Rain Washes Off All the Other Colors by Tethys Resort

Flights

For the Queens of the Quill Challenge

The Music

By Mirabai

My friend, the stain of the Great Dancer has penetrated my body.

I drank the cup of music, and I am hopelessly drunk.

Moreover I stay drunk, no matter what I do to become sober.

Rana, who disapproves, gave me one basket with a snake in it.

Mira folded the snake around her neck, it was a lover's necklace, lovely!

Rana's next gift was poison: 'This is something for you, Mira.'

She repeated the Holy Name in her chest, and drank it, it was good!

Every name He has is praise; that's the cup I like to drink, and only that.

'The Great Dancer is my husband,' Mira says, 'rain washes off all the other colors.'

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14327827-The-Music-by-Mirabai

English version by Robert Bly

Read Flights

“Geil.”  Her mother spoke quietly, sitting under the mango tree on a blanket.  “I will not see you again except in dreams.”

Geil nodded.  It was a long way from the Villa in the City of Spices to the House of the North King next to the Sea, and her mother faded a little more with each passing year.  Faster and faster now.  “Mother.”  Her eyes filled with tears that she let fall, landing with tiny plops on her crossed legs. 

“Be brave.  Do not forget who you are: Nâluphel, proud princess of lost Numenor.”  Her mother’s eyes met hers, the same clear gray, and she sighed sadly.  “It may be that the North King will grow to love you as your father loves me, bless you with children.  Maybe even as one of the Faithful recognize you as one of the Hidden.  But of all my children, I have dreamed of you alone on the Sea…” 

“I will try to be brave.  I love you Mother.”

Her mother’s hand was cool as it swept across her cheek and then pulled her into a tight hug.  They lay together crying as the sun set over the hills she would cross tomorrow.

***

Osgiliath was better. 

A trade town on a river, like the City of Spices.  Unlike the City of Spices, tall stone with tiny gardens.  Away from the Sea and the nightmares it provoked.  She did not have her mother’s gift, to dream the future but she had hated Pelagir.  The court had been full of women who mocked her halting, accented Sindarin and Westron.  The docks and bay had smelled of dead and dying fish: the smell of industry they had assured her. 

The City of Spices had been at the cross roads of the great Trade Road east and the rivers.  There had been fishing there too, but she did not remember the docks, boats, or market ever smelling like they had been left to rot. 

Worst of all had been the gulls, ever mourning with their cries over the city. 

Still, she might have learned to live there if it had not been for the King of the North. 

She had expected him to lie with her at least a few times, enough to bear him children.  She thought that was why she was in the trade agreement.  Instead he had waited the customary three years, and then quietly but summarily told her to move. 

Somewhere, anywhere. 

Just not the bedroom next to his.  Whose adjoining door he had never opened.  The door he had always left locked.

He had probably not expected her to move quite so far.

Geil laughed as she spun through the empty hallway, feeling free.  There were servants, even now she could hear them in the other side of the mansion unpacking and opening the rooms.  But here she was Queen and ruler and Lady of the House.  Here there would be no one to tell her not to wear the colors of the Lady of Pity or “misunderstand” her requests to stop bedecking her with too much jewelry; like a concubine instead of a wife.  There would be no questions, or sidelong looks speculating why she was not yet pregnant with an heir. 

This mansion could be like the women’s quarters of the Villa, if she wished. 

One of the noblewomen from one of the ruling families of Osgiliath stepped into the hallway.  “Your Highness?”  The noblewoman curtsied, dipping low in obvious embarrassment.  “I am very sorry, but your private rooms have vermin.  They’ll need to be removed before we can finish unpacking.”

“Vermin?”  Geil visualized the scorpions, spiders and little jumping rats common to the City of Spices.  Surely not.  Perhaps the large rats of the waterfront in Pelagir?  Or the gulls, who had at one point nested on a cornice across the courtyard from her bedroom and driven her half-crazy with their croaking? 

The noblewoman looked at her hands.  “A nest of cats.”  Her nose wrinkled and her lip tucked up.  “They are under one of the big wardrobes and we’ll need to get some of the porters to move it to get them out.”

Cats?  Brushing aside the irrelevant thought that she didn’t know the word for a group of cats, but she was certain “nest” wasn’t it, she said, “Cats?  Are vermin?”

