As Arn had predicted, passing time was all they did in Quenden’s compound. He trained—as instructed—and he waited for the merchant known as Crar to arrive—as he had been ordered. Ships came and went, though only a sliver of the sea was visible from their position inland of Starath. The besieged city smouldered as usual, though sightings of its townspeople drew even more occasional. Arn, still learning the language of the army as quickly as he could, wondered if the people inside spoke a similar tongue, one more familiar to his own speech, or a dialect yet stranger.
Gamden became like a shadow to Arn. He was always there, lurking on the edge of Arn’s anxious sight, acting like another man and not Arn’s unravelled mind. When they passed one another in the yard or spotted one another at the meal tables behind the estate, Arn would look away and try to pretend he had seen nothing.
More prevalent than Gamden were Arn’s descents into the dreamworld. Once, after taking a glancing blow to his ribs during training, Arn had fallen to one knee, and had blinked, and had found himself staring down into a crooked ocean plane where shadow gulls as large as clouds spiralled, while men with glowing red brands lurked in the fuzzy darkness beneath them. His nights were fitful, and he awoke exhausted.
One day, he slumped down in a seat with a small bread bun and two of the yellow curved fruit called bananas. He was spent and felt he could barely hold his head up. That was how Massema had startled him.
“Good morning, Arn.” She was already sitting across from him, already half done a similar serving of bread. Her hair was braided with a few beads this morning, perhaps as a reward for some task done above expectation. Her hair always had a little frizz to it, but it was as purely brown as her night skin. Arn was accustomed to the various complexions of these people beyond Razaad, but he remembered his confusion when first seeing them on the beach. He smiled, and Massema smiled back. “How did you sleep?” she asked, casually.
“As well as I do,” Arn answered. He didn’t know the word for “ever” in their language. He pulled at the thick bread with his teeth and chewed satisfactorily.
Massema rubbed her left shoulder through her dark blue shirt. “One of the labourers woke up early,” she explained. “I feel tired already.”
Arn nodded. For a moment, they ate quietly. In his mind, Arn relived a brief exchange he had had with her—the only one since questioning the truth of her existence. He had seen her speaking with Nevo, the guard captain, and had added a question of his own to force both to answer. He had wanted to determine if Massema was real, and he was as certain Nevo was as he was certain that anything after Razaad was. Massema had seen right through his subtle test and had assured him of her genuineness—with Nevo adding a chuckle and then affirmation that he saw her, too.
“What?” Massema asked, lowering her half-eaten bun. She could see his recollections played out, too. Of all the slaves in Quenden’s employ, she might have been the smartest.
“You knew about Gamden,” he said, quietly. “When I spoke to you that night, after we fought, and you told me that Gamden was right—that I didn’t need to fight for Quenden—you knew I had not been talking to anyone else.”
Massema set her bread down on the table, and lowered her arms below to regard Arn earnestly and without distraction. “I did,” she said. “When I learned about your… condition, I thought it cruel that the pirates and the guards and even Master Quenden had kept it from you.”
Arn blinked. He had not even considered that. He was too busy wrestling with his own lunacy.
“I almost told you right away,” the kind woman said. “But I decided it might do more harm to you than good.”
Arn looked at her quietly. Her expression struggled through hopefulness and into uncertainty, like she was asking for his approval or forgiveness. Arn saw how much she wanted to be a friend to him, so he said, “It probably would have. It has been difficult.” It probably was the truth.
“Good,” she said softly. After a minute, she picked up her bread again.
Arn opened one of the bananas and took a bite. The soft fruit filled his mouth with flavour. After a moment, he asked, “What are the spots here?” He pointed at his eyebrow.
Massema looked at him confused for a moment, then smiled. She touched her own eyebrow, where four small dots marked the skin like tiny scars or bites. “Jewellery,” she said, after a moment of searching for the right words. “The skin is pierced, and little decorations are put through. Women of my culture—and several others—use it as style. It’s not always here; sometimes it’s the nose, belly, mouth, other places, too….” She laughed.
Arn blinked. He had learned the word, “Jewellery,” when he first saw someone with metal poking from their ear. His superstitions of the material were ebbing as he realized just how commonplace it was in this land, but it still made him uneasy. He thought of Massema’s friendly face decorated with metal or colourful stones and it made him nervous. “What happened to them?” Arn asked.
She lowered her bread once more. “When I was an intak, I was taken as a slave. They took these piercings and my others then.”
Arn nodded solemnly. Then he asked, “What is an ‘intak’?”
“Someone who is older than a child, but younger than an adult,” Massema explained and returned to eating.
Gamden came around the corner of Quenden’s house and headed toward the serving window of the kitchen. Arn lowered his head into one hand.
“You see him?” Massema asked, reaching over to touch his arm.
Arn flinched when she touched him, and jerked back from her. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. “I do,” he said, quietly.
“He’s not there,” Massema said, looking across the tables at the other slaves. “Just focus on me.” She looked at him with big brown eyes and a sure smile.
So Arn did. Not just then, but the next morning also, and the one after that. If he had to wait for Crar the Merchant and Quenden’s plans, he could at least pass the time by talking with one real person. It made the dreamworld and the long hours of training a little more bearable.