The door of the outer chamber opened a crack in response to Taleg’s knock, and a pair of ten-year-old eyes peered out. They widened in recognition, and a moment later the boy threw the door open shouting, “Come in! Come in!” He left Mandhi and Taleg in the outer chamber while he ran into the estate shouting news of their arrival.
Noon daylight flooded into the room, glinting off of green and white floor tiles and a red patterned rug in the center of the chamber. Taleg lumbered through the door, heaved their pack to the floor with a groan, and rubbed his shoulders. “Habdana remembers us, but he doesn’t remember that he’s supposed to help us with our things when we come in.”
The rich, familiar smell of sandalwood and cardamom filled Mandhi’s nostrils as she stepped into the chamber, bringing with it a flood of memory. Home. She and Taleg were alone. Mandhi sidled up to him and touched his hand. “Forget Habdana,” she said.
“Careful,” he whispered.
“We’ll be stealing moments like this until we leave Virnas again,” she said. “But I’ll talk to our friend Srithi. We can find a saghada in a few days.”
He swiftly bent and kissed the top of her head, like a heron plucking a fish from the water. “Talk to your father first.”
“I will.” With a heavy sigh she withdrew from Taleg and crossed to the curtained entrance of the women’s chamber. “I’ll see you soon.”
The heavy, opaque curtain fell closed behind her, leaving her in the gloom of a windowless room. An oil lamp dangled from a chain in the center of the ceiling, casting a pale yellow light over the cold floors and lavers filled with water. As always, the room smelled faintly of rose and mint. She kicked aside her sandals and let her toes enjoy the touch of the chilly tiles.
She tugged the pins from her hair and set them on the table next to the vessels. The knot of hair tumbled from her neck to the middle of her back, and she let out a sigh of pleasure. To be free from the strictures of traveling in the unclean world for a while. She plunged her hands into the first laver, enjoyed the shock of cold water, and splashed water onto her face.
“I will wash my hands in purity,” she prayed. “A clean face and a clean heart I will present unto Ulaur, who alone is blessed forever, with the amashi and the righteous. Let the unclean Powers perish, and let defilement depart from me.”
The curtain separating the ablution chamber from the inner chambers whispered aside, and the sound of bare feet on tile whispered behind her. Mandhi looked up and said with surprise, “Oh! Srithi! I was expecting the maid.”
Srithi grinned. “I sent little Kidri away so I could come. Are you clean?”
“Let me wash my feet, then I’ll be clean enough to touch.” She dipped her feet quickly into the smaller vessel and rinsed the dust from them while rapidly reciting the prayers. As soon as she had completed she rushed across the chamber, embraced Srithi, and kissed her cheek.
Srithi returned Mandhi’s kiss with tears in her eyes. “I haven’t seen you in four months, and when the boy said you had come, well, I had to come myself. I have something to tell you.” She smiled sheepishly.
“Do you want to tell me now, or should I finish cleansing first?”
“I’ll help you with the ablutions. Was the road hard?”
“We traveled here from Ahunas in only four days. Poor Taleg is exhausted. Here, take the corner of the sari.”
Mandhi stretched her arms out, and Srithi began to unwind the sari. " Did you find him? The one you’re looking for?"
“Almost. Supposedly, he’s here in Virnas now. Or we would still be searching.”
“But if he’s here—” Srithi’s face brightened. “Will you be staying for a while?”
“Maybe. I can’t promise anything.”
Srithi began to undo the lacing at the back of the choli, pulling the sleeves over Mandhi’s arms. “I have to tell you my secret,” Srithi said in a low voice.
The cool air of the chamber tingled over Mandhi’s exposed skin and gave her an excuse to shiver. She had not shared her own secret, even with Srithi. “What is it?”
Srithi blushed and spoke slowly and quietly. “It’s been three months since I had my impurity. That means, I think—”
“What? Srithi! But that’s wonderful. Does Veshta know?”
“No! I haven’t told anyone.”
“But he’ll be ecstatic. Why would you wait?”
