at what appeared to be a failing scheme.
“Laugh if you wish!” she shouted, her face betraying her heart’s worry. “You’re obviously not smart enough to know you’re laughing at your own misfortune. Have you so easily forgotten that Kala’s parents had to sell her to pay off their debts? And Kala was pretty! Look at you! Twenty-four years old, too dark, and too mouthy! No wonder you’re unmarried! My luck was never good.”
I had gotten used to the thought of living unmarried. Theseni men valued girls with honey-colored skin. Dark women had little chance of being married and even less chance of being loved. Yet, I had learned to see my dark skin as a blessing from the Good Maker. During the war, many young men from all the three tribes had been killed. Those who had been born in the years before the war ended had been so spoiled by doting mothers they often turned out to be cruel husbands.
“I’m tired of all this poverty.” A despairing frown spread across Mam’s face. “Tired of creditors and old clothes, tired of eating barley and vegetables, tired. But it’s my own fault. I should have listened to my mother. I was in love with Nwaha and I didn’t realize how draining a weak man could be. So this is how my own strong will rewarded me.” Tears poured from her eyes, which she immediately wiped away with the fringes of her tattered gyuilta.
Then, as if she were tightening her mind, she tightened the gyuilta’s loose belt. “If Taer finds out how poor his old friend has become, help won’t be long in coming. Who knows—he might even give us some money for your dowry! A massive dowry will make up for that dark skin of yours.” She searched the distance as if seeking a lost hope. Then a smile suddenly lit her face and she seemed much younger than her forty-two years. Such joy I hadn’t seen in months. I knew without being told that Taer was in sight. “He’s come. Look! Over there, near the horse dealer! No, don’t look! He’s the Doreni in the buckskin leggings and the green tunic. No, no, I told you not to look.”
I looked, and saw a muscular well-built man standing beside a slender, almost fragile-looking boy. The boy’s unbraided waist-length black hair flew wild behind his back, as if the wind delighted in playing with it. Neither boy nor man cloaked themselves in the finery of the rich. Both wore green tunics and green caps embroidered with their butterfly clan pattern. Their clothes seemed woven from cotton, hemp or other common fabric; neither wore pearl-encrusted gyuiltas, as the rich were wont to do. The older man wore boots, the boy soft leather shoes with the clan markings. Although the cold moons were barely past, their heads, arms and shoulders were uncovered. When I saw how the man’s braided silver hair glistened, and how his body exuded strength and quiet power, I spoke without thinking. “Indeed, Mam, even from this distance Taer is good to look at.”
“Wait until you meet him!” She smoothed out the kohl around her eyes. “His nose looks like the curve of a bear’s back as it turns away to protect its young.” She breathed a long wistful sigh. “Beautiful jade-gray eyes. Almond-shaped like all the Doreni—but kind, not fierce like the other slant-eyes. He wasn’t one for war when we were young. How he rose so high in the King’s ranks, I’ll never know. He’s too pale, though. Almost as light-colored as an Ibeni. If he had a little more cinnamon in his blood, like most of his people, I would have chosen him when my parents asked me who I wanted to marry. Yes, and our lives would have been much different. But, the Good Maker forgive me, I was foolish and love-struck and I chose Nwaha. Your father had happy, hopeful eyes then. He was a nice brown, too. Dark, but not too dark. He was weak, although I did not know it then. Yes, that was my mistake—”
“Being honorable is no weakness, Mam,” I said, interrupting her. Mam’s bitterness against Father was like boiling water—always seething over.
“You can call it whatever you want. You’re not married to him. The past is gone, though. Taer’s married now and even if...” Her voice trailed off, then she spoke again. “Yes, he’s married. Waihai! Bad luck all three times. Ydalle says his third wife is the worst of his misfortunes.” She bent forward and whispered conspiratorially, “An adulteress.”
I shrugged, so she added, “The mother of a bastard child.”
Gossip against the rich is all the poor have to digest, but gossip always upsets my stomach. When I didn’t bite at her tidbit, she said, “I’ll tell you that little story later.”
“Mam, Doreni women who commit adultery have their noses cut off, or they’re stoned or cast out into the marketplace. I’ve heard no marketplace gossip that Taer has done this, and warriors aren’t known for indulging wayward wives. Tell Ydalle to stop spreading false stories.”
Mam clutched her chest as if some great disappointment weighed on her heart. “Why the Ancient One gave me a daughter with whom I cannot share my heart—I don’t understand!”
“Ask the Ancient One. Surely he knows we would both have been happier if I had been born male.”
She winced, but didn’t answer me.
“Do not make a fool of yourself with this rich man, Mam. Let me travel across the Lingan Plains to find work. I’ll—”
“No! Never! I’ve lost one daughter. I won’t lose another.”
“Or you can hire me to an Ibeni farmer across the river.”
“Did you not hear me? I said—”
“But, Mam, I have strong hands. I can—”
“Those Ibeni bleed even their own children dry. No, no blood-work for my daughter, and no travelling to parts unknown either. Ydalle says Taer’s house is full of servants and former captives. When a woman marries a fool, she learns to create her own destiny. One more servant won’t rob him. Maybe he’ll hire you as a favor to Nwaha. The Doreni are unlike the Ibeni. They don’t worship gold as much. Perhaps Taer will make you his concubine.” She grinned and raised her eyebrows.
“I don’t want to be a rich man’s second-status wife, Mam. I don’t even want to marry.”
“Stop frowning like that! It makes your forehead look ugly.” In those days, unmarried Theseni women wore a sheer full veil that reached from the forehead to below the neck. My mother lifted my veil. With the hem of her gyuilta, she wiped some unseen, unfelt something from my face. “Work with the little charms you have. Learn to smile. A girl as dark as you can’t afford to be too high-minded. You want your father sold into slavery for his debts? Is that what you want?”
Her face contorted into the smug triumphant smile she always wore whenever she bested me. “Now, daughter, throw your gyuilta over your shoulders and walk with me, your arm in mine. The Creator will make my old friend recognize me.”
LOIC: Encounter
As I walked to the sword trader’s shop, a man dressed in a shaman’s vest walked past me. He eyed me suspiciously, glowering, as if the spirits had told him some harsh thing about me. As he passed by, I suddenly remembered that all swords were dedicated to one spirit or another. Instantly I resolved not to buy a sword at all, but rather to make one. In that way, no spirits could enter it and I would not be forced into a league with them.
I told my father my intention, but not the reason for it.
He said, “You want to make your own sword? You have no skill in sword-making, and the new swords imported from Ibeniland have such power, grace and—”
“No, Father,” I said. “I shall make my own sword.”
“How strange your whims have become since Krika...”
