Any simple
slave girl might quite sensibly have experienced a right and proper
bliss, even a contentment, at such attentions, but all Si'Wren felt was
a terrible sense of foreboding.
Si'Wren occasionally saw Sorpiala standing in the shadows, frowning,
but only once did Si'Wren chance to deliberately spy on Sorpiala, as
she stood across the courtyard in the shadow of the House and stared
down at an overripe fruit that had turned partly rotten. The fruit had
already begun to dry up, and Si'Wren could see the shrunken, wrinkled,
flattened side on which it had lain in the dirt, and the flies that
scattered when Sorpiala shooed them away with a distracted frown.
It was uncharacteristic for Sorpiala to touch such filth with her
hands, and Si'Wren could only wonder at what could have motivated one
such as she to do such a thing. It fretted Si'Wren to see her elder
sister in bondage grieving so over a mere rotting fruit. Were there not
an hundred fresh ones, ripe for the taking, to replace the rotten one
that seemed to concern Sorpiala so?
Si'Wren was fairly mystified at this.
Suddenly three of Sorpiala's female consorts approached, catching her
off-guard with the offending fruit still held openly in her palm.
Sorpiala seemed to give a sudden start at the appearance of the others,
as if not expecting them and for some reason seemed
uncharacteristically at a loss how to face them, although Si'Wren could
not say why.
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