“I wanted to be sure. What if I lost it? What if I was wrong?”
“After three months you’re not wrong.” She turned and kissed Srithi on the cheek again, then hugged her to her naked chest. “We have to tell him.”
Srithi’s blush deepened, and she hid her face. “I’ll tell him myself, now that I’ve told you. I needed someone to talk to first, someone other than Kidri or my mother-in-law. Though perhaps this will get Amashi off my back.”
Mandhi imagined it would. Veshta’s first wife had been sent away after she couldn’t bear a child, and Amashi, Veshta’s mother, seemed to hold all of that woman’s sins against Srithi. The house was miserable for Srithi at first and had only gotten a little better in the two years since the wedding. Srithi’s only consolation had been her companionship with Mandhi, but the promise of a child would do a lot more to calm the old woman’s tongue.
Mandhi smiled with pleasure for her friend. “Let’s finish the ablutions so I can go into the house,” she said. “You go talk to Veshta, and I’ll go to my father.”
“You won’t tell him about me, will you?”
“Of course not! That’s your business. But once you tell Veshta, I expect my father will hear the shouting from the opposite corner of the house.”
“Oh, thank you.” She brought the third laver over, and they washed Mandhi from her shoulders to her knees repeating the required prayers until she was shivering and dripping. Srithi had brought a clean sari and choli, and in a few minutes Mandhi was dressed and clean. She shook her head and enjoyed the feeling of unbound hair whipping around her head, then she took the ribbon that Srithi offered to tie it in a simple knot.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Mandhi said before going through the inner door. “These are yours.” She stripped the ruby rings from her fingers and took the gold rings from her nose and ears, leaving herself with only the star-iron rings, now a pair, on the first finger of her right hand.
Srithi accepted them into her palm. “Did they do you well?”
“You mean did they impress the right people?” She thought back on the meeting with Rishakka and suppressed a laugh. “I suppose they did. Later, I’ll tell you a story.”
They emerged through the inner door into the portico surrounding the courtyard. Oiled wooden beams carved with lotuses and peacocks marched around the packed yellow clay of the yard. Amashi sat in her usual place on a high-backed stool in the shade, and upon seeing Mandhi she dipped her gray head in a simple nod. Mandhi nodded back and stepped forward towards the sunlit yard. The palms at each corner of the square drooped tattered leaves in the sunlight. Clean water glittered in the pool at the courtyard’s center, and a newly-purified Taleg sat on its edge with drops of water shining in his beard. He peered into the shadow of the colonnade and grinned at them.
“Srithi,” he said with a bow of his head. “My mistress Mandhi and I offer you endless thanks at accepting us into your house again.”
“Of course, Taleg,” Srithi said and blushed slightly. Taleg was two heads taller and seven years older than Srithi. Srithi had only married into Veshta’s house two years ago, and she still seemed taken aback whenever Taleg bowed to her, with his height and Kaleksha accent. Mandhi tried not to hold this against her. Srithi was the nearest thing that Mandhi had to a sister, and Mandhi did not have the luxury of being picky about Veshta’s wife.
“Shall we go and give our report to your father together, Mandhi?” Taleg asked.
“Thank you, but I’ll go myself,” she said, officiously and dismissively. Did Taleg flinch? Perhaps she was overdoing her indifference. She would make it up to him. She took her leave of Taleg and Srithi and ascended the stairs to the second story, where her father kept his chamber.
The curtain over her father’s door was parted, and afternoon light slanted through the window to silhouette in gold a man sitting at a reading desk, making him look like an image of one of the righteous dead. A few wiry white hairs clung forlornly to the top of his head, while his beard bloomed from his chin like a frosted, ineradicable weed. His shoulders were hunched over his reading, his lips moving silently as the stylus moved across the palm-leaf pages. His hand quivered slightly.
Mandhi entered the room silently, waited long enough for the man to turn to the next leaf, then said, “Father.”
