8. Drusilla
CHAPTER EIGHT
DRUSILLA
S abina unlocks the heavy wooden door to Dru’s chamber with a worn bronze key plucked from a hook on her belt and pushes inside.
Dru follows her, stepping across the veined marble floors following through from the courtyard, unsurprised by the opulence of the accommodations.
The king of Anziano treats his guests well.
The open doors at the back of the room facing the Multum Sea draw her attention first. Cream silk drapes slink down from the rod bolted across the top, framing a wide, shallow balcony.
She has no idea why he’s given her a room overlooking the water, but she’s not going to complain.
Even if it’s only so that she can keep a watchful eye on any ships coming in from the Imperium.
She’ll be more than happy to wake up in a feather bed—whose silk, aquamarine sheets call to her even now—to that view each morning.
Though she can’t help wondering what the cost of this lavishness will be.
Ovi would love this , she thinks, her stomach clenching. In fact, Ovi would probably never leave the room, except to go down to the water’s edge and squish her toes in the sand.
Dru continues her perusal of her living quarters. Half a dozen unlit lanterns hang on metal hooks on the warm terra cotta walls. Her attention floats up to the high coffered ceiling, the solid wood beams leading to a mural which stretches across the entire wall opposite the bed.
She’s almost certain it’s a depiction of the Durevolian goddess of war and the underworld, Laran.
A gold dress clings to her soft curves, black smoky tendrils slipping through her caged fingers poised on either side of her hips.
A golden helmet, split by one long black plume along the center, sits snug atop her head, trapping her curled, ebony locks beneath it.
They frame her gilded eyes, alight with fire.
Something’s different about her arms and neck… Dru squints, finding her exposed skin covered in what appear to be faint tattoos, slightly darker than her golden-ochre skin.
She takes another step inside to get a better look, but Sabina places a hand on her arm. Instinctually, Dru looks down, finding an empty square bathtub sunk into the floor. A true luxury.
Sabina speaks for the first time since the courtyard. “Is there anything you need?”
“No, you can go. In fact, I won’t be needing your services at all while I’m here—I can take care of myself.”
Panic widens her eyes. “Are you dismissing me?”
Dru furrows her brow; she thought the girl would be pleased. “And if I was?”
“Then Cato—the king—would have no use for me.” She takes a step forward, gaze pleading, her voice softening. “Please don’t make me go back home, back to my brother.”
Her stomach drops. Deodamnatus. Dru has no idea what Sabina’s brother has done to make her act this desperate to keep her job as a servant, and she’s not going to ask.
But she can speculate at the sordid history, one she’s never experienced herself but has met plenty of women in her travels who have.
Sabina’s fear and pain, lodged deep in her gilded gaze, can’t be ignored.
“You can stay, but I won’t require much?—”
Brightening, she interrupts, “I’ll be back with more linens.” She leans in and sniffs. “You need a bath.”
Dru stands open-mouthed as the girl hurries out of the chamber.
Once she’s gone, Dru sniffs herself, her nose wrinkling.
She’s not wrong . Untying her cloak, she tosses it onto the bed, then takes a closer look at the bath.
More modest ones like these occupy the homes of the Phaedran senators and their families, but there are some ten times this size that grace the bath houses scattered throughout the most affluent cities in the Imperium.
She found herself in one once while spying on a particularly conniving diplomat.
Given how ancient Anziano is, though, how could they already have this technology? The Imperium introduced it no more than ten years ago.
Crouching down, she turns the bronze knob to the right. Water immediately gushes out of the spigot, hot steam billowing up while the bath fills rapidly.
“I see you’ve started without me,” Sabina notes from the doorway, laden with linens, as promised—though she seems to have already forgotten about their agreement, where Dru can do most things on her own. Like filling my own bath .
Letting it go, she asks, “How does the palace get hot water like this?”
Sabina sets the linens down. “From a nearby hot spring, pumped through our sewer system.”
Just like the Phaedrans.
“How could you possibly have a new Imperium bath system, inside a palace that must be centuries old?”
Sabina smiles sadly, turning the knob off before the bath can overflow. “This has been our way for hundreds of years. The Imperium stole it from us and called it theirs. ”
Dru closes her eyes for a moment. Of course, they did .
“I should’ve known,” she admits.
