Betrayed

Chapter 3 Part 1 Obeisance

My chapters can get quite long, so I'm dividing this one into three parts. I love comments, so feel free to leave one.

I continued to live at Razan's and work for him. Palain's bedroom was now mine and so were her clothes and they actually fit me pretty good. The bedroom had a nice sized window but was tiny with one dresser, the bed, a table and the accordion doors for privacy. I didn't need much more space. All I had were her clothes and the wallet sized picture of my family.

Razan's bedroom was a little bigger and I had to cross that to get to my room. His bedroom started at the top of the stairs and had no door. The small bathroom was across from his room. It had a tub but no shower. Actually, Razan's entire upstairs would fit into Bill and my bedroom with plenty of space left over.

We never bothered with his daughter Palain and her husband Zake although we heard her scream plenty of times. I'd glance at Razan then and I could see it clearly bothered him, but he refused to interfere. Razan had washed his hands of her and he never spoke her name again. He burned her other items in front of the stream by Zake's property so they could see him do it. It wasn't really my business, so I stayed out of it, but she was pregnant and the whole situation just wasn't right.

I didn't want to be a part of this Yardan community, but where else could I go? I belonged to Razan now. Belonged to him. I hated the sound of that, but he didn't treat me badly. In fact he paid little attention to me. It seemed to be the way of the Yardanians to their servants and prisoners. Still, the thought of belonging to someone and not having any rights sickened me. I spent my days pretending that we were equal. It helped me to go on living each day.

Within a couple months of living with Razan, he got tired of the translator and asked Bayzar and Fryebye to teach me their language, so hourly lessons became part of my daily chores. I could now speak Yardanish although haltingly and Razan demanded that I no longer speak English.

I wasn't permitted off the property and he emphasized that I wasn't to put one foot on the road without him. Occasionally, a visitor would drop by for Razan, but he kept them away from me. A couple nights a week, a guard was stationed by the door and Razan went to take his turn guarding the queen. He ordered me to stay in my room and so I did. His right to punish me scared me and so I did my best to do what I was told. When he came home in the early hours, he checked on me first thing.

We worked every day from morning until evening, hardly speaking, but at least I had gotten used to the weather and grew to enjoy the sweltering heat that beat down upon us day after day. And I'll admit that once I learned Yardanish, it helped us to communicate better when he had something to say.

My skin had tanned to a nice shade and my auburn hair had lighter streaks throughout it. I thought of how I used to pay money to go to tanning salons, but here my tan was natural and free, and many times I caught Razan admiring me. Even my feet had become accustomed to the sizzling ground. This was my life now and I was adjusting to it, and really, it wasn't a bad life.

We ate our meals in silence and I cleaned up afterwards. Sometimes, he'd tell me extra work he had planned for the next day, but he never did work me hard and he didn't care if I took breaks throughout the day. Every evening, he laid on his couch drinking his liquor while I assumed my correct kneeling position on the floor. I don't think I'd ever been this quiet in my life. There was no TV or radio. Silence reigned in his house. He liked it that way.

During the days, he was all about work and we developed a nice rhythm of laboring together and understanding each other without needing to talk. I'll admit that overall he was good to me, and I didn't want to be ungrateful, but I wanted to go home. I longed to be with my family and to have Bill's arms around me as we slept, to go shopping at a mall, and to attend the children's activities, and so night after night, I'd look at the picture of us and cry myself to sleep.