Cauratha, her father, raised his head, and a smile lit his face. “Mandhi. Oh, my ruby child.” He pushed the desk away and attempted to rise, but his knee buckled. Mandhi caught his hand before he fell and gently helped him stand.
He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed both her cheeks. His kisses were wet, and his hands shook. “They told me you and Taleg had returned. I could barely believe it. Do you bring me good news?”
“Sit down, Father.” Mandhi led him to the bed and gently lowered him to the silk-embroidered cushions. He was worse than when she had left him. Much worse. His hands and knees shook as she helped him sit, and once upon the bed he sighed deeply and closed his eyes. A groan creaked in his throat.
“Forgive me, Mandhi. I wish I could stand to greet you properly. I would have come to meet you at the door if I had the strength. All I can do these days is get from my bed to the desk and read the scriptures. Oh, well. I see only you and Taleg have returned. Did you find Navran?”
“Perhaps. We chased the rumor of him to Ahunas, where I finally caught a man who knew his name. He said Navran may be here in Virnas. And he had this.”
She pulled the second star-iron ring off her finger and handed it to Cauratha. He opened his eyes to examine it, turning it slowly in the sunlight until the pentacle glittered on its edge. “This is the one,” he whispered. “My son’s ring.”
His fingers shook, and it dropped from his hand. Mandhi bent, picked it up off the cushion, and placed it back on her finger. “I’ll keep it for him. Taleg and I had to set a trap to get it from the trader in Ahunas, and I’ve been wearing it since then.”
“Good, good. You keep it for him. Do you know where to find him here?”
“Yes. A slave trader named Bhila.”
“A slave trader? Ulaur, what happened to him?”
Mandhi took a deep breath. She adjusted the rings on her finger. “He was sold as a debt slave. I don’t know exactly when, not long after Gocam told us to look for him. Most of our search was following the trail of his creditors. And father, for that reason….” She hesitated to say what had been on her mind. But it was important, and would get worse if she waited. “We should be careful about bringing him here.”
“What do you mean by that? We have to bring him here. If he’s had some trouble with money—”
“He hasn’t had some trouble with money. Everyone who knew him spoke poorly of him. He is a drunk. An idler. A liar. He was lost to you as an infant, and he isn’t the person you would have raised him to be. Not the sort of man that should be the next Heir of Manjur.”
“Tell me, Mandhi, who should be the next Heir? Does it seem to you that I have a surplus of sons that I can choose between them?”
His breath started to come quickly, and he coughed in great spasms that shook his trembling body. Mandhi bent and put her hand on his forehead. She slowly eased him to his resting position against the cushions. When he was still again, she spoke. “I know. He should be the Heir. But we need to proceed cautiously, or the end may be worse than the first.”
“Yes, caution. I understand. Yet Gocam by his farsight told me to seek the son I had given up for dead, and I’ve never known Gocam’s counsel to be wrong. But what about you, Mandhi? Aren’t you anxious to marry?”
Her heart tripped, and it took her a moment to find her tongue. “Perhaps, if I may.”
“You may, once a suitable match is found. I hope you don’t mind having been made to wait. If we could not find Navran, then I would have counted on you to provide a son to be the next Heir—”
“Father, I know that—”
“Yes, and I hope you forgive me for waiting so long. If the weight of the Heir is not on your shoulders then I will gladly give you more freedom to choose. The search should not take long.”
It was the opening she had been waiting for. “Why search? There are Uluriya men here in Veshta’s house. What about Taleg?” Her tongue almost tripped over the name, but she said it, like spitting a hot bone from her mouth.
“Taleg? Mandhi, be serious. You would marry a Kaleksha?”
Her heart was beating like a silversmith’s hammer. She hid her hands behind her back to conceal their shaking. “I would. I mean, he seems suitable.”
“There’s no need for you to do that. And even if you do not mother the Heir, the house of Manjur should not marry with foreign blood. I will find you an Uluriya man.”