The noblewoman frowned back.  “Yes, your Highness.”

“Do they not kill rats and mice?”

“Yes, but they get everywhere and have no loyalty.”  The noblewoman sniffed delicately as she got into her subject.  “They do not obey commands and go where they please.  They break things and carry fleas and other pests into homes.”

Idly Geil wondered if the people of Gondor had ever heard of fleabane. 

“There are sayings, you know?” 

Geil looked blankly at the noblewoman.  “The three blessings of a housekeeper are cats, incense, and a broom?”  That was the only one she knew about cats.

The noblewoman looked aghast.  “No!  ‘Having a cat’s loyalty.’ Or ‘disobedient as a cat’.”

There was a yowl from down the hall and Geil stomped off toward her new bedroom.  One of the servants was trying to poke the cats out from under the large wardrobe with a broom handle, swishing the stick back and forth with vigor. 

There were thumps as the broom connected with bodies under the furniture.

“Stop!”  The room froze, except for the sound of an angry cat.  And below that, the pitiful and terrified noises of kittens.  In a sudden fury, Geil stomped over to the servant and yanked the broom out of unresisting hands.  She threw it to the floor.

“But your Highness,” the noblewoman had followed her into the room, “we need to remove the cats.”

Geil whirled back and snarled, “People who abuse animals are cursed by the Gods.”  She looked at the servant.  “Get out of my sight.” 

He fled. 

She turned back to the noblewoman.  “Do you treat all your faithful animals this way?  Do you also mistreat your dogs and horses when they do not obey your wishes?”  The noblewoman cringed at her tone but Geil continued fiercer yet.  “These cats are now mine.  Harm them and I will see that the curses of the Gods come to rest where they are deserved.”  She took a deep breath, grasping for patience.  “Now.  Have my possessions brought in and put away, I shall deal with the cats.”

The noblewoman fled.  Geil could hear her barking orders at the servants, to hurry with the boxes.

Geil sat down on the end of the unmade bed, suddenly very tired.  She looked at the now silent wardrobe.  Yelling, threatening like that was ill done and her mother had always told her to look to her temper. 

She sat quietly while the rest of her things were brought in.  As her dresses were placed in the wardrobe.  As her one small chest of things from the City of Spices was placed at the foot of the bed.  She moved to a convenient chair as they made up the bed. 

She sat in silence as they made their skittish farewells, expecting more fury. 

She sat in silence as the servants went downstairs, into their own domain. 

Finally, as the sun went down and the stars began to appear, she whispered in Adûnaic, “It is safe now.  They are all gone.”

Silence reigned in the room.

Geil said, “Would it help if I sang a lullaby?” 

She smiled at the wardrobe and began one from childhood, one that her mother had always sung.  A lullaby, or maybe a hymn.  Telling the names of all the Gods, all the Lords and Ladies.  She had gotten to the verse about the Lord of Water, both life giving and drowning, when a pair of eyes gleamed in the shadows of the wardrobe.  The mother cat, come to see what she was doing. 

More eyes followed until they had all emerged.  One black and white mother cat, and her three black kittens. 

Geil smiled, “Why hello.”

The mother cat glanced at the changed room.  “Is this now your domain?”

Geil stared at the cat.  She had never had a cat, or any other animal, speak back.  “How is it that I hear you speak?”  In Adûnaic.  She had never had any talents such as her mother or siblings.  And she would expect cats of Osgiliath to speak Westron or Sindarin, the twinned languages of Gondor. 

The mother cat gave a slow, friendly blink.  “How do you know that I speak?  And not your own loneliness and isolation?  From what I have seen, you have no friends here.”

No friends in Pelagir either.

“Perhaps we may become friends.”  The mother cat sounded quite untroubled for a creature who had earlier been attacked with a broom. 

“Do you have a name?” 

The mother cat purred and began to wash along one hind leg, sprawled out.  “My name is my own, I will not share it.”  She nibbled at the middle of the leg.  “But you may name these ones, perhaps they will stay with you.”

***

The first time she tried it was after an exhausting afternoon of arguing with the noblewomen who had been assigned to “help her join civilized society”. 

Geil sighed.  Meeting other people, the noble families who had remained when the King moved to Pelagir, yes.  But decorating in a “civilized manner”, no.

