Free Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier Page A

take coffee in the
camekan
after our bath.”
    The green-clad girl bowed and left us. I could not be sure if she was a superior kind of servant or a scholar in training. I did like her name, which I knew from the legend of Theseus.
    “I imagine you would like to make use of the hamam, Paula,” Irene said. “I have a woman who does a wonderful massage; just the thing after sitting still over a book for so long.”
    “Thank you.” I was still puzzling over the woman in black and the disappearing writing, wondering if I could actually have imagined both. I didn’t think I was as tired as that.
    The bathhouse was in a separate building at the end of the long colonnade that sheltered Irene’s house from the noonday sun. I could see from the tight look on Stoyan’s face that he wanted me to give Irene a polite refusal and head for home, but I made it clear to him that I was not prepared to sacrifice this opportunity, and he settled to wait once again, this time in the garden by the hamam entry. My hostess and I walked into an airy outer chamber, marble-floored and furnished with shelves and benches. It was both light and private; openings in the domed roof let in the sun, while the windows were shielded by screens pierced with small apertures in a flower pattern. On the wall were pegs from which clothing might be hung. A robed woman with skin darker than any I had seen before offered us folded cloths. I took one, hoping I could guess their purpose without needing to ask.
    “I imagine your upbringing was quite restrictive. You will not be accustomed to disrobing before others,” murmured my hostess as another attendant closed the door behind us. “I am so used to this, I hardly think about it anymore.”
    “I have four sisters. We all shared a bedchamber.” I followed Irene’s lead, slipping off my gown, shift, and smallclothes and wrapping the cloth around my body. I could not help noticing that while my wrap covered me from armpits to thighs with its edges overlapping by two handspans or more, my hostess’s generous curves were barely contained in a cloth of the same dimensions. Irene’s skin had an olive sheen against the white of the linen. Beside her, I felt like a winter creature, a pale thing that seldom saw the sun.
    “Give your things to Nashwa; she will look after them. This little wrap is called a
petamal.
Another word of Turkish for your vocabulary. Did you bring fresh clothing?”
    “Oh. No, I didn’t think—”
    “I’m sure we can find something for you. It is so refreshing to put on clean linen after the bath.” She spoke to the bath attendant in Turkish.
    “There’s no need…” Now I did feel embarrassed. Istanbul was full of public bathhouses, wells, fountains, and cisterns. Islamic prayers were always preceded by ritual ablutions, so it was unsurprising that facilities for washing were so common in the city. I wondered if Irene thought me grubby and uncouth.
    “Come, Paula, let us go through. Take a pair of these slippers; they’ll keep you from coming to grief on the wet floor of the hamam.”
    I selected a pair from a shelf by the inner door. They were set on little wooden stilts that lifted my feet a handspan from the ground and carried their own kind of peril. I staggered after my hostess into a chamber whose heat hit me like a blow. Sweat broke out instantly all over my body. Basins were set at intervals around the walls, with copper piping running along above them and spouts extending over each receptacle. This roof, too, was domed but was far higher than that of the entrance chamber. Holes pierced in the stone admitted sunlight; in the chamber’s corners burned lamps in intricately wrought brass holders. In the center stood a big marble slab, damp with condensation. On various benches a number of women sat chatting. All were completely naked and apparently quite at ease. At one of the basins, a girl had been washing her hair; it hung down her slim form to her knees, ebony-dark.