Cinnamon Wind

TW: sexual assault

A long river of biting winter wind clambered through the pass, slowing their procession. Her guards pulled their hooded cloaks close and pointed their eyes downward, against the unfiltered gale. Garang let her face burn and her nose numb. The god Khyal’pok had sent this wind for her, and she took her punishment. She only hoped the blankets she chose were thick enough, that the body in the wooden box would not get too cold.

Garang was not young anymore. She was beautiful still, with high cheekbones and silks always wrapped around her thin waist. But she was becoming old, so that her once-sycophantic husband had lost interest now, and he was mean, and favored young whores for their perkier breasts and energetic hips. He had waited until she was old enough to hate to tell her that he would never give her the garden he promised to her when they married.

For, you see, Garang was poor by birth.

Her kingdom was a long line of skiv-corner drunkards, gamblers, and beggars. She had known only one lucky day in her life, when she was thirteen. That morning she had lifted a gold piece from a merchant’s pocket in the spring-busy market square. She had run with high heart to a coin changer, who spit at the ground when she came into his stall, but who made the hefty piece into copper for a fee of half its worth.

And so she left the stall and followed every savory smell, pushing her way through the crowds of merchants, rich folk, and thieves like her, until she found the fattest pies in the market. They would not serve her, so she bribed a washed and groomed boy to procure the food on her behalf by pulling her shirt down and smiling and blinking. He even gave her stolen coin back to her, when he gave her the pie.

The luxury enchanted her. She walked in long strides through the throngs of the well-to-do, picking out pieces of their clothing and imagining that she, too, wore those bright draping sleeves and bronze brooches. But she was still Garang, so she listened whenever she heard Shelashi so that she might sell a secret later on.

And still, there were more small coins in her pocket. At that moment she could not help herself. She cradled the pie in both hands and took a hearty chomp. The crust was miraculously flakey and inside there were thick cuts fresh, unsalted beef.

“Hiyyeeek,” A man dressed in thick, dark leather stopped before her, clicking his tongue. His shirt was decorated with the floating castle: a guardsman. She looked up at his stern face. “Tell me where you got that so that I can bring your severed ear to the right man, little thief.”

His arm snapped out at her and she tried to scurry away, but he had her wrist in one hand and his knife in the other before she could jump back.

Garang was still short then, but her body had developed sufficiently for her to learn Shelashi men’s weakness for the female form. She wiggled toward him so that her breasts were tall and her hips looked open and loose. She came very close and said, “can’t you forget it, mister?”

The man’s face did not soften but hardened, so she knew right then to fear him. He grabbed her nipple and pinched hard, painfully, until her knees buckled underneath her. As she fell, he grabbed her hair into his fist and dragged her toward a shadow-stricken lane. This person and that person passed by them. They could not see children like her. She closed her eyes and held onto her pie.

“Sergeant!” Someone called out from the crowd and the man holding her stiffened. A short moment stretched into forever. Then he shoved her face into the ground and she curled up around her pie. Then he turned away.

She did not wait to find her freedom.

Garang slithered toward the lane until she found her legs and ran through it, into another. But her legs collapsed soon after, and so she stuck herself between a tall pile of half-burnt wood and moldy, foul-smelling cushions.

She waited for her body to stop shaking, and then listened for sounds, and then ate. It was not much worse for the soggy crust and the dirt, or that some of the filling had fallen out of it. It was still warm and warmly spiced. Garang sighed and smiled.

  Suddenly noise filled the alley and Garang scrambled onto her knees and hands. Her final few bites of pie, sacrificed, fell to the ground. She waited, still and ready, listening. The wood next to her shifted and toppled. She knew she was had. She looked down at her feet, to remember where the pie was if she lived, and readied herself to flee.

But there, at her feet, was a young dog. All skin and bones and too-big paws. Her white fur was long where the mange had not turned her skin to scabs. She crawled toward Garang’s pie, her tail swinging weakly from side to side.

Garang snatched the food back and prepared to kick the thing. But it didn’t so much as growl. It blinked twice, then sighed, then laid down, its back turned to her. She blinked at it too, twice. She had never known a street dog to be any less hungry than she.

“Young one?” came a voice from behind her.

Garang squeaked and spun on her heels, searching for a way over or through the mess around her.

“Please, wait. I sent my subordinate away.”