She did not want rugs or hangings or tapestries on every wall and floor.  Despite what the women said, she understood quite well that there were no running spiders or scorpions here.  She wasn’t certain how to politely say that unless you were a merchant of ill-repute, houses should have few trinkets and baubles.  Wealth and power was displayed in well-chosen taste rotating through the seasons, not number. 

And the colors of the tapestries made her skin crawl. 

And there were the cats.  Who in their right mind would put draperies everywhere and then be surprised when cats climbed them?

Tim and Gos were sprawled into a fuzzy pile on the cushion of her armchair when she flung herself into her bedroom.  She flopped across the bed before staring across at them.  “I wish I could be a cat like you, instead of a Queen.”  Geil smiled, visualizing a life of lying in warm sunny garden nooks and chasing birds. 

Gos yawned.  “You could sneak out.”

Sneak out? 

“The cook does not come here and will not call for dinner until the sun sets.  The flower lady and the striped lady have left and will not return today.”  Gos licked at a foot, carefully washing between pink toes.  “No one will notice if you take our way out.”

Tim slithered out from under Gos.  He hopped onto the open windowsill and Geil walked to the window to watch him. 

He jumped down onto a little ledge, probably two hand spans in diameter, and walked along to the corner where her room met a storage closet.  He leaped lightly into the tree shading the corner and clambered down before looking back up.  “I will wait.”

To go out.  To be free, like she had been in the City of Spices. 

Just for a little while.

Geil flew over to her wardrobe.  The noblewoman had filled her closet up with dresses that “suited her station”.  Too tight, too colorful unless she was trying to compete with the tapestries, too expensive for day to day wear.  But she had noticed the underdresses looked like the clothing of the women she saw on the street.  And a patterned scarf, to tie back over her hair like the tradeswomen she had seen in Pelagir.  Soon enough she was stifling giggles as she tiptoed down the ledge like she had the child’s balance beam while learning to dance. 

The tree was a little harder, but still easy enough.  The mansion the garden belonged to was empty of all except a tiny upkeep staff. 

And Gondor didn’t seem to have ever heard of assassins. 

Or maybe the King hoped an assassin would fix his problematic Queen?  Geil made a mental note to set up some of the tiny noise traps her mother had taught her, and darted across the overgrown yard and out into the deserted alley that backed the other side. 

Tim strolled past her, walking out of the alley and turning the corner.

So she followed Tim, trying to look like a woman of Osgiliath. 

The roadway outside the alley was busy, full of people pulling carts.  Horses are not allowed in the upper levels of the city with their steep and dangerous streets.  Directly ahead Tim skirted a man with a barrow calling, “Fish!  Fresh fish!”  She ducked a little, trying to blend with the crowd, as the cook’s helper darted out.  But the cook’s helper only had eyes for the fish, and Geil continued onward unnoticed. 

She went all the way down to a little sheltered park at the end of the block.  Kiw sat under a spindly tree there and she rested, patting him and Tim before making her way back.  No one gave her a second glance as she walked back up the street, but she thought maybe she should have a basket or bucket next time she went out. 

 

Drought

Read Drought

Each trip took her farther and farther out into the city.  Out of the quarter of the nobility and down into the markets.  Wearing bright clothing and a scarf or ribbons in her hair she slipped through the city, invisible as any other young woman on market day.  Her cats walked with her.  Currently she could see Kiw skirting through the shadows, in and out of doorways and under stalls. 

A small dog ran up to him, and she stifled a giggle as Kiw batted him sharply in the nose without bothering to puff or hiss.  The dog fled with a yipe.

Geil continued onward as Kiw stopped to inspect an especially interesting spider web.  She had a particular goal today down in the market on the eastern side of the river. 

She paused on one of the great stair ramparts on the upper crossing, looking across at the mountains.  Minas Ithil lay that way, a white line on the horizon.  And beyond, the Cursed Land.  The Blue Ones had told them that the Lord of the World only slept, but where they did not know.  She shivered at the sudden vision of smoke over the mountains, staining the skies with poison like the old stories told. 

Geil blinked, and the skies were clear again. 

Gos rubbed against one ankle, purring hard enough that her little furry body vibrated and Geil sighed.  The Blue Ones had again come from the East as the Lord of the World began his long sleep.  They had vanished that way again, leaving only stories and a mission behind: to watch, to hold on, to be ready for the far future.