“Don’t be hard on yourself; you’ve spent too much time in the Imperium, where they revel in retelling other people’s history as their own.” She inspects Dru from head to toe. “Now, undress, before the water gets cold.”
Glad to be doing her own disrobing at least, she undoes the ties of her sandals first, loosening the laces until they slip off unimpeded.
The impressions of the leather straps have sunk into her skin, leaving their mark of her journey.
She unfastens her belt next and places it carefully on the ground beside the bath so her dagger can be within reach.
Finally, she pulls her tunic over her head, standing in nothing but her undergarments.
The promise of hot water hurries her hands as she strips them off.
Without slowing to test the water, she steps into the bath and plunges her entire body under. It’s a touch too hot to stay beneath the surface for long, but it feels too good not to. She closes her eyes, basking in the warmth.
Coming up for air, she finds Sabina setting down a glass flask, a scraper of some sort, and a small clay jar.
Dru points at the glass flask first. “What’s this?”
“Olive oil mixed with the ashes of mulberry bark. I also brought you a raschietto made from reeds to scrape off the filth. And the jar is for your cut cheek. It looks awful.”
Dru laughs at her boldness.
Sabina holds up Dru’s dirty clothes, her arm extended. “Do these garments hold any… sentimental value for you?”
“Only my cloak.” She nods toward the bed. “The rest can be washed.”
Sabina eyes them. “Yes, washed. Not burned and tossed out.”
Dru truly smiles for the first time since Ovi passed.
She clears her throat. “Do with them what you will.”
Understanding the dismissal, Sabina leaves with Dru’s clothes, shutting the door softly behind her .
Dru sinks back down into the bath before the water can grow cold. She closes her eyes and Ovi’s face immediately shows itself to her.
Instead of sadness holding her captive, a look of content graces the soft lines of her face, deepening the dark green of her eyes.
Freedom . It was something Ovi always wanted but knew she could never attain in this life.
And so, she found it in death. Tears slice down Dru’s cheeks, salty and hot, stinging inside the wound on her cheek.
Dru has been prepared to die since before her oaths, never considering the deaths of others. Her own inevitable demise doesn’t bother her, but to find herself adrift now without Ovi…
The loneliness grips her throat, threatening to suffocate her.
One thing she learned early on from her mother: none but the living can mourn the dead.
And yet she fully believed death would come for her first. Not that she wished for Ovi to mourn her, but she never expected to have to go on without her best friend.
She hasn’t felt this pain since her mother died—a pain she never wanted to relive again.
Love begets loss. A common saying of the Faithless she hasn’t taken seriously until now.
Before getting out, she takes the scraper Sabina left, brushing it against her skin with enough pressure that the caked-on dirt tumbles into the bathwater.
Body scrubbed raw, she steps out of the bath and grabs a linen to dry off. She blots one of the smaller linens with the oil-ash concoction inside the flask, taking her time to rub it nearly everywhere except her face. She puts some in her hands and runs it through her hair, untangling the knots.
Once that’s done, she pulls out the large cork on the jar and gently brushes the thick salve over the wound on her cheek. The smell of bitter earth, strong florals, and what she can only describe as apple peel tingle inside her nose.
Letting her wet hair dry freely, she finds new undergarments and a training-appropriate tunic in the trunk at the foot of the bed. Lastly, she dips her sandals in the water to remove some of the dirt before lacing them up again.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she waits for Sabina to return.
But enough time passes for her to become restless. And when no one checks on her, she decides she’s done waiting.
Opening the door, she doesn’t find Sabina anywhere. And when no one else comes by, she walks the opposite way down the hall, making her way toward the main entrance without running into a single soul.
Outside the palace walls, she shuts the front doors behind her.
The guards stationed at the columns out front take little note of her presence.
Beyond them, the sun bathes the land in a deep golden light, darkening the leaves of the olive trees in the distance and warming the rolling hillsides.
The twittering of sparrows and goldfinches disguises her footfalls as she sneaks off to the right.
Rounding the column at the corner of the palace, a sloping dirt path appears between the edge of the cliff and the mulberry trees bordering its wall.
Curious, she starts down it, quickly finding herself on a flat, ample ledge hidden behind the rockface.
Rows of garden boxes fill the available space?—