Gold to Dust

Chapter Two

"Shouldn't we leave now?" Tamshie said.

Ellegra's brow furrowed, then understood. "Women can't be out at night, and I can't be seen period. It's easy to hide your face and figure in the dark when you have clothes on."

"Sure, but when we take them off, someone will either think we are definitely women or seriously deranged men."

Ellegra laughed. The pain that she felt as a result was worth it. "All right, we'll leave now. We wash our clothes and take our time washing to give them time to dry. We'll ask someone to put them in the sun."

Tamshie scoffed. "Shouldn't be that hard here." Ellegra smiled.

❂

The girls shared a pool in one of the many rooms in the bath house. Steam from the water banded together to form clouds that lingered in the air and made it hard to see. Orange and red lighting streamed in through the window above, giving them a beautiful sight of the blazing sunset that seemed to set the entire sky on fire.

Having scrubbed and scratched every inch of their bodies, the girls began working through the tangles in their hair. Tamshie slipped under the water and combed through her hair with her fingers, curls of bright scarlet straightening into a dull brown in the partially green water. She bobbed up for air and then went back down in a process of soothing the frayed edges of her untamed tresses. Satisfied, she braided it and set it on her shoulder, the plait long enough to drip a river down her chest and just barely reach the surface of the water. She moved on to scrub her face, rubbing the redness on the snub of her nose, being slightly more gentle on her broad forehead and freckled cheeks, which flaked the worst. The petite frame of her body hadn't been hard to scrub without soap. She resorted to using her nails, then lounged along the edge of the pool.

Ellegra's hair wasn't nearly as easy as Tamshie's. Longer and much thicker, she turned her head to drop most of it in the water, dragging her fingers through the dark tangles and snagging several with loud snaps. The more she combed it the angrier she became, finally giving up and dividing it into two. Tamshie laughed and waved her closer, spinning her around and taking control of the dilemma. Within minutes her tangles were gone, and her hair was plaited down the center of her back, pooling in bundles on top of the water. "There," Tamshie remarked, just as the servant girl entered the room from the misting clouds of the outer corridor, holding up two sets of clothes and stockings, along with Ellegra's newly cleaned bodice.

"I apologize if you've been waiting long for these," she said in an almost too thick Asaanish accent. The feminine features of her face were evident— dark black hair, sunkissed skin, clear blue eyes— but what Ellegra didn't expect to see was a misshapen ear purposely hidden with a braid tied over it. The girl noticed her staring and turned it out of Ellegra's view. "I settled and laced your bodice with new strings; the old ones were so worn through they would have snapped had you tried to put it on. The leather was a bit worn through, but I polished it well enough to hopefully last you several more wears. I hope you think it is decent?" Ellegra nodded.

Stepping out, the girls dried themselves with the stolen towels from the barkeeper's room and put on their clothes, thanking the girl. Ellegra produced a senzi from the purse and turned to give it to the her, but she was gone. Tamshie helped to band Ellegra's chest while she was still flustered with the girl's earned money.

Ellegra's plaited hair reached to the middle of her thigh. Tamshie twisted it in a shorter knot and stuffed it down the back of Ellegra's shirt. Wrapping their heads and faces in kerchiefs, they left the bath houses and waited in the shadow of the buildings for night to finally settle.