She trotted down the steps, several cats trotting in her wake.  She needs to get back before sunset and dinner.

The market was just as crowded as last time, and over in the corner behind the wrought iron fence was the sculpture seller. 

The seller was smart, he had set up his shop as a picnic area, with trees and stone benches and sculpture sitting among the flowers.  Geil easily walked in, sitting down in the shade and admiring the sculptures she had noticed last time. 

The Lord of the Wind, in his guise of a violent gale.  Both destroyer and bringer of rains.  The sculpture of the Lady of Pity.  Her lady.  As a jagged maze of grief and beauty, spiraling toward the sky in supplication.  Pure beauty, and very much unlike most sculptures in the garden.  Obviously new arrivals, by the way they sat unsettled in their garden bed with a fresh chalk price written on their smooth black stone. 

Geil smiled, she would send a messenger down to the city when she got home tonight and purchase the sculptures for her garden.  She could afford them on her household budget and such a talent as this sculptor possessed deserved to be rewarded. 

From behind her, Gos said, “Look what I found.”

As Geil went back out of the sculpture sellers and off to the bakery with the blue curtains for the treat of a nut roll, the skinny black kitten lay quiet in her basket next to her coin purse. 

Sil.  She would name the new one Sil. 

***

“They say Denor from the boat docks ran off with a girl.  Went to Pelagir for their fortunes.”  The man sounded certain as he leaned on the table of pots and pans. 

The seller next to him made a gurgle at the back of his throat that Geil thought probably meant disagreement but sounded as though he had an infection of the lungs.  “And I heard tell that Denor heard the tax man coming and went north along the river for his health.”

Geil made her selection of candied oranges in silence and passed over the coin.  Even now, her accent is too strong to risk talking if she can help it. 

The little dried fish that the cats liked as treats were next.  Those sellers didn’t even look in her direction as she picked out grass ribbons of the fish, braided in to dry. 

But those sellers were having a much more interesting conversation and she lingered over her selections.

“Down at the pub, the river runners were saying the King has a lover.”  The man sounded certain and Geil froze.  A concubine? 

Geil suspected from the way he had never come to her rooms that she had not been attractive to him.  Or maybe suffered from some malady that prevented his visits.

She visualized an exotic blond woman.  Or maybe silvery hair like the legends said the forest elves had.  Well, maybe that woman would have better luck bearing heirs the old king needed.  A concubine was no threat to a Queen, and a lover no threat to a wife who did not love her husband.

The other man humphed, breaking her train of thought.  “Well, well.  Went back to that Belfalas knight he was so fond of?” 

“Hush, you know those cats are always listening.  Do you want to be the one to tell That One the King is cheating on her?”

Geil lost their next words as she tried to suppress the surprised snort.  A knight from Belfalas?  That he went back to?  She paid for her fish, passing over money onto their tray as they moved on to arguing the merits of this season’s beer. 

Listening at the blue curtained bakery, two of the customers in line in front of her were also discussing the King’s new lover.  This time they assumed that the lover was a female from the far north, with long gold hair.  Very romantic. 

She tried not to laugh as she walked on. 

Most of the news she overheard was much more ominous.  The rains had not fallen early enough for the wheat crop, then it had hailed rather than raining.  What little wheat had sprouted had been crushed and the farmers left trying to purchase grain on credit to sow a late crop and hope that an early freeze didn’t take the crop again. 

She had another meeting with the ruling families tomorrow.  She would have to try and convince them to lower taxes or provide some other sort of relief.  Without some sort of special care Osgiliath would suffer. 

***

Geil followed the anxious cats outside, and then followed the tiny mewls of terror.  Hidden by the dark, the white kitten sat in the shadows of the sculptures and the garden wall.  The plants had died as the rains had failed to come for a third year and the sculptures were the only hiding place left. 

She knelt down and stared behind the Lord of the Hunters sculpture.  The kitten hissed and she smiled at its spirit and whispered, “Whose colors do you wear?  The Lady of Pity?  The Lord of the Wind?”

The kitten whispered back, “The Lady guarding the night.”

She reached out slowly, the kitten nudged her fingers and she smiled as it rubbed down her hand.  “The Guardian Lady?  How lucky.” 

She sat down between last year’s dry leaves and scooped the now pliant kitten into her lap.  It…No, she, curled up against her thigh, warm and trusting.  “I shall name you El then.  Did you know that one of the Blue Ones was from the Guardian Lady?”

