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articles of clothing covered the floor, some stacked neatly, some carelessly scattered.
    “I am Lenya.” The younger girl, who still had the plump, chubby look of childhood, walked across the room toward the door in the back. “Do not mind Igril. She thinks we were sent here because of you. She hates servant work.”
    I followed her. The breeze finally thinned the foul air enough so I could fill my lungs. “Are we not servants?”
    “We are slaves, but we are maidens. The rest of the slaves are servants.”
    “But you still work every day?”
    “Of course.” She reached the door and pushed it open. “But we handle nicer chores than this.”
    The smell of Warrior Hall was but a weak warning compared to what waited for us outside. The stench smacked my nose like a branch in the face. Behind Warrior Hall stood the warriors’ latrines. Kumra had sent us to clean those . I could not blame Igril if she hated me forever.
    A sudden gust of wind raced around the buildings and slammed into us, making us bend at the waist as we moved forward. I envied Igril’s and Lenya’s thick wool dresses that covered them from wrist to ankle, coveted the wide strips of leather bound around their feet.
    “Count yourself lucky Kumra did not have you beaten.” Igril picked up a bucket and handed me another. “She does that sometimes to new slaves right at the beginning to make sure they know what to expect if they disobey.”
    She probably meant the words to scare me, but I was relieved that at least she was talking to me. I did not wish to make any enemies. “Do they ever?”
    She looked at me for a long moment, her face changing from annoyance to some deeper emotion. “Tahar had my brother beaten to death.”
    I felt the blood leave my head first, then the rest of my body, until even my heart felt empty.
    Lenya squeezed my arm. “That will not be your fate. I heard the servants when they first brought you in. You are a healer, too valuable. They did not even beat you.” She cocked her head. “You are a healer, are you not?”
    I knew I had to say yes—what would await me if anyone found out the truth—but my tongue refused to say the lie.
    “Of course you are. Your forehead.” She pointed. “It is already healed.”
    I reached up and brushed away what little of the beetles still clung to my skin. I always healed fast. My mother’s blood worked strong within me.
    “Kumra will gain even more favor with our Lord if she has you heal the wounded upon his return.”
    I had no mind to wait for Tahar’s return or for Kumra to discover the lack of my healing powers. She would send me to be resold on the block in a heartbeat.
    I had but one thought in my troubled mind: escape.
    * * *
    Life without freedom runs on its own time. My childhood at home had flowed without effort, measured by landmarks of one happy event after the other, or the dread of waiting for things I disliked, like cleaning the foul-smelling kukuyu weeds my mother used for sprains.
    At Maiden Hall where Kumra worked me hard from dawn to well into the night, things to look forward to had disappeared. As had hope; I watched it flutter out an open window one night. Only dread remained, but as it was ever-present, it could not serve as marker for the passing time.
    The days at Maiden Hall had neither beginning nor end, for sleep passed in the blink of an eye. I slept as soon as my worn body touched my pallet; then I heard the door bang open, and I pulled awake again as if no time had passed at all.
    Little by little, I grew familiar with the other girls and the ways of the House of Tahar. I learned that only the sons of warriors could be warriors; the children of servants would always remain slaves, although the girls became maidens for a short time.
    Daughters of warriors were given as concubines to other warriors either at their Lord’s House or at another’s. Anyone could take a servant girl, but the taking of a maiden was punishable by death, as was all