"Si'Wren," said old Ibi, "you have worked hard and diligently. I look forward with great pleasure to declaring you before all to be fully studied and prepared for your royal station, as formally commissioned by his Majesty the Emperor. When he hears of this, I have no doubt that you will be so appointed and given all due honors and tributes pertaining to the Order of Scribe."
Si'Wren stood before Ibi with the flush of joy and accomplishment on her face.
After her momentous court debut four years ago as the stubborn young girl-slave whose lips Borla's own sword could not open, she had been escorted to what was to become her very own personal, private quarters in the same wing of the palace as the other royal officials. Since then, as an underling to virtually everyone but the slaves themselves, she had been introduced to general grooming and appearance standards acceptable to palace etiquette, and ways of acting and behaving that conformed suitably to court protocol, and had begun her long and arduous internship as an understudy of the great and illustrious Ibi himself.
During these four years, she had managed to develop a somewhat foggy understanding of 'delicate subjects' having to do with politically potent and sensitive issues which one must always try to heed in order to properly show 'manners'. In view of how little she knew, it appeared that she did not merely have her marks to learn, she also had to pick up on the royal ropes. Many doors, some good, some evil, would henceforth stand open to her, but she must choose which.
Seemingly from her first month at the palace, Si'Wren had begun to assume the mantle of womanhood. Now, at sixteen, she was beginning to take on some of the physical characteristics of an adult, although in stature she still appeared to be somewhat small compared to others born of the same year. She was developing a trim, athletic figure as a result of avoiding the many fattening and corrupting foods free for the taking as a palace resident, and was becoming more womanly of form now with each passing year.
She who had once bathed in the stream, now dipped herself in the magnificent public baths of the palace dignitaries. Indeed, her privileges were such that she could have indulged in many spoiling luxuries, although -except for a simple desire for natural purity and cleanliness- by and large she tended to shun the physically and morally polluting diversions.
Her early years living on the plain fare of the slaves, together with her experiences in the spice tent, had engendered in her a natural awareness of how the vices of the rich could lead directly to one's personal destruction. Having preferred from earliest memory not to adopt the superior airs and affectations of Sorpiala and her clique, who haughtily deemed themselves to be above their fellow beings, Si'Wren did not see fit to change her humble and unassuming ways as a Royal Officer of the Court.
In his endless daily instructional sessions with her, Ibi had developed a fierce vicarious pride in the proper and dutiful studies of Si'Wren, and developed a habit of grilling her relentlessly, so that the poor girl spent her days perpetually neigh unto exhaustion from unrelenting fatigue.
In view of these and other considerations, and especially for moral reasons, Si'Wren deliberately avoided the many royal orgies of banqueting, and worse, open to her, choosing instead to spend much time cloistered alone in her personal chambers, there to catch up on her work assignments and neglected slumbers unmolested. She still slept on a mat of rushes, by choice, whereas the others in the palace all preferred more luxurious accommodations such as straw or down mattresses. Si'Wren seemed to sleep so much the better that way, and yet, in spite of her efforts at getting sufficient physical rest, ever did she labor with the circles of learning under her eyes. Truly, much study was a weariness to the flesh. But she always worked hard at it, and she was a fast learner.
She always wondered what had happened to Habrunt, but in addition to her vow never to speak, she could not so much as write his name at first. No person ever volunteered any information about him to her. And why should anyone care, seeing they knew neither her nor this curious unknown stranger called Habrunt? In fact, she had not overheard even the most incidental of news about him, and grew especially wistful whenever she chanced to think on Habrunt, and prayed for his well-being every day.