"Here. All of you. And you, doorkeeper." The Tarkheena gestured languidly to Othniel, including him with the guards and various slaves around the door.
Othniel grinned. He could hardly wait to hear what was coming this time. Last time Lasaraleen had demanded everyone keep a lookout for any unicorns, and catch them so she could have one with which to win a bet. Unicorns! As if there were any unicorns in Calormene - or anywhere else, for that matter!
"No one is to be let out of the house today," Othniel's mistress continued, and his grin faded slightly. If no one was to be let out, then his post as doorkeeper was practically useless. "And anyone I catch talking about this young lady," Lasaraleen motioned to the beggar-brat that had just climbed off the litter, "will be first beaten to death, then burned alive, and kept on bread and water for six weeks."
His eyebrows shot up, but knew better than to object. His mistress had strange ideas sometimes, and it was better to humour her. She usually forgot about them in a week anyway.
But Othniel was curious about the girl that had come in with the Tarkheena Lasaraleen. She had not gone out in the litter with her, and was dressed like beggar; not at all the kind of girl the Tarkheena usually associated with. He determined to find out all he could about her, being (as his father had told him many a time) cursed with most insatiable curiosity.
After his watch was over, he hung around the kitchen listening to the staff gossip, but could find out nothing except that the beggar girl had two horses. Thinking it odd that a such a mendicant looking person as that girl would have a horse at all, not to mention two, he wandered out to the stables to have a look at them.
"I heard there were some new horses. Can I have a look at them?" Othniel asked Rsith, one of the under-grooms.
"To be sure, though they aren't much to look at - all muddied over and tails a mess. It'll be a job to clean them up, and even then -" Rsith shrugged and walked off.
Othniel sauntered over to the first stall - a large, dappled stallion with a very raggedy cut tail was the occupant - and whistled softly. The horse looked at him, snorted and turned his back. Othniel laughed.
"Hey, boy, I'm not that bad, am I? You know, you really are lucky. You'll be out of here in a day or two. I'm stuck here for life. You don't even know that you're a slave, I bet. All you ever think about is where your next meal is coming from."
The horse glanced at him over its shoulder.
"I wish," Othniel lowered his voice and looked about hastily, feeling slightly ridiculous talking to a horse like it was a human, "I wish I could stop thinking and longing for freedom."
The horse turned back around and nuzzled him, and Othniel thought he heard someone say "Come to Narnia, and be free with us."
Othniel started and looked around - he had been sure no one was around - and yes all the grooms were busy at their work, and anyway he had no interest in Narnia; the land of ice and snow and queer, ferocious beasts that, some said, talked with the voices of men. Why, he had even heard rumours that there were men with goat's hooves, like in the stories his mother used to tell him. Othniel shook his head briskly and walked to the adjacent stall and looked at the other horse.
This one was a mare - a light dun colour, and she looked a trifle skittish, dancing backwards when he leaned on the door.
"Ssss, sss, lady, easy," Othniel whispered, holding a hand out, "I'll not hurt you, my pretty one." She stared at him for a moment, then with a toss of her head, let him stroke her nose. He ran a hand down her neck, noting the well-kept mane, in spite of the dirt stains that were likewise visible. "You're a lovely creature, you are," he crooned. Then Othniel noticed Risith looking at him oddly and cleared his throat. With a final pat for the mare he left the stables and returned to his guard duty.
The next morning, when he reported for duty to the head steward, the Steward glanced at his list and said, "Ah yes, yesterday's doorkeeper."
Othniel bowed in acknowledgment, but inwardly he was a bit fearful. The steward was notorious for being exacting, and he was fiercely loyal to the Tisroc. A hint from him that you were conspiring against the Tisroc (may he live forever) and you disappeared.
"Your orders for today are to follow your mistress, the Tarkheena Lasraleen if she leaves the palace." The Steward flipped to the next page of notes, not at all seeming to realize what horrific thing he had said, or that Othniel was gawping at him. "You are to make sure that she is not plotting against her husband or the Tisroc (may he live forever) with that beggar maid she came in with yesterday. You are to report anything suspicious to me at once on pain of death! Is that understood, slave of the great god Tash?"
