want her pillows hanging out. We’re Theseni, remember.”
By nightfall, I was seated in a purification bath of myrrh and aloes trying to accept this sudden engagement as I watched Mam sew a betrothal dress I wanted nothing to do with.
Father spoke through the slatted curtain, which separated my room from my parents. “You’ve been quiet all day, Satha. Have you accepted the blessing the Creator has given you?”
Mam poured aloe juice on my head. “She’s too cynical to see anything as a blessing!”
I tightened my lips against the aloe’s bitterness, but the acrid taste crept into my mouth.
“It’s good luck to get it on your tongue,” Mam said, when I wiped the juice from my mouth. “Bitterness on the lips before the wedding means sweetness in the bed afterward.”
“If that’s true and everyone takes these stupid baths, why are there so many bitter marriages?”
She grunted, then returned to her sewing.
“I don’t want you to think the young man is merely marrying you for the sake of the promise,” Father said. “He’s quite interested and was very involved in his father’s choice.”
I squirmed in the large clay wash basin. “Yes, Father, I heard as much last night.”
Mam bit off a piece of sewing thread. “Be careful you don’t break that basin. I borrowed it from Uda. That hyena never—” She paused, then suddenly started laughing. “Layo-Layo! Yes, yes! Break it, Satha. After you’re finished bathing smash it to bits! We can now afford thousands of better basins. We’ll give her a gold one to replace it. Can you imagine it, Nwaha? Our daughter is marrying Taer’s son! The son of King Jaguar’s Chief Warrior.”
“Not something I had ever imagined in my wildest dreams!” he answered, and then as if catching himself, he added, “But, of course, when we were young men Taer wasn’t a captain. And when you held little Loic in your arms you—”
The trouble with altvayus was they often spun out of the weaver’s control. Father was not good at spinning lies. If he continued weaving this one, he would not create a tapestry, but a tangle no one would be deft enough to sort out.
“So, although I’m a woman past marriageable age and without a dowry—”
“Satha,” Mam shouted at me, “you don’t need to know all our business.”
Father added, “Should we not provide for you? Think of Alima. Look what happened when we told her about our money problems.”
Tears came to my eyes when they mentioned Alima, my beautiful and lost sister. She had traveled with three women across the Lingan Plains into Theseni territory where they had meant to find work. But women traveling alone are powerless, especially if they left their home regions. Lascivious Ibeni might rape them, patriarchal and pious Theseni could enslave them. Alima’s beauty had caught the eye of Kujhan, a Theseni man from a vicious clan. She found nothing in him worthy of her love. This did not matter to him. On her seventh day in the region, she found Kujhan had “married” her, using proxy. Although Alima hadn’t attended her “marriage,” the Theseni men considered her to be married. After that, she could not leave that town without her “husband” Kujhan’s permission. He never gave it. Starving and alone, she at last relented and went to his bed. She now lived there, an enslaved “wife,” held captive by the man whose heart she had inadvertently captured. Worse yet, they followed the old Theseni custom in which a wife was shared among her husband and his brothers until the brothers married. The only mercy she received was death.
“The only power poor men have is their power over women,” Father said, shaking his head. “And the cruelty of poor men is worse than the arrogance of the rich.”
“Husband! You’ve spoiled this child by allowing her too much freedom. Her dark skin she can’t help, but if she weren’t always reading those religious scrolls, she would have been married already. Poor men can’t be choosy. But your—”
“Mam, I have no desire to marry this child.”
“I can’t break my promise to my friend, especially since he’s sought to fulfill it after all these years,” Father said. “As for his age, custom will be upheld. You will not lie in his bed until the Restraint is over and the year mark arrives. When the full marriage will take place, you’ll have become accustomed to one other and you won’t mind his age.”
“A year? Time enough to prove someone hasn’t impregnated me, I suppose,” I said, speaking the obvious.
Mam took her eyes off her handiwork and gave me a warning look. “Learn to watch your words, girl. Don’t go starting rumors about yourself. The half marriage is the way the Doreni do things. They have their reasons. You don’t want a clan war breaking out because someone didn’t get the news about such an important occasion. These year-long half marriages ensure that everyone—far and near—gets the chance to approve of you.”
“If the Doreni weren’t so aware of alliances,” Father added, “they would not have conquered our people five centuries ago.”
“You’ll have to learn to think like a Doreni,” Mam said. “Think about things such as enemies and alliances, learn to pretend to like people you don’t like, and hate people you don’t hate.”
I groaned, but she continued. “You can do it. You have to. A person can’t live without allies in this world. Certainly not in a great man’s house, with people of another tribe. Consider yourself lucky it was a Doreni boy who fancied you. All you have to worry about are slantyeyed children. Imagine if you had captured some Ibeni boy’s heart. He would have kidnapped you to save his greedy family a dowry and I’d be wandering the world looking for you.”
“I doubt you’d go searching the world for me. I’m not Alima, after all.”
She ignored me although she knew my words had shown my heart. “Remember to size him up. Learn what impresses him. Anticipate what he wants. The important thing is that he like you. If you behave without common sense, your father and I will end up on the streets. If the boy lusts for you, give in. Bend a little. Waihai, look at that pious face of yours! Even the holy ones tasted the joys of the flesh before they locked their yphers away. Think of it! During the Restraint, you’ll be living in Taer’s compound in the guest women’s quarters. Isn’t that better than living here? All that food! They’ll fatten you up. Skinny women are no good in bed.”
“Could we not talk about such things, Mam?”
“All your mother is saying,” Father chimed in, “is that if he likes you, the rest of the Pagatsu clan will like you too. Just show yourself to be a woman of good sense and diplomacy. The Doreni like that.”
“And take care to watch the women,” Mam warned. “Women can make or break you.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Your poor sister, this marriage should have been her destiny.”
Her words stabbed my heart. I winced, but if she noticed, she hid it well.
“Daughter,” she said, wiping away her tears. “No woman in Satilo would push Loic out of her bed. I’ve seen the boy’s face. His body too. He’s a beautiful one. Good to look at. Haven’t I seen your eyes light up beneath your veil when a beautiful man walks past you in the marketplace?”
She
