to marry him. Perhaps I’ll be lucky and during the half marriage he’ll find something distasteful in me and cast me out.”
She looked at me as if I had lost my sanity. “If he casts you out, you will be good for nothing except to be a holy woman or to enter an Ibeni brothel.”
“But why should I be good for nothing if he rejects me? A half marriage is a trial period, is it not?”
Father took my hand and held it firmly. “For the man, yes. Not for the woman. Daughter, you’re old enough to know what the law says is one thing, and real life is another. An annulment after a half marriage is worse than a divorce. People will think he found something unclean in you. At least a divorce after the full marriage means there was some respect and honor in the beginning.”
“And you get to keep your marriage gifts,” Mam added.
“Daughter,” Father said, “all you have is your intelligence and your kind heart. Those aren’t good currency in the marriage market. If Loic inherited the traits of his Desai mother, he already loves you deeply for reasons we cannot know. If he is like his father, he will never wrong you. Haven’t you washed the feet of poor refugees and cared for the dying? The Good Maker has blessed you because of this and will continue to bless you with many good things and with virtuous, wise and good children.”
Songs floated about the college as we rode by. I leaned forward to listen to them, trying to keep my mind off my fears.
“What are the words of that song, Father?” I asked. “You studied the dead languages. You must know their meaning.”
“It’s a song about the Good Maker—a Doreni Desai prophecy about a man being wounded in the house of his friends, a warrior whose clan turned against him.”
“I’ve heard that prophecy,” I said.
“That is why the Doreni consider inhospitality such a great sin. The traitor against the Savior forgot the laws of hospitality.”
Mam interrupted us, “Enough of religion! What good has it done any of us? We’ve been generous to the poor, and what did we get? Did the Good Maker protect us when the Angleni destroyed our land? Stop thinking about impractical things. You’re only getting me angry. Think about your wedding night like a normal girl.”
The wheels of the valanku turned smoothly and evenly underneath us, as if a perfect lathe had rounded them. The soothing regularity of the horses’ hoofbeats should have pleased me. Yet, the wagon wheels echoed like millstones grinding millet seed to powder; the horses’ hooves seemed to be trampling my heart.
As we approached Taer’s Golden House on the outskirts of Satilo in the far reaches of Jefra, near the edge of the Great Desert, Father turned to me. “Daughter—” he frowned as if he had sad news to tell “—I have a thing to tell you.” He exchanged a quick glance with Mam. “It isn’t so very bad....”
“Speak it, Father.”
His eyes avoided mine. “Health, my daughter, is a blessing that not many people have.”
I studied Mam’s face. “Are you sick, Mam?”
“It is someone else who is ill.”
“It isn’t a fatal illness,” Father added, too quickly. “And no, I’m not ill either.”
I understood. “Loic? Is he the one?”
They nodded in unison and looked at each other, as if waiting for the other to speak first.
“Is it fatal?”
“Not of itself!” Father said, again too quickly. “Bu—”
“It has its dangers,” Mam said.
“Does he have the mosquito illness?”
“Daughter,” Father could not help but laugh, “you always think people have the mosquito illness. There are other illnesses in the world.”
“What illness is it?”
He spoke the words almost too softly. “The falling sickness.”
A long-forgotten memory of a young girl in our old village appeared in my mind. For no reason, she would fall to the ground and foam at the mouth. I saw my future, one filled with sick children, an invalid husband. I did not want to bring healthy children into a world so full of sadness and cruelty, and now I was to bring ill children into it.
“It may not affect your children—” Mam said, knowing me well enough to see my thoughts.
“Did I say I wanted children?” I snapped. “I don’t even want to marry! And now I’m—Two days ago I was free to wander as I chose. Now I’m forced to worry about the health of a boy I don’t wish to marry, and the safety of children I never intended to bear. Why have you done this to me, Mam? You should never have allowed this rich boy to usurp my life. You would never have done this to Alima—”
Mam looked at me hard; I grew quiet. Shame and grief overwhelmed me. “Forgive me,” I said. “I accept what the Good Maker sends me.”
“That religious reading of yours has taught you obedience at least!” Mam said. “Alima was naturally good, however. She never needed those scrolls to learn obedience. Listen, Satha, I’m telling you of your future husband’s illness because it is a secret. The boy doesn’t even look ill, does he, my husband?”
“Not at all,” Father agreed.
“Only those within the clan and the household servants know it. Ydalle says, they have their ways of handling it. When he was young, a nurse was always with him. Now that he’s older, he doesn’t like people hovering about him. His teachers, bodyguards, his father, and the warriors usually find a way to watch him. When the disease comes on him, they prevent him from hurting himself. Then they leave him, right where he has fallen, pretending not to see his shame. When he arises, he is alone. He tidies himself and no one speaks of it. Ydalle says this is what everyone does, and it’s best if you learn to do likewise. You’ll shame him if you don’t, and no matter what you do, do not speak openly to him about it. You don’t want to shame one who is mad with love for you.”
“Mam, how can he be mad with love for me when he has only just seen me?”
“Perhaps he remembers how you used to tie his breechcloth!” Father said bursting out laughing.
“Obviously his ypher is ruling him,” Mam said, winking to Father. “That third leg gets men as well as women in trouble.”
* * * *
Within the golden brick exterior wall of Taer’s Golden House, fifty-eight Pagatsu households lived in harmony, or at least as much harmony as was possible for the Pagatsu. As I walked through the entrance gates into the large outer courtyard and surveyed the nearby gardens and the many minor houses that surrounded the Great House where Chief Taer lived, I realized the weight of good fortune the Good Maker had given me. On either side of the marble walkway, servants and noble ladies bowed before me. Their gold, silver and turquoise jewelry glistened in the sunlight.
Ydalle’s was the only face I recognized. A dark-skinned Theseni like me, she smiled uneasily and wrung her hands. Other Theseni faces peered