“He was?”  Sil and Kiw sat nearby, legs folded in cat comfort, enjoying the dark. 

Geil smiled at them.  This was one of her favorite stories, and her mother had told it over and over when she was a child.  She took a deep breath, “Long ago, it is said.  Long ago before Numenor sank beneath the Sea for the sins of its Kings, the Blue Ones walked out of the wilderness and into the Known lands.  Both wore blue.  One the light blue of the Lord of the Wind, the other the deepest darkest indigo of the Guardian Lady.”

“Some say the Blue Ones came to help us change.  Cast off the name of Cowards and become the Hidden.  The ones who would carry the stories onward when all else failed.  Some say the Blue Ones came to help us, to save us, and that is why the hiding houses to protect those that need protecting are always marked in blue.  Some say the Blue Ones came to fight in the war between the Gods, to try and stop the Lord of the World.”

She glanced around, more cats had joined them and she smiled. 

“There are many stories, because the Blue Ones are forever traveling and forever trying.  But this story is a tiny story.  A story of a pair of cats, El and Bar.”

She smiled down at the kitten.  “Now El was a white cat, with quick feet and a long tail.  Bar was a black cat with long fluffy fur and a brush of a tail like Gos.  They lived in a tiny village in the North, almost as far North as the dark mountains where the Lord of the World lived.  This was important you see, because one day-“

“Your Highness,” it was the cook’s daughter, “did you need help?  Is something wrong?” 

Geil smiled at the girl.  She was only a handful of years younger than Geil had been when she had been married away.  Did the women of Gondor marry as young as the royal families of Umbar and Harad?  Or at true womanhood as the women of the City of Spices married?  As mistress of the household she should inquire and discover if she would be expected to help negotiate marriage contracts. 

For tonight though, she waved the half given offer of assistance away.  “I was telling stories to my cats.  I can translate them to Westron, if you want to come and listen?”

The girl’s face was pale in the darkness, and she took a step backward.  “No, no.  I have chores your Highness.  If you would excuse me please, I have chores.”  She almost bolted into the mansion. 

Somehow Geil wasn’t surprised when a few weeks later she heard the vegetable seller and the cheese merchant gossiping that she practiced magic, torturing her cats and sending them out to do her bidding.  Silly child.  Stupid fools. 

As if even with magic you could force a cat to your will.

And maybe she was a stupid fool as well, because what came next was still a surprise. 

It was a fine summer day in a season that the market sellers were telling each other was one of the hottest in memory.  She had not seen the cats for a little while, working at her desk and trying to compose yet another letter to her husband the King, informing him of the continuing drought and the need to start plans in case of famine.  Despite her pleas and conversations, the noble families of Osgiliath assumed that the weather would simply revert to its normal patterns at any moment. 

She looked out into the courtyard as she went to fetch herself a glass of cooled tea and perhaps some cookies as a snack.  Mis walked past the window, carrying a little fish in his mouth.  He said, “Treats were left today, more than we can all eat.”

Geil gasped, her fingers turning cold and prickles running across her scalp. 

No one would feed her cats.  Not unless they meant them harm. 

She ran to the courtyard door, running after Mis and bowling him over startled with her foot and snatching the fish away.  He yowled and fled.

She spun and ran toward the spot Mis had come from, where she could see the others gathered by the garden wall.  Geil shrieked at them, “No, bad cats!  No!  No!  No!”  She ran toward them, pulling off her slippers in her haste and throwing them.  One slipper hit Gos, causing her to drop the fish she had taken as cats fled hissing in every direction. 

Geil stared at the haphazard pile, panting.  How could you tell if any was gone?  Tears dripped down her face as she turned to Tim, hiding under a bush nearby.  “Tim?  Tell me, please.  Did anyone eat these?” 

Tim hissed.

“Please.  Please.  These are poison, they will make you sick or kill you.”  She wiped at her face.  “Did anyone take any?”

“Bet.  Bet found the fish.  She took one inside.” 

She darted back across the courtyard, slamming into the kitchen and startling the cook.  “There are fish in the garden, next to the gate wall.  Clean them up and throw them in the midden.”  The words came out harsh and cold and the cook just stared at her.  “NOW, and use the ash bucket and shovel.  They are poisoned.”  The woman fled, grabbing the hearth can and the full set of poker, tongs and shovel as she scuttled.

