Chapter 2 – A Song of Shepherds #3
“It is forbidden to disturb the serenity of maidens,” Madam Sanai said firmly. “We are sworn to guard it. Pili, Bilaki, and Huvara,” she said, the other women bowing in a wave as their names were spoken. “We guard and attend the sacred bath. Have you heard this, that bathing is sacred?”
“No, there weren’t many books about Benkki Desa,” Ophele admitted, following as the madam beckoned with her staff. “In Aldeburke, I mean. Where I lived.”
“It means we must keep our silence on all that we see and hear within these walls.” The madam paused at the entrance of the bathhouse, an area recessed into the building with sliding wooden doors open to the sultry summer air.
There was a long, low basin of cool water fashioned to look like a stream trickling over smooth, rounded pebbles.
“It means you will feel free to ask, and speak, as you please, noble lady. Pili will remove your slippers, so?”
“Oh, thank you.” Ophele stepped out of them, blushing when she found Pili already at her feet.
“In our land, there are many pools heated from the earth, with great virtue in the water,” Madam Sanai explained as Ophele stepped into the shallow stream. “Niravi, goddess of the moon, comes down often to the waters, always in the form of a lovely maiden…”
Ophele listened to the story as she followed the women inside, looking curiously at the paper walls and doors.
They admitted light while affording privacy, and many were painted with beautiful landscapes, flowering trees, rolling hills, and fancifully scrolling rivers, as if she had walked into an illustration in a storybook.
Intricately patterned wooden doors framed the vistas, and there were a number of plants in low pots, flowering and beautifully shaped.
Halfway down the central corridor, Huvara pushed open a sliding door to reveal a small changing room.
“Being a maiden, Niravi understood it may be frightening to be naked,” Madam Sanai remarked. “One may be shy of others. One might be embarrassed, or ashamed. That is why we are sworn to keep our silence. But if it is your wish, noble lady, we will leave you to bathe in solitude.”
Curiosity warred with shyness.
“Will it hurt?” Ophele asked, hating the plaintive question. But with the exception of Celderline, all her baths had hurt.
“No, noble lady,” the madam replied, after a pause. “Pili and Bilaki will attend, and they will be very gentle. Baths are for healing, above all other things.”
Ophele extended her arms to allow them to undress her as Madam Sanai explained the other purposes of baths, beyond the obvious reasons of hygiene, aesthetics, and relaxation.
In Benkki Desa, it was a ritual of peaceful contemplation in which the bather sought to understand and embrace their own body.
“And also, for good health,” Madam Sanai added as Pili pulled Ophele’s chemise over her head. “If there is a spot that looks ill, or scratches that do not heal, perhaps. Or if the maiden’s husband has been ungentle… ”
“That’s not…what happened.” Ophele crossed her arms over her breasts, crimson to her hairline.
She had gotten so used to the marks Remin left on her body, she had forgotten they were there.
But there could be no doubt of the origins of the marks on her breasts and thighs.
And oh, stars, the place he had bit her yesterday…
There was a twittering of laughter from the Benkki Desans.
“We saw the noble lord has great affection for his lady,” said Pili, her eyes dancing. They were indigo rather than Madam Sanai’s violet, and Ophele could detect no malice or mockery in them.
“Such marks may show the lady is loved,” the madam agreed.
“There is no reason for shame, so? All marks upon the body must be examined and contemplated for their meaning. Pili.” She said something in their tongue, and Pili took one of Ophele’s hands and turned it over, revealing her still-healing palms.
Ophele closed her fingers over them automatically. A lady did not have such hands, let alone a princess. She had been ashamed when she realized Remin had seen them. She had tried so hard to hide them, all those months.
“Are they injuries, noble lady?” Madam Sanai asked serenely.
“I…I worked at the wall.” The words emerged in soft, stiff syllables. The Lady Hurrell that lived permanently in the back of her mind had had a great deal to say about them. “I fetched water for the men there.”
“The work must have been hard, to leave such signs.” If Madam Sanai had an opinion, it was not evident in her face.
“But their meaning is for the maiden to decide. Whether these marks are good to you, or hateful. It is our task to touch, to treat, to see them for you. The noble lady must contemplate them. If you wish to change them. If you must accept them. You see?”
“…yes,” Ophele replied slowly, struck by this unusual and rather lovely idea.
