Then Zhasna pulls me to a floor cushion across from Uma and Dunya. I learn Zhasna is older than me by two years, with a sweet voice, and more forthcoming than her cold mother. She’s shorter, rounder and healthier than me, with light brown eyes like brewed cinnamon-bark tea.
‘Peace,’ Dunya says to Uma and me. ‘We break fast here every eventide and dawn.’
Despite my nerves, my eyes widen at the delicacies arranged on the circular tables. Servants carry brass trays and long meat skewers. There are mounds of ghee-greased mutton sprinkled with rose petals and crumbled pistachio, and blue-patterned ceramic bowls of steaming pilaf, the rice spiced with saffron and turmeric and lamb yakhni broth, garnished in bursting apricots and fat, oozing sultanas.
Baskets upon baskets of long, ribbed crescent-shaped flatbread the length of my torso, dusted in black and white sesame seeds, are placed on woven reed mats. I touch the braided wheat on the edge... the lines resembles feathers. And at the centre of the flatbread, a stamp of a firelotus carved by rooster quill, unlike the rounder flatbreads we’d traded for in the Camel Road. Servants follow it with tall copper saucers steaming with green tea.
Zhasna places before me a small plate which smells like medicinal apricot seed and bitter berries. Then Dunya heaps slivers of the mutton kebab, rice and a red stinging buttery sauce on to my plate, along with the crescent-shaped flatbread.
‘Is all of this for me?’ I say, thinking it impossible.
Dunya smirks. ‘Your kind was reduced to what they hunted or traded for. In Azadniabad, we’ve the bounties of our prefectures. The capital imports its mares and lamb from the shepherds of the steppes. The flatbread is from here, the breadbasket of our empire. The western wetlands grow our rice.’
I hardly pay attention to her long-winded answer as I tear off a piece of bread, ghee melting into my hand. I pray and blow thrice on the bread and pass it forward to Uma. But Zhasna grabs my hand as other clansmen begin to stare.
‘This is not your tribe in Tezmi’a anymore,’ Zhasna says quietly. ‘My uma told me of your strange traditions out there, high up the mountains.You bless the food thrice and pass it forward to your kin. And you eat seated before the hearth.’
My lips break into a smile, hearing Zhasna describe the familiar customs. She meets my eye, and her gaze softens. Her next words are hesitant. ‘Here, we allow the eldest mother to eat the first bite, as a sign of respect.Wedo not break the bread first.’
‘Why?’
‘We follow the crane’s ways. Once, the bird clans – like humanity -nested in solitude. Then the Heavenly Crane called other cranes into families of circles under their Bird King. Even in battle, the cranes, the most graceful of birds, attack in intricate circle manoeuvres. So we learn from them: we eat and drink, together in a circle with other clans.’
‘All of this is... confusing,’ I admit only for her ears.
Something wavers on her face. ‘It must be,’ she agrees. But behind her, there is a dark expression in Dunya as she watches our exchange. Like an omen.
At each table, the eldest women break the flatbread with a short prayer. Even at the emperor’s circle, surrounded by his officers, he awaits an old-looking crone, more ancient-appearing than even the spirits of Babshah’s tales.
After Dunya breaks the fast in our circle, people begin conversing and eating. I stare at the excess of food on my plate. ‘This is too much.’
‘It’s all for you.’ Again a hesitation in Zhasna’s expression.Something is wrong, my instincts heckle.
Across from me, Uma wraps a flatbread around a shaved sliver of mutton, and dips it into the shared sauce bowl. She holds it out for me. But Zhasna swipes it away.
‘Mmmm, there is nothing tastier than what an uma hand feeds us, right?’ She winks.
‘She does not need her uma’s hand to thrive,’ Dunya interjects, biting into a thick hunk of kebab. ‘Eat, child.’
It sounds like an order. I clench my jaw and scoop the raisins and meat into the bread. Just as I am about to bite into it, Zhasna bats the food from my hand and it spills across the table.
‘Zhasna!’ Dunya scolds, glaring at her daughter. ‘Eat,’ she repeats to me.
This time, I scoop the food fast, chew and swallow. Zhasna does not meet my eyes, though an uneasy expression crosses her face.
‘How do you like our food?’ Dunya asks.
‘Good, Second-Uma.’ It is finer, less greasy than what I’m used to in the grasslands. After a moment, my heart races and I double over.
‘But you look unwell,’ Dunya presses.
My stomach turns again but I wash it down with piping tea. The nausea does not subside. Bile floods my throat but I swallow that down as well. My heart kicks up faster and faster like a restless horse.
I stand hastily, the room swaying. My palpitating heart, the urge to vomit my stomach’s contents, the black dotting my vision, the muscles in my torso spasming...
I turn to discover Dunya staring baldly like a hawk. Zhasna leans against her, eyes blank. Though we’ve dined from the same trays of food.
The truth scratches at me.It’s my plate, I weakly piece together. The poison must have been swiped across my plate before Zhasna placed it in front of me.