Geil marched into the house.  She needed to find Bet. 

She searched half the mansion before she found Bet behind the Lord of the Waters statue in the formal entrance. 

With a small fish piece. 

“Bet!  That’s poison!  No!”  How much had she eaten?  Some poisons kill fast, and some slow.  The fast were easier to detect, less likely for a cat to actually eat.  Slow would kill equally well, just with a little more cruelty.

“It is good.”  Bet licked her chops and then rubbed at her nose with one black paw. 

“It is not good!”  Geil swept up the cat, clutching her squirming to her chest and grabbing the remaining piece of fish on her way back to the kitchen.  Hopefully the kitchen would have what she needed.  How much had Bet eaten?  She smelled it; it smelled of fish but people noses were not as good as cats’. 

By that evening it was obvious that Bet, Mis and Kiw were sick.  They lay panting on her bed and she caressed them, trying not to cry.  She whispered, “Lady who guards the night, please save them.”  She hummed the lullabies her mother had sung, trying to comfort them. 

The Guardian Lady did not come.  But neither did the Lady of Pity or the Lord of Endings.

Sometime in the late hours of the night all three slowly recovered, slipping into a quiet sleep. 

Geil awoke to Bet’s purring against her cheek.  Mis was industriously cleaning her toes.  Kiw was sitting next to Gos, staring out the window toward the dark Mountains.  Mis said, “The Lady of Pity says we have many adventures to take yet.”

 

Flood

Read Flood

They confessed, the vegetable seller, the fish monger, and a man they knew from the dockside taverns.  All three of them proud of their deeds. 

And Geil hated them. 

Their crime was considered minor, they were fined and let go by the city court.  The noble families were too provoked by her pleas to reduce the taxes on the drought stricken city to listen to her rage at the attempted murder of her cats.  She occasionally wondered if the trio had been paid, provided with both poison and plans.

Geil ordered the kitchen staff to buy their food elsewhere but did not have the power to punish them more.  

And so she hated them all and cursed their names. 

Two days later the vegetable seller got drunk, bragging of his feats.  He tripped on one of the stairs in the lower quarter, and broke his neck as he landed.

The man she had not known, the one from the lower district, was a dock worker.  He died a week later.  She heard of it in the markets as she purchased some little honey cookies as a special treat for herself.  He drowned when his foot became entangled in a rope.  The docks had been slippery with the first rain in two years, the river swollen and angry with floodwaters.  His was not the only accident and drowning because of the river, but people talked the most of him.

The day after she heard of the drowning, the fish monger dropped the hook he used to move large fish and stabbed his ankle.  Also drunk, according to the cook, who brought her the news with shaking hands.  A minor injury.

But two weeks later he was missing along his route.  The muscle spasm disease claimed him slowly over the course of the next several weeks. 

The day after his death, the Lord of Osgiliath came.  “Those who abuse animals receive the curses of the Gods?” 

Geil didn’t say anything. 

What could she say?  That even if she had wanted it, she had no power to curse?  That she could not have caused the accidents?  That she had not even snuck out of the mansion in the last month and a half as the rain pounded down with a rage that resembled a curse of the Lords of the Water and Wind together? 

“Your Highness, we have decided you have insufficient company.”  The cold look grew a slight sneer.  “I suspect spell working requires privacy?”

Geil had no idea if magic, spells, or curses required privacy.  She somehow doubted it: according to the old stories, the Lord of the World had not had any problem with working magic and curses in front of all his followers in the form of miracles. 

Under the now watchful eyes of the nobles, she could not even escape from her mansion turned prison.  The mansion next door was now guarded, her attempt to simply walk out her front door forestalled by the guards the ladies brought.  The ladies who now sat in her living room, gossiping and embroidering. 

She would have enjoyed gossip and embroidery, but she moved through a cold circle of silence among them. 

She took to huddling in her bedroom, where her cats had taken refuge and only two brave souls were willing to stand guard.  Both determined older women, who sat in silence day and night and turned away when she tried to speak with them. 

Geil didn’t dare to speak to the cats in their presence; she was already accused of enough. 

Three days, and Geil was ready to start screaming at the women carefully ignoring her and yet still judging. 

