Lui provides me with a kettle of hot water and two buckets of cold—plenty to mix together to scrub myself down a few times. There is also a goat-hair mitt and a square of brown soap. It is a heart-aching thing to find myself with my morning’s wish granted. If only Fastu was still whole of mind and able to share in such simple pleasures.
I drop my clothes just outside the door to be given a quick wash while I take care of myself, keeping only my bone knife and my sash with me. I scrub as hard as I can with the mitt, as if I could scrub away my days in the slave ship, the fear and uncertainty, the reality of what’s happened to Fastu and the choices I can’t unmake.
It makes no difference, of course.
My hair is so matted around my braids that eventually I despair of working it free. My woun
