Read Online The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1) by Marc Secchia - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marc Secchia
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wineskins. A pot-bellied wineskin. You know, Mama has been telling me about how useful the baobab is in medicine.”
“ In which case, let’s keep it.”
“It’s dead, you silly . Anyway. Will you help me select fabrics for the King’s room, and my clothing, and some curtains…? And then we’ll see what nice cosmetics he has–I’m all out of kohl for starters. And lipstick.”
“I suppose someone has to empty the King’s treasury, right?”
“Whatever do you mean?” The Princess stamped her foot in a fit of outrage so fake that Shioni had to laugh.
“I mean, there’s a reason the traders come all the way from Takazze to find you, isn’t there? And it’s not to take in the cool mountain air. It’s the jingle in your purse.”
“Huh! I am the Princess of West Sheba after all.” Her shoulders slumped. “So I have to set fashion trends, or what would all those women in Court do with their days? I’m so glad we left behind all those tailors and hairdressers, perfumers and stylists…”
“You love the fuss, really.”
“I love a good scroll, that’s what I love. Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I need to have my hair done like a proper Princess. Apparently–” she kicked a stone off the path, “–I have ‘let myself go’ since we came to the castle.”
“Oh , Anni.”
“Nothing I do is ever good enough for him, Shioni! Nothing–I’m a girl. He always wanted another boy, and that’s that. It’s my fault.”
“Your fault?” Shioni knew little about the Queen, except that she had passed away when Annakiya was four and nobody talked about it. How could her death be Annakiya’s fault? “But your mother–”
“No t my mother!” Annakiya shot back. “Don’t you know anything? I mean the signs of my birth. The wise women told Father I was a boy-child. When a girl arrived, he went mad, absolutely mad. Everyone agrees–a girl is very unlucky.”
“If you believe those things, Anni,” she said earnestly.
The Princess stormed off several steps, then turned to shout, “You know the only reason the King bought you? Because my mother died! You’re just a stupid slave!”
Shioni looked up at the sky . Had lightning just struck from that unblemished expanse, she would have been no less shocked. The accusation that she had been purchased just to provide Annakiya with a distraction–a toy, even–after her mother’s death should have hurt more, she felt. Or would the pain come later? Stupid slave. She’d been called worse. But not by someone who called her ‘friend’, nor with such venom.
Annakiya blamed her mother’s death on her unlucky birth, she realised. Boys were valued above girls in Sheba. So much so, that many of the slave-girls she worked with shared similar stories of being abandoned after birth. But not many had been bought as toys for Princesses.
The Princess had a father.
So was it better to have a father who treated you as worthless, or none at all?
Shioni hurried after Princess Annakiya . She would need someone to hold her purchases–a piece of living chattel to hold her chattels. There, cupped in a perfect nutshell, was her gloriously weird slave’s life.
C hapter 10: Famous, What?
“A h, the famous Shioni,” said the Archivist, peering short-sightedly at her. “Step into the light, my child.”
Shioni stepped forward, feeling a little shy in his presence. The man’s hair was pure white, his eyes deep but twinkling in welcome, and when he smiled his cheeks seemed to develop so many deep creases that the corners of his mouth fairly vanished from sight. He was gorgeously dressed, like the other priests and deacons who had paraded up to the castle for the occasion of the King’s birthday, and–she scrunched up her nose–he fairly reeked of frankincense.
“Shioni, personal slave to Princess Annakiya,” he said, consulting the scroll in front of him, “of foreign birth, purchased for one talent of pure silver, no less, at five years of
“ In which case, let’s keep it.”
“It’s dead, you silly . Anyway. Will you help me select fabrics for the King’s room, and my clothing, and some curtains…? And then we’ll see what nice cosmetics he has–I’m all out of kohl for starters. And lipstick.”
“I suppose someone has to empty the King’s treasury, right?”
“Whatever do you mean?” The Princess stamped her foot in a fit of outrage so fake that Shioni had to laugh.
“I mean, there’s a reason the traders come all the way from Takazze to find you, isn’t there? And it’s not to take in the cool mountain air. It’s the jingle in your purse.”
“Huh! I am the Princess of West Sheba after all.” Her shoulders slumped. “So I have to set fashion trends, or what would all those women in Court do with their days? I’m so glad we left behind all those tailors and hairdressers, perfumers and stylists…”
“You love the fuss, really.”
“I love a good scroll, that’s what I love. Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I need to have my hair done like a proper Princess. Apparently–” she kicked a stone off the path, “–I have ‘let myself go’ since we came to the castle.”
“Oh , Anni.”
“Nothing I do is ever good enough for him, Shioni! Nothing–I’m a girl. He always wanted another boy, and that’s that. It’s my fault.”
“Your fault?” Shioni knew little about the Queen, except that she had passed away when Annakiya was four and nobody talked about it. How could her death be Annakiya’s fault? “But your mother–”
“No t my mother!” Annakiya shot back. “Don’t you know anything? I mean the signs of my birth. The wise women told Father I was a boy-child. When a girl arrived, he went mad, absolutely mad. Everyone agrees–a girl is very unlucky.”
“If you believe those things, Anni,” she said earnestly.
The Princess stormed off several steps, then turned to shout, “You know the only reason the King bought you? Because my mother died! You’re just a stupid slave!”
Shioni looked up at the sky . Had lightning just struck from that unblemished expanse, she would have been no less shocked. The accusation that she had been purchased just to provide Annakiya with a distraction–a toy, even–after her mother’s death should have hurt more, she felt. Or would the pain come later? Stupid slave. She’d been called worse. But not by someone who called her ‘friend’, nor with such venom.
Annakiya blamed her mother’s death on her unlucky birth, she realised. Boys were valued above girls in Sheba. So much so, that many of the slave-girls she worked with shared similar stories of being abandoned after birth. But not many had been bought as toys for Princesses.
The Princess had a father.
So was it better to have a father who treated you as worthless, or none at all?
Shioni hurried after Princess Annakiya . She would need someone to hold her purchases–a piece of living chattel to hold her chattels. There, cupped in a perfect nutshell, was her gloriously weird slave’s life.
C hapter 10: Famous, What?
“A h, the famous Shioni,” said the Archivist, peering short-sightedly at her. “Step into the light, my child.”
Shioni stepped forward, feeling a little shy in his presence. The man’s hair was pure white, his eyes deep but twinkling in welcome, and when he smiled his cheeks seemed to develop so many deep creases that the corners of his mouth fairly vanished from sight. He was gorgeously dressed, like the other priests and deacons who had paraded up to the castle for the occasion of the King’s birthday, and–she scrunched up her nose–he fairly reeked of frankincense.
“Shioni, personal slave to Princess Annakiya,” he said, consulting the scroll in front of him, “of foreign birth, purchased for one talent of pure silver, no less, at five years of
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