When I woke the birds were singing the happy song of morning and my maids were laying out my clothes into piles as I lay upon my bed.
"What are you doing, then?"
"Master Cassipe has ordered us to pack your things. You are heading to Caldor today, miss."
This brought a flurry of excitement, the kind of which I was prone to and which made Cassipe either smile or glower depending upon his mood. He told me it was childish to feel such surges of excitement, but how could I not, when life brought such wonders? At this time yesterday I was a mere girl, and now I was a woman, a woman who knew the pleasures between men and women, and I was headed for Caldor.
"Please ma'am, do not be so jubilant, your father has been in a fit all day, wracked with sadness. Master Cassipe is trying to convince him you must go."
"Dress me quickly, please."
"Here ma'am," one of the maids held up a more daring gown. The bodice dipped low on the chest and previously a flesh colored panel had kept it most modest.
"What happened to the front?"
They exchanged looks. "Master Cassipe ordered changes made while you were sleeping. He said your wardrobe must be fit for a woman."
So many things were different already, had that one act really changed so much?
All my clothes were white but I looked at the stacks and saw blues and greens. "What are these?"
"Cassipe ordered them a fortnight ago. White is a color of purity, and purity and womanhood do not go together. Like the yin and yang, now you have a bit of the dark within you."
Lousy know-it-all maids, that would teach me better than to let them read my philosophy books. I liked the purity of white, the color that set me apart. They must have sensed my mood for there was no more chatter as they dressed me in a tunic and breeches of white with blue trim on the pants, and high boots of bleached suede, a soft white that would no doubt be muddy by day's end.
My hair was brushed to a shine and set back from my face in combs, caught the long back in a net of gold. I wore no makeup as did the other women of my noble house, I was proud of my milk-white complexion and aimed to keep it pure. Against it my blue eyes were large and my lips a soft pink that needed no enhancement.
I was vain but what woman wouldn't be when from her earliest memory she was told she was the most beautiful woman in all the land? It was no small thing.
I grabbed a satin cloth of blue to cover my head as I marched to the house from my own small cottage. Servants cast their eyes down at me the way I did to my tutor, and my heels clacked loudly on the floor.
I found them in the solar where my father wiled away the hours. All his sons were married and my two eldest sisters had claimed their estates from his family in the north. My two remaining sisters lounged about, nodding to me as I entered.
Cassipe was facing my father at his desk. I bowed and kept my eyes away from him as I faced my father.
"Father I hear you have fears about my traveling."
"You're damn right. You're only eighteen and the furthest you've been from home was with Lady Marlowe to Provincetown. Now he tells me you are to move to Caldor and serve the queen? How can she when she's so young!"
"Father," Eliandra said in bored tone, "when Samantha and I were both fifteen we were allowed free reign."
Father shook his head. "With all due respect you are the third and fourth daughters of a great house. You have no land to inherit, you must find your own by winning notice from the queen. That is the same fate I should want some day for my youngest."
I knelt at my father's side and laid a hand on his arm. "Father, you have known my destiny longer than I have. You have always known this day would come."
My sisters made noises of support which shocked me. When we'd been younger there had been great jealousy between them for me, until we grew and they learned how cloistered my life was. No doubt they had known the pleasures of womanhood since they were sixteen. Judging by how attentive the male servants were I had little doubt.
Cassipe clucked his tongue in impatience. "Sir, she is right. The day has come. Do not lament on your child's ascension to glory, instead treat her as a father who loves his daughter should. Know that while she is with me she will come to no harm and there is no place safer in all the empire than in the Queen's Harem."
My father blushed at the last word, and I wondered what it meant. All I knew was that the Queen's harem served her, attended to her needs, was comprised of men and women, and was highly protected. My sisters chuckled.
"All right. Eliandra, Liliat, please leave us. Cassipe, sir, may I have some time alone with my daughter?"
"Certainly. I will continue to pack. We leave at sunset."
"I'll have her ready."
I watched my master go, wondering at the jumble of feelings I held. There was still the fear of punishment should I disobey, the feelings that I now recognized, but there was also a need to challenge him, to escape his tyrannical rule and be my own woman. My sisters had no idea how I envied them, those two wild and landless women, life was waiting to offer whatever they would take.