Bakimay told her to come to her desk at the end of the day. She handed Mikandra a khaki tunic. “You put on. Look like one who lives here.”
Another blunder. All Pengali had probably found her white and red tunics offensive and proof that she was the same as the type of Mirani people they knew.
After she finished work, Mikandra went into the library wing’s bathroom, a courtyard pool surrounded by cubicles where water from hot springs ran through stone ducts. A worker had explained to her that steam pressure from the heat of the earth drove the water.
Having a bath in Miran was a formal occasion performed no more than once a day. In Barresh, you were considered dirty if you didn’t bathe and rinse each time you visited the private facilities. This was a habit down to the very poorest people
