I also didn’t doubt Mariam and Ali would have told Nyla the truth if she’d just asked them. If Nyla had negotiated openly, offering them a place in her household in exchange for the gold, they would have confessed. They were honest enough, I could trust in Mariam’s offer to me. She wouldn’t go back on her word once the danger to them was past.
Nyla had created her own situation, and she would have to live with it as best she could. I had more important things to worry about.
Life was changing so rapidly, it was becoming hard to follow. But in the middle of the whirlwind of change, I couldn’t lose sight of the most important point—we were all in danger, and I had to do my part to keep us safe.
CHAPTER15
My fear kept my acting sharp throughout the following days. I didn’t hear a single whispered question or doubt from anyone. Everyone in both the household and the city appeared to believe the situation was unfolding exactly as we portrayed.
The day after my visit to the market, Nyla tearfully announced Kasim’s death to the assembled servants. The next day, he was buried. Nyla and Layla had dressed him in ornate clothing to hide his wounds. He really did look as if he could have died of some unknown fever, and for a disorienting moment, even I believed our story.
But the day after the burial, Nyla went into the traditional mourning isolation, and Ali and Mariam moved in. With their constant presence, it was impossible to forget the reality of the situation, even for a moment.
I already had much to be grateful to Mariam for, however. Without children, or any surviving family of her own, Nyla was left to isolate alone, instead of surrounded by family as she should have been. Given she was expected to keep to her suite of rooms for two full weeks, custom dictated she could choose someone to stand in as family and isolate with her. But Nyla had no true friends—certainly no one she wished to be cloistered with for any length of time.
I fully believed her spite was great enough that she would have selected me, just to give her someone to torment. But as Mariam’s new personal servant, I was no longer an option, and poor Layla bid us all a gloomy farewell for two weeks.
“I wouldn’t mind the task if she were actually grieving,” she told Yara and me. “But that woman only truly cares for herself. She’s already irritated at being expected to complete the mourning period, and she’s only going to get worse as the days drag on.”
Yara promised to send all of Nyla’s favorite dishes, as well as Layla’s, and to include as many treats as she could when the meals were left at their door.
“I don’t know how she endures it,” Yara confided in me when Layla was gone. “I couldn’t work so closely with that woman.”
Her words took me by surprise. None of Nyla’s servants were fond of her, but I had never heard the head cook speak with such open disrespect. I soon discovered the reason for her new sense of freedom, however.
Nyla’s haste in seeking to claim the gold had caused her to make a significant strategic error. Had she realized her mistake now that she had all those long hours to think? Or was she in for a shock when she emerged from her seclusion?
If Nyla had introduced Mariam and Ali to her household at any other time, I could only imagine the battles that would have resulted. But she had gone to them immediately, and they had taken her invitation at its most literal—moving in as soon as she disappeared into her mourning seclusion.
And it was clear from the moment of her arrival that Mariam intended to make full use of the opportunity inadvertently presented by Nyla. While Nyla was absent, Mariam was busily taking the reins of the household and making a great many changes according to her taste.
Given the general dislike of Nyla, the servants were all enthusiastically aiding Mariam. I strongly suspected Nyla would emerge to discover Mariam had taken her place as the true mistress of the household.
I had no doubt she would take the change extremely badly, but she had handed over the reins of the business and household finances to Navid, so she would find it very difficult to reverse matters.
I thought of Rek and Adara every day, but since we’d been the ones to ask them to keep their distance, I couldn’t be irritated with them for staying away. My heart leaped, however, when I saw invitations with the royal mark arrive. Adara hadn’t forgotten her promise.
The invitation was for four named guests: Nyla, Ali, Mariam, and Navid. But given he was unmarried, Navid was permitted to bring another guest with him, and neither Ali nor Mariam questioned his assertion that he would take me. Both of them knew of Rek’s visit to their house, so they likely suspected I was behind the invitation in the first place.
As Kasim’s brother, Ali wasn’t expected to cloister himself for two weeks, but he and Mariam couldn’t attend an event like a ball. Nyla was prohibited from going as well, of course, given she was confined to her own suite. As far as I was aware, she didn’t even know about the invitation, and by the time she heard of it, she would have plenty of other options for things to be enraged by.
I received a number of laughing comments and sly looks from the other servants when it became known Navid had invited me to the ball. But they all seemed convinced they knew the reasoning behind it, saving me the need to come up with an explanation.
“You’ve been friends for a long time,” Yara told me, with a twinkle in her eye. “I’m glad to see you’re making the most of the situation. Maybe we’ll eventually have a mistress here we can truly love.”
I protested, of course, but everyone seemed to expect that, and I didn’t protest too hard. They would discover there was nothing of that sort between me and Navid eventually, and in the meantime, it provided us with a reasonable excuse for our odd behavior.
Kali, however, pounced on me the next time I made it to her father’s mill. I had managed to tag along with the kitchen hand collecting the household’s weekly flour, but Kali immediately dragged me away from the business being conducted.
“Zaria!” Her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed. “You’re going to a ball at the palace!”
I grinned. “Do people really not have anything better to gossip about?”
“Don’t dodge the question! You said you were considering emerging from your dark hole and celebrating the next festivity with the rest of us, but this is a different level. Actually going to the palace!” She lowered her voice. “Does that mean you’ve made up with yourold friends?” She put heavy emphasis on the last two words as if it was a great secret and someone might be listening in.
“Actually, yes,” I said, hating the flush I could feel creeping up my cheeks.
She squealed loudly, jumping into the air before wrapping me in a hug. When she pulled back, she adopted an exaggerated expression of sadness, however.