"Yes sir," Othniel replied, a shiver passing through him, "To hear is to obey." As he bowed and left as fast as he could, his fear disapated and he grinned to himself. What a perfect opportunity to satisfy his insatiable (as his estimable mother had called it) curiosity and find out about the beggar girl. Late that afternoon, as he was going toward the barracks to change his tunic (he'd dirtied it helping Rsith muck the stalls) he saw his mistress and what appeared to be a superior slave girl going towards the rear entrance of the palace, the slave girl with a heavy veil over her face. Mindful of his instructions, Othniel followed at a safe distance.
A very few minutes brought them to the palace gates. Here there were of course soldiers on guard but the officer knew the Tarkheena quite well, and called his men to attention and saluted. Othniel followed; the sentries knew him and let him pass - he'd often been sent on errands. They passed at once into the Hall of Black Marble. A fair number of courtiers, slaves and others were still moving about here, but this only made Othniel less conspicuous. They passed on into the Hall of Pillars and then into the Hall of Statues and down the colonnade, passing the great beaten copper doors of the throne room. It was all magnificent beyond description; what he could see of it in the dim light of the lamps.
Presently they came out into the garden-court, which sloped downhill in a number of terraces. On the far side of that they came to the Old Palace. It had already grown almost quite dark and they now found themselves in a maze of corridors lit only by torches fixed in bracket to the walls. Othniel's mistress paused here at a place where you must go either left or right.
"Go on, do go on!" he heard the slave say.
"Ha!" thought he, "It must be the beggar maid. No slave in Calormene would dare address their superiors like that - but then no beggar maid would either. And those horses - they were no vagrant's mounts. Then she must be something else. Something much different than she seems." Backing up his thoughts, just then Lasraleeen said,
"I'm not sure…I think it's the left, yes, I'm positively certain it is the left. Oh, what fun this is!"
Othniel could not agree with her. He was weary of all the nothing happening and thinking of all the sleep - and the evening meal - he was missing. Not to mention the questions he had no answer for. But suddenly he saw lights ahead and spied his mistress and the girl with her (he could no longer call her beggar) grope back along the passage and disappear into a room. He did not have time to do the same, though his blood was chilled at the thought of someone his mistress would fear to meet. He retreated hastily down the passage a way, but not so far that he could not see if the door opened. As the lights progressed further down the hall he recognized with shock the Tisroc and the Grand Vizier, and following them, Crown Prince Rabadash. They entered the same room as the Tarkheena had, and Othniel wondered anxiously if it was possible for his scatterbrained mistress to be in league with the Tisroc against her husband or Tash. But thinking back, Othniel remembered the frantic, fearful haste the two girls had looked to be in, and concluded that they were just as surprised as he at seeing the Tisroc (may he live forever) and the others.
After about twenty-five minutes of anxious, nearly breathless waiting, the door opened and Prince Rabadash came out and ran down the hall eagerly (fortunately the opposite direction from Othniel). After another ten minutes the Grand Vizier came out. Soon after him came the Tisroc himself flanked by two servants he recognized as deaf and dumb slaves! Othniel knew that they were only used at the most secret councils, so he wondered what the Tisroc (may he live forever) and the others had been talking about. He sighed. His mother would say it was his insatiable curiosity and doubtless would have given him an affectionate swat. Too well did he know the dangers of meddling in affairs of the nobles. The Tisroc and the slaves went down the hallway, and soon after Othniel saw the Tarkheena come out followed by the maiden.
He continued following them, more to satisfy his own inquisitivity than to report to the Steward, for he had determined to tell none of what he had seen. It would do no one any good and mostly likely much ill. He stood in the shadows watching as they came to a small water gate.
The girl talked to the Tarkheena for a couple minutes, embraced, the Tarkheena Lasraleen, undid the gate, and slipped into a punt that was lying hard by.
Othniel and Lasaraleen made their individual ways back to her palace and the next morning, when he reported for duty to the Steward, he said nothing of what had passed. To Gaspian he told a story somewhat nearer the truth, and excused his absence to his commander with a story of getting drunk and losing track of the time. The officer looked at him suspiciously, for Othniel rarely got drunk, but inquired no more into the matter.