collect her hair to her head, seeking out points of tension where follicles are stressed. “I had not expected him to be angrier than me. But he is so very sensitive to insult…and Yishai made him a party to the lie, by not telling him. As I thought he knew. It was when I told him I was pregnant. I spoke of the promise made. He had no idea.” The memory gathers her expression into something pinched, something displeased, a shadow of what must have surely struck the night the lie was discovered. Even the echo of what was is enough to see her shifting restless against the pillows. Maryam pushes herself up to sit seated back against the headboard. Once settled, she lets her hands curl in her lap and looks past Taryn, through the window cracked open to admit a hint of breeze. There’s a fair of ‘lizards visible, sunning themselves on the roof across the courtyard. A favorite spot of theirs and their chattering is just audible. “Without Feroz and Yishai…I have so many brothers and half-brothers. But it could be argued Steen wealth came from my handling the accounts. That I am Mama’s proper heir,” she says slowly. “It would be…a large breach of tradition.”

It’s the flexing of Maryam’s fingers that the healer’s eye is drawn to as she listens. It’s probably terrible manners, the way Taryn keeps her teacup hovered beneath her lips where she can make small sips that drink more aromatic steam than actual liquid. The pose makes her receptive expressions half-hidden behind the rim. A curl of smile for Malach’s sensitive male pride, a narrower purse of mouth in mirroring empathy with her friend’s remembered distress. The rise of her eyebrows, however, will be in full view for the slower proposal the Steen daughter ends with. And as they do, so does her smile surface from behind the cup. “Not so large, when Mama headed the family before,” is meant to be encouraging. The cup and saucer lower towards her lap as the blonde rolls a coquettish shoulder up towards the turn of her cheek. “And when it comes to arguing for an alteration in tradition, I can’t imagine a better time than the turns we live in now.” And after all, isn’t that what brought them together in the first place, a flaunting of nowtime tradition? But the extent of what Maryam is suggesting pulls a long sighing breath into the oldtimer’s lungs. It is well enough to grin over such lofty dreams, but the more sober reality is — “I will be glad to be inside these walls.” When Taryn looks towards the window, then, it’s not so much the quality of the view but the fact that they’re removed from what’s bracketed in that frame. “I don’t know that I believe daylight will provide much safety from… everything. Your brothers. The meanness growing along with empty bellies.”

And this is why Taryn has become so important to Maryam as a friend: the way she shifts so easily while listening, the way she listens and her care in phrasing when listening is done. Encouragement and coquetry both conspire to create laughter of the breathy, barely there sort- as if Maryam were concerned that a maid might overhear and think her crafted of something other than ice. But it is amusement, though she shakes her head to mark that she has basis for argument with both statements. Lofty dreams indeed. Reality, when summed up, amounts to, “There will be a great deal of blood but here we are safe. And when it’s done, it is possible there will be no one left to object to Malach becoming the new Steen patriarch as well.” As dreams go, this one counts more as grim than lofty, but anyone who’s seen the map of scars that crisscross that man’s body- the ladder he’s climbed writ plain on his own skin- would recognize it as the more achievable dream. Certainly, more realistic than a family of bullish males willingly appointing a skinny little sister to head their clan. “When you venture out, Taryn, from now on…you should take two of the men. I will point out the most reliable. I doubt Feroz or Yanskar would look twice at you but these refugees, and the restless poor…” Her sigh is positively matronly as she sinks back against the pillows. “I think I will begin a bread line, every seven. For mothers and children.”

As well. Ambition both grim and lofty, though the man Maryam has wed herself to has already proven himself capable along both axis. It’s worth considering with the quiet steadiness of meditative breath, this possible state of things after it is done. The oceans of blood, the upsetting of the deep rooted traditions of two of the bazaar’s oldest families. And yet, Taryn finds these things that come from her friend’s lips to be less remarkable than the barely-there laughter and smiles that preceded their mention. In any case, Maryam’s generosity — the guards for her, the bread for the poor — is sufficient to recall a smile upon the healer’s lips. Sufficient, even, to pull a ripple of fancy swaying subtly up her spine as she lifts her tea cup again for another sip. “You shall be the foremost lady of the bazaar,” is a warmly made comment. Not that Taryn ever doubted the Steen daughter’s stature! “That seems kind and clever.” But when it comes to the men which she will be assigned, it has Taryn tipping her head and considering the pillow-sunk mother-to-be. “Tomorrow, you can point them out? And the tour.” Her smile quirks. “If your body is asking you to rest, perhaps you should listen. I should spend the time today putting my things at my apartments and the Pit in order, anyhow.”

“I believe I will be,” is a statement made while Maryam spreads her hands over the faint curve of her belly. It’s barely there yet, even in this position, but by smoothing her palms over the concealing fabric, that swell is accentuated. Each revolution of her hands over that promise of flesh seems thoughtful- and each deepens the imprint of the smile that settles over her lips. “And you will be the foremost lady’s right hand woman. We can both of us be kind and clever, held in awe.” She gives these daydreams the tone of whimsy they deserve but by now the healer should know well enough to read the lift of sandy colored eyebrows. And why not?, that loft says. Why not. But first… “Tomorrow might be the better day to begin,” she admits, lashes dusting her cheeks. “I will have everything here ready for you. And I will be better rested, so we can complete the tour. He had me up so early…” It’s a thought that drifts her into a quieter place, that sends her deeper into the fluff of pillow that supports her head. But Maryam doesn’t go so deep that she can’t force her eyes open again, to frame and keep a proper smile for her friend. “Thank you. For looking after him. And for looking after me.”

Taryn lifts fingers to adjust her ear-tucked flower just so, mouth pursing into a smile for being Maryam’s right hand. If she’s to indulge in whimsy, why not do it in style. A quick lift of her cup downs a larger mouthful of tea before she relegates the cup to its saucer and both to her off hand. The nod of her head for putting off things until tomorrow is the smaller of her motions, for the healer leans to reach a fond hand for her friend’s nearby ankle. “We look out for each other,” may be heartfelt, but the bright grin of her smile and savvy spark of blue eyes keeps it from being overly saccharine. “I’m not sure if you know this,” she also adds with a cheekier skew, “but I also give the best footrubs.” Like she needs to make a case for being invaluable! Fingers squeezing before they part, Taryn then shifts from the bed to return the cup to its set so she can make her way onward with her day. “I’ll keep an eye out for your man in the morning. And I’ll see you. Tomorrow.” A beginning of a bloody end, and yet the blonde has nothing but the sweetest farewells as she slips away to leave Maryam to the peace of a desert room bursting with a thirsty bloom of color.

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