A cloud of fragrant steam billowed from the adjacent room as Huvara slid the wall open, scented of flowers and something fresh that went straight to the depths of her lungs.
“His Grace said the lady is sensitive to heat,” said Madam Sanai as they led her to the first of what would be three baths, this one simmering with scented oil.
“Please say if it is too hot, or if the lady feels faint. Heat is necessary for cleansing. It opens the skin and draws the blood hot, so? But too much is not so good.”
“It smells nice.” Ophele hissed as she stepped into the steaming water.
It was hot, uncomfortably so, but after a moment she thought it wasn’t unbearable.
She let her head fall back onto the wide, cradling lip at the back of the tub, and Bilaki gathered up her hair to let it stream over the side, to be washed separately.
“It is not only to meditate upon flaws,” the madam continued when everyone was situated, with Pili and Bilaki seated on low wooden stools and Huvara guarding the door, staff in hand. “The maiden must also see what parts are beautiful.”
Serenity seemed to mean many things. With the patient cajoling of a cleric, the madam questioned Ophele about the condition of her body as Pili and Bilaki washed it, asking about places that hurt, things that she did not like—her second toes were longer than her big toes, was that normal?
—and searching for something that she did like, so Ophele would increase her serenity by understanding herself better.
“His Grace likes my hair,” she finally admitted, when pressed. She did not think of herself as beautiful. She was a little brown mouse, plain as a sparrow. But it was true that Remin was always touching and admiring it, and sometimes he liked to brush it for no reason at all.
From the heated tub, they moved her to a second, cooler one, and she could almost feel the cold water flooding into her open pores, mixed with some effervescent solution that made her feel as if she were dissolving into the water.
By then she had relaxed enough to ask about their staffs, and the madam explained that some attendants carried whips and staffs, bloodless weapons that would not defile the sacred precincts of the bath, while others strung bells on the bushes to warn if anyone approached.
“Do all women in Benkki Desa know how to use weapons?” Ophele asked, looking a little enviously at Huvara with her wooden staff.
“No, noble lady,” Huvara answered, as if she had felt Ophele’s eyes on her. “Some of Niravi’s attendants are suited for the staff, and others, like gentle Svala, must listen for the bells. But Niravi says this is not a shame.”
This knowledge of self was the core of a maiden’s serenity, and not limited to the bath. A maiden built the sphere of her serenity from contemplation of her naked self, and then carried it forth into the world, a calm core of self-knowledge reinforced by every subsequent understanding.
Ophele wondered if a man’s serenity was any different, or if it mattered that she definitely was not a maiden, as evidenced by the bite mark Pili found on her backside.
It was a lovely philosophy, she thought; one that inquired gently whether she wished to change, while forgiving her for what she was.
Lying in the third bath as Pili and Bilaki polished her hair and nails with silk, she drifted.
She was half asleep when they lifted her from the final bath and let her fall face-down on something soft and cool and sweetly scented, and when they woke her, she felt as if she had been dreaming in the middle of a cloud.
“Noble lady, His Grace has come.” Madam Sanai’s fingers drifted over Ophele’s forehead, deftly manipulating the pressure points at her temples.
Pili and Bilaki were behind her, waiting with Ophele’s clothes.
But they didn’t just stuff her into them and send her on her way; once dressed, she was given a cup of cool, minty tea while Bilaki brushed her hair, and left her feeling like a gem getting a final polishing.
“Has your serenity increased, noble lady?” Madam Sanai asked at the entrance, in formal tones that required an honest answer.
“Yes,” Ophele replied, in perfect truth, and with the feeling that this serenity was something she could carry with her into the world.
Remin was waiting in the small garden to the left of the gates, sitting on a bench with a cup of tea sitting untouched beside him.
He rose as soon as she appeared around the corner, and Ophele felt gratifyingly pretty as she hurried over to him, her long hair floating loose and silky behind her like a banner.
“You look as if it suited you,” he said, rumbling with contentment as he bent to kiss her. “Did you like it?”
“Very much.” She lifted a hand to cover his mouth as he nuzzled dangerously toward her neck. “The walls are made of paper,” she whispered, glancing at them meaningfully.
“That’s not much worse than the cottage,” he grumbled, his face snuffling into her hair, for all the world like a huge black dog. “You smell so good…”