A week later, it was almost a relief when the King called her into the empty drawing room, just after the cook had brought up a tasteless breakfast and the bowls of food for the cats.  “Lady Nâluphel, Black Numenorean.”

“Queen Nâluphel, your wife under law.”  She curtsied low with all the dignity she could muster, trying to use polished Sindarin, the language of the nobles.  “I would ask that you release me, husband.  You want nothing from me.  Osgiliath wants nothing from me.  I would go home.”

“The trade treaty.”  The King sounded like his speech was memorized.  “I cannot simply send you home, or execute you for your crimes.”  His eyes were cold.  “You are Berúthiel, the curse upon Osgiliath and Gondor.  Therefore you and your minions are going on a trip.  An exile if you will.”

“I have committed no crimes.”  Hope spread in her heart.  Exile would be preferable to this misery.  Somewhere quiet and far from the cage Osgiliath had become. 

He saw the hope, she thought, because his voice deepened in scorn.  “In a few minutes we shall walk down to the docks.  Your minions and spies have been drugged and are being bagged up as we speak.  Walk down, sit down in the boat and the cats will be added.  You can all sail with the currents.  Into exile.”

He leaned in, getting louder, “Resist and be carried down.  And I will drop the cats into the water and let you watch them drown before you go into exile.”

Some thread of rage broke through the numbness in her soul.  She stared up into the King’s eyes, gray and tired.  Eyes the exact shade of her own.  “Which rumor was true then?  The knight from Belfalas?  The blond woman from the North?  A long ago accident?”  She shook with rage.  “I would hope for accident.  It would be the answer with dignity.”

His hand moved so quickly she didn’t have time to flinch as it connected with her face. 

She staggered backward, staring at him.  Her face and jaw throbbed, her neck was already beginning to ache. 

He turned and without a word walked from the room, leaving her alone. 

From the silence of the mansion she could tell that all the noblewomen still gathered had witnessed their conversation.  None said anything though, and none came to ask if she was okay. 

A shuffle of fabric, the barest footstep.

She gathered herself, straightening and brushing at her dress before she turned and faced the door.  Only one hapless young woman, much younger than her, stared with the wide eyes of a girl watching a theater performance.  Geil stared back, wondering what she saw.  She hissed, “You and you alone can decide what message you take away from today.”

The girl fled.

She could hear noises upstairs.  But guards had taken the place of the girl and they stood ready with drawn swords. 

She thought of running.  She could cooperate and then break loose and flee.  But even if she managed, they would kill her cats.  And there was nowhere to run.  The blue curtained bakery would not shelter her, even if it were the blue of a place of protection and not the bakery owner’s fancy.  She thought of the women who sold wares at the counter, tough and bold.  And the women who hid behind their hair as they made bread and pastries, protected behind them, and whispered a prayer to the Lady of Pity for them. 

So when one of the older noblewomen came with her cloak, dark gray, she pulled it on and thanked her. 

She let them pat her down and take her little belt knife.

She let them tie her hands.

Geil walked out of her home into the first sunshine since the great storms had begun.

They shouted the name they had given her, Berúthiel, as she walked past the crowds.  Out of the King’s House, down the long winding road of the stone city, down to the quay.  At least the guards kept them from taking her from her path. 

The cats were in a barrow just ahead, lumps of weakly struggling canvas.  Thankfully ignored as the people of the market screamed for her blood. 

The cats were dropped into the bottom of the little boat without ceremony.  Their bodies thudded limply.  But Geil could see them breathe, frightened but steady.  Could see them struggle.  Gos mewled a complaint audible despite her position somewhere in the middle. 

Geil stepped in to join them, gathering her skirts to sit with dignity on the box in the bottom of the tiny craft. 

She stared at her tied hands.  It would be difficult to get free, but she would try with her teeth when they had drifted downstream a little. 

Up on the dock the King whispered, “Black Numenorean, I will strike your name from the Book of Kings.  Lady Berúthiel is the name you will bear forever.”  He stood straight and tall, and watched with the dignity of a King as the guards untied the boat and pushed it free into the current.  

The cats cried in distress as the boat rocked and she whispered, “Lie still.  I am here.  I am here.”

The boat drifted, slowly at first, and the people howled, “Berúthiel!” behind her. 

Geil began to hum a lullaby to the bags, waiting as the sounds of the city retreated.  She did not look back.

