Kushiel's Chosen

red-blond hair.
    "Thank you," I said, with as much warmth as I could muster. "Glaukos, how do I say 'thank you' in Ulyrian?" I repeated it when he told me, smiling at her. "Falemir dít, Zilje."
    And with that, Glaukos lent me his arm, and with young wife fluttering anxiously at his side, aided me in my slow, painful process across the hot sands toward his lodgings.
    All told, I was three days in the house of Glaukos, recuperating.
    Young and resilient though I was, my ordeal had taken a greater toll than I cared to reckon. Each day I rose, insistent, by mid-morning; by mid-afternoon, I was limp with exhaustion and my ribs ached dully. Zilje scolded me in II-lyrian, regarding me with a certain proprietary awe, as if I were a willful and exotic pet her husband had brought back from his seafaring, while her younger sister Krísta, who dwelt with them, stared at me wide-eyed.
    There was a great deal of traffic by the women of Dobrek to the physician's house in those three days. I daresay the village had never seen so many toothaches at once. Glaukos, for his part, ignored it; I smiled and nodded, trapped by my own weakness. Zilje dispensed cloves to chew for the pain, and gossiped eagerly with the visitors.
    It nearly drove me mad, being unable to understand. I have always been good with languages, and thanks to Delaunay's insistence, I mastered the trick of learning them early. I may have been a slave in Skaldia, but at least I always knew what was being said in my presence. Here, it was different. I speak D'Angeline, Caerdicci, Skaldic and Cruithne with a considerable degree of fluency; I do passing well at Habiru and Hellene, and can make myself understood among Tsingani.
    Illyrian, it seemed, was unrelated to any of these.
    Since I had naught else to do save heal, I set myself with grim determination to mastering what I might of the Illyrian language. My task was complicated by the fact that Glaukos was often absent or unavailable, and Zilje and I shared no tongue in common. Still, I garnered some small stock of phrases, and was able by the end of my stay to say "please" and "thank you," along with a few simple courtesies. From these, I was able to extract a glimmering of the syntax of Illyrian. It was a beginning.
    As to Glaukos' whereabouts, I learned that he served as bookkeeper to Kazan Atrabiades as well as physician, and had been busy cataloguing the inventory and distribution of their latest plunder, entrusting Zilje to see to the day-to-day needs of the villagers. There was genuine affection between the ex-slave and his young wife. I confess, it had been my first thought that she had been given him as reward for good service, but in this I was mistaken. He regarded her fondly, and she him; and so she should, for he had a kinder heart than many who served Kazan. Her sister Krísta treated him as an indulgent uncle, which seemed to suit all three.
    On the second day, a fine gift of fabric arrived from Kazan-a silk damask of deepest rose, woven with a trefoil pattern. I ran a fold of it through my fingers, bewildered, and gazed questioningly at Glaukos.
    "Ah now, my lady, you should be attired according to your station, shouldn't you?" he said, avoiding my eyes. "I told you he'd do right by you, after all. Old Noní is coming this afternoon. Six fine needles, he promised her, if she'd stitch up something suitable."
    I tried to give the fabric to Zilje and her sister, to no avail. What Kazan Atrabiades willed would be done. Old Noní came in turn, a hunchbacked crone with a grim look to her, who muttered and prodded and measured me with a string, returning a scant day later with a garment that startled me in its elegant simplicity, gathered below the breasts and hanging straight to the floor. The design came from an ancient Illyrian poem about a tragic heroine; I wished I'd had a translation, to give to Favrielle nó Eglantine. It would have interested her. At least it left considerable remnants of fabric, which I gave to Zilje and Krísta, much to their delight.
    What they made of it, I never learned, for by the end of my third day of convalescence, I was hale enough to have regained my impatience-and for all of his reluctance, Glaukos could not deny that I'd made a remarkable recovery. He acceded to my demands and sent word to Kazan Atrabiades.
    So it was that the pirate captain ordered me sent to him, attired in stolen finery after the style of a long-dead epic heroine.
    Unlike the weathered pine buildings in