She met his eye, but only because she could see no escape, except for where he was standing. It was not the same man who had dragged her away, but a tall man with long, dark hair. The floating tower was embroidered onto his rich cotton shirt. He asked her if she knew the Kyinec tradition, and she nodded. They made a deal that she could bring the dog with her.

And so, because of Shelashi men’s weakness for the female form, she found great luck that day. She spent the next four years competing with the other young, beautiful girls the wealthy officer had picked for his Kyinec. She performed favors for his friends privately, and in groups, and with the other girls, and whichever one of them gathered the most secrets would be his wife.

She was his wife now, under the tradition. And he’d loved her for a long time, but now he hated her.

But the dog had loved her. When they married, he’d promised to buy the house to the rear of his own and flatten, so that Cinnamon could have her garden. Cinnamon, because the first meal she was given, the night she came back with the tall officer, was an iced roll spiced with cinnamon. She had split it with the dog, and the dog ate and blinked and sighed and lied down, with her back facing Garang.

And then it took the neighbors behind them a long time to die and, day by day, Cinnamon kept a lazy watch at the small gate between the door and the fence. When the sun would set, Cinnamon would sigh and get up on her feet and come find Garang, and lie down always in the same room but always facing away from her. By the time the neighbor’s died, Garang’s breasts sagged and the thin lines on her face never uncreased. That house was sold to a new world merchant. And then Cinnamon died.

So now she climbed on numb feet up the mountain pass, to the cliffs, with Cinnamon in a wooden box. Khyal’pok kept blowing her harshest winds.

They came out to where the path dropped over a deep cliff face. The valley opened underneath them, marked by distant gray lakes and their own malignant city. Beyond, weathered old mountains marked the boundary between Shelash and Irvabuli. They had nearly arrived. Garang turned her eyes back into the wind and pulled her cloak close to her.

They passed another corner where the mountain leveled and sheep grazed daintily, unperturbed by the violent wind. Then the path came back against itself and the trees fell away. Here was a half-moon of mossy-faced cliffs, which dropped down into the black ocean. The heart of the sea-god was here. The bodies of important Shelashi were thrown over the cliff into the water, so that they might honor this god by returning to him.

Today, gusts of wind tossed up sea spray under the gray sky, casting shadows on the ocean that looked like swift schools of fish dancing away from predators. Her hair came loose from its many ties and whipped violently against her face. She looked out onto the horizon as Cinnamon’s box was placed next to her and the lid was removed. Garang could see her white fur in the corner of her vision. They picked Cinnamon up, not as gently as she would have.

“Final words, mistress?”

Garang shook her head and turned away. The wind dried her tears faster than the servants could notice her weakness. It was a foul tradition, anyway. What would the sea-god care for the bodies of men? She had only put herself to the trouble because her husband had laughed at her when she’d asked for these rites.

“We will throw the body now, mistress.”

Garang turned to catch one last look, but she had to hide her face away again. Instead, she stood like stone as they moved behind her, and she sensed them throw the body over the cliff.

The air in her chest caught. Garang threw herself to the ground and screamed. She looked down with wide eyes but not soon enough. Cinnamon was swallowed up by the sea, all at once, no spare second wasted.

Someone put a hand around her arm. “Mistress-”

“Go!” She screamed. She took a rock from the ground and threw it blindly behind her. The guards and servants left unceremoniously. They did not like her, a spent Kyinec wife. She had known her lucky day, luckier than most, and now she would know punishment worse than most too.

Garang clutched her elbows and put her forehead between her knees, stifling sobs. But the cold wind made her chest tight, and soon she was lying on the ground, thrashing wildly, belting howling cries. Her face swelled and her mouth dried, and pressure built up behind her eyes and her neck. She cried still, gasping and wailing. And when she finally stilled, tears would not stop falling in thick lines down her cheeks.

The wind died.

She could hear the waves crashing against the cliff face and, lying there, she could feel it in her chest too. The wind had churned up the bog cotton in the valleys far below and it drifted lazily up the mountain. It was not cold now, so her eyes were heavy. She noticed that when she squinted the bog cotton filled up her whole vision and sometimes it touched her face, like when she would lean down to kiss her Cinnamon.

She slept, and dreamt of nothing. Then she woke and stood.

On the way back, she did not look at the city or the lakes, but at the rounded old mountain-grandfathers. They dozed lazily and sighed out their gentle evening breeze, which brought all the way to here the smell of their wet heather beards and peat bog dinners. And there was the smell of sulfur, too.