As soon as she was too far to be simply hauled back, she leaned over to worry at the rope knots with her teeth.  The cats would be sick and frightened.  She had to free them, to help them, to comfort them.

***

The night that they sailed past Pelagir and out of the delta into the ocean, Geil sang to her cats and they watched the stars together.  They were headed south, she thinks.  She could possibly steer the little boat with the sail, if she knew how.  They’d removed the rudder though, and sailing was not a skill she had ever cared to witness, let alone learn. 

She had managed to rip strips from her skirt and tied her cloak into a sun shade, trying to give them all a little shelter under the summer sun that now beat down as the drought returned. 

She had been given one week of food and water.  Four days if she cares for the cats.  And she will always care for her cats. 

Geil saw the distant lights of Umbar City the next night, slipping past on her left as the boat lofted ever South.  She whispered to her cats, “I am going yell.  Maybe there is a boat out here and we can be rescued.”

She tried to yell and coughed.  Bet said, “Have a sip of water.”

Geil frowned.  “It is not my turn.  I will not take what is yours.”

Kiw whispered from behind her, “One sip, and it might save us all.” 

So she had a sip, it burned in her chapped lips, and she stood to stare across the water.  She yelled, and faltered: it had never been her part to yell.  It was not the lot of a Princess of the City of Spices, nor the place of an unloved Queen. 

She took another deep breath and tried again, this time raising her voice to sing.  Singing was easier, and the lullaby she started with morphed into the story of the sinking of Numenor.  A wail rose behind her, Bet, singing along.  And another, El, at the top of her lungs next to Geil’s feet. 

The cats screamed and yowled, helping her call.  The city lights slowly slipped away until they vanished entirely just before dawn. 

No one had come.  And dawn revealed open ocean to all sides. 

Geil curled up under the little sun shade she had made and wept, the cats sitting around her for comfort.  El pushed her nose up against Geil’s, “Don’t cry.  You waste water.”

Even without crying there was no water to waste.  They lay together under the sun shade, each in their spot.  Geil petted each, stroking sides that were already growing thin and matted.  “I am so sorry.  This is my fault.”

She began to quietly sing the story songs and hymns she had been taught by her mother and the other Hidden women.  The cats settled into sick but peaceful drowsiness. 

Another day passed.

A cloudless dawn revealed only more water and Geil could only pet the cats and mutter hoarsely, “I am sorry.  I am sorry.” 

It was all Geil had left as that day passed too and that night as she portioned out the very last sips of water to each cat.  None for herself, she is bigger and will last longer, she thought.  Her nose bled and her head throbbed as she watched the stars tracing their great paths through the night sky. 

Dawn was red and orange, with dark gray looming clouds.  The pattern of the waves had changed to sharp smacks that jolted the little boat. 

Geil stared up at the clouds.  Rain would be good, she wasn’t certain how to collect the water but it would at least be water they could drink. 

The waves got higher, breaking into sharp caps of white with wind that made the ropes on the sails hum and the boat teeter back and forth.  She tied the edges of her cloak sunshade tighter, telling the cats, “Hide there, stay safe.”

The moment the rain started was the moment the boat capsized, flipped sideways as a wave rolled it over. 

Geil and the cats never surfaced, sucked downward in the storm currents. 

***

Ulmo looked at Namo, “You asked this favor.”

Namo watched the debris float away in the tapestry.  “Mercy takes many forms.”

***

The room was wide.  Tiled, with adobe walls, just like the Villa. 

Just like all the houses and mansions of the City of Spices. 

She could smell peppers and cinnamon.  Home.

Geil climbed to her feet very slowly, waiting for the headaches and cramps of dehydration to return.  They did not.

“Geil, faithful Mortal daughter.” 

She turned, and looked up into the shadowed face of the Lady behind her.  Tears ran down the Lady’s cheeks, evaporating as they fell so that none touched the floor.  She wore gray, was gray.  The Lady of Pity.  Geil’s knees folded as she began to cry.

The Lady of Pity knelt and pulled her into a hug, rocking her for a while more before pulling back a little and smiling.  “You have no greeting for your beloved friends?”

Something soft brushed her leg, bumping her ankle.  Mis.  All ten stood in a little herd, staring at her expectantly.

The Lady of Pity said, “Men must go on, but cats always get a choice.”

El said, “And we chose to go with you.”