The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

short the conversation. “Forgive me, Mina, but I cannot remember what we do from here.”

Mina dips her head. “We change, zayyida, and then proceed into the bathing rooms.” She glances once through the gathered women, and then adds, “Perhaps Veria Havila might serve as a better guide for your first experience in the baths? If she would so honor us?”

Havila steps forward from where she stands beside a bench, her cane tapping on the tiles. She’s already undressed and wrapped in towels, the wrinkled skin of her arms sagging. The foreign queen stares with faintly restrained horror at the picture presented by this most formidable matriarch of the court.

Havila offers Alyrra a slight curtsy, made deeper by the dip of her head. “It would be my honor, zayyida, to accompany you and your mother through the day.”

Relief courses through me. Havila may not equal the foreign queen in rank, but she no doubt will know how to handle her. And, judging from the looks Mina is receiving, a good number of the women present approve of her inviting in an elder to create a buffer for the princess.

The bath attendants finally descend upon Alyrra and her mother as Havila explains to them what to expect. I retreat with Mina by my side, Jasmine and Zaria moving to a different bench. Our own bath attendants appear to accept our clothes and hand us towels in return. Mina steps out of her shoes and slides off her skirt, and Jasmine and Zaria do the same. I grip my skirt, as if I could take that off and leave my feet covered. I really don’t want to take off my slippers. While I’ve gone to public baths a thousand times before, it was always with my family, among women who had known me my whole life. Exposing my foot here is different.

“Your slippers,” my attendant says patiently.

Gritting my teeth, I slide out my feet, ignoring her hiss of shock, and pass the slippers to her. She takes them gingerly. I turn my back on her and finish undressing. My turned foot may feel better, but it’s still pink and covered with the remains of blisters. There’s nothing to be done but hope no one looks down. It’s a stupid, pointless hope, but I find that I can occasionally be quite good at those.

But it isn’t my foot that draws attention in the changing room; it is Alyrra—or her scars, to be exact. I knew she had a few, a pale curving scar over her knuckles, and another thin scar on her right arm, but as she undresses, three, four, five more come to light. These are not the small scars of nicks and scratches; each of these bears witness to a larger accident in its own right . . . or not an accident at all. I press one hand against my bruised cheek and look away. This is all wrong.

But no one says a word; whatever story is written on Alyrra’s body, she is a princess and that is a question even Havila won’t ask. Instead, the older noblewoman leads the party into the main room, where an actual pool of faintly mineral-scented water waits, steam rising from its surface. Our own bathhouse in Sheltershorn contains a room of benches with buckets to be filled with heated water, and drains in the floor to take away the water.

Melly finds me and, after a quick embrace, points out where a few older women are gathered to one side. “They can’t manage the steps, so there are buckets there. You can use them as well, if you’d like.”

Rather than plunge my foot in the near-scalding water of the pool? “Thank you,” I say with undisguised gratitude, and go off to join the women. Havila remains by the large pool, a servant hurrying to bring her a stool, and there she sits while an attendant washes her down, chatting with the foreign queen who cannot quite bring herself to enter the pool and eventually calls for her own stool.

The rhythm of the bath, though more elaborate, is familiar to me: bathing, scrubbing our skin raw with goat-hair mitts and black soap, entering the steam room with its heated stones, and then a massage—though here, there are attendants to massage us, and no one trades massages with their friends, just as no one has to scrub themselves. But, like home, this is a social time, a time to catch up and reminisce and share stories.

And, like home, there are all different types of bodies here, tall and short, thick and thin, though palace folk tend toward more curves.

“You’ve such strong muscles!” my attendant tells me, drawing a couple of amused looks, but beyond that, I feel strangely comfortable here. After all, there is Havila with her cane, laughing and demanding joking tribute and ordering the court around her, Alyrra tucked safely beneath her wing, and the foreign queen beside them, her expression reserved but not contemptuous.

Yes, I realize with some surprise. That is what has put me at ease: Havila, strong and capable and granting no concession to those who might see her weak knee as a vulnerability. She owns her body even here, where all can see it, and I find myself in awe of her.

I close my eyes as my attendant applies a thin clay mask to my face, and try to imagine not caring what others think of me—to be so sure of my power and place that I can demand others’ respect and ignore those who do not grant it. But I am not Havila. I will never be a noblewoman of her rank or stature. And my deformity came at birth, not with age.

“Try to relax,” my attendant says, laying a hand on my shoulder.

I nod and rest my head against the warmed stone I lie upon. But my body tightens again, as if anger were a thing I am used to cradling within me. I can’t seem to find a way to lay