“But I don’t want to find one. Taleg….” The words suddenly came pouring out of her, as if by beginning to speak she had broken a vessel and could no longer stop the flood from pouring out of her tongue. “Taleg is as true and faithful a follower of Ulaur you will ever find. Yes, he was born among the barbarians of Kalignas, but he has been baptized, he follows the precepts, he confesses Ulaur as the One Power, he is loyal to the Heir. Of all the people in this household, of all the Uluriya in the city, only he, Veshta, and I know that you’re the Heir. You trust him to be my escort through all the cities of the south. Yet he isn’t fit to marry the daughter of the Heir. Why not?”
Cauratha opened his eyes and pierced her with a clear, pitiless glare. I’ve said too much, she thought. He knows everything.
“Has he touched you?” he asked.
“No.”
“See that it stays that way.” He folded his hands, laid them on his chest, and closed his eyes. When he spoke, it was slow and thoughtful. “If you wish to marry him, then I should forbid you from seeing him and cast him out of the house. But I love you and trust you, Mandhi. And as you said, Taleg has been a true servant of Ulaur and of me. So I will allow him to stay and to accompany you when you travel again. Do not disappoint my trust.” A heavy breath leaked out between his lips. “You’ll find Navran with this slave trader that you mentioned. The new moon is in four days, and we’ll make an offering in the Ruin. By then I hope to see my son with my own eyes.”
A dreadful determination settled in her belly. She sat at the corner of the bed, holding her father’s hand and looking at his wrinkled and spotted skin. She would say no word of this to Taleg. Her father didn’t have long to live. But she wouldn’t wait—she and Taleg had promised, and she knew what she had to do.
A boisterous shout echoed through the courtyard below the door to the chamber. Veshta’s laugh bubbled up to them, followed by a call of, “Cauratha, have you heard?”
Mandhi quickly wiped the corners of her eyes and hid by the door. A moment later Veshta burst through the curtain with his belly heaving and his fleshy face flush with sweat and joy. “Srithi is with child! In six months we’ll have a baby!”
Cauratha’s face lit up as if the bitterness of the previous minute had never been. He and Veshta began speaking rapidly, in that proud but removed way men had when speaking of wives and children. Mandhi spied Srithi waiting outside the door, her slender smile showing a mixture of joy and embarrassment, and Mandhi slipped through the curtain to her side.
“He’s as happy as I said he’d be,” Mandhi said.
Srithi put her hand over her mouth. “Maybe I should have waited longer. Now I’m nervous, and everyone in the house looks at me differently.”
“You couldn’t hide it much longer anyway. Better the household find out this way.” Mandhi touched the star-iron rings on her finger. One for her, one for her brother. “Srithi,” she said, “how many saghada do you know in the city aside from my father?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps ten. Why do you ask?”
“Find me one from the East Quarter, not nearby, who is trustworthy and can keep confidence. One who doesn’t know my father. I need to speak to one as soon as possible.”
Srithi peered at her with an expression of surprise and concern. “What on earth for? Mandhi, you have to tell me.”
Mandhi put her hand over Srithi’s. “I will. But not yet.”
Mandhi dropped the pouch of coins into the muddy palm of the slave merchant. He rifled his fingers through them to count, then smiled at Mandhi broadly.
“I keep the rowers by the wharf,” Bhila said, gesturing through the open door that spied on the open docks along the Maudhu river. “This guy was going to get sold onto a galley tomorrow, so it’s a good thing you came. Follow me.”
He sauntered out the door, brushing crumbs of roti from his mustache, and gestured for Mandhi and Taleg to follow. Once outside he spat on the ground and rubbed his greasy hands on his shirt. “Right over there.”
Bhila’s office slouched on the shoulder of the bluff that overlooked the wharf district. At the bottom of the bluff was a narrow floodplain between the city and the Maudhu river, which was filled with dozens of square courtyards protecting roofless warehouses. Ochre mud walls fenced in bales of tea and silk, boxes of cardamom and cinnamon, ceramic jars of spikenard, long bundles of sugar cane, and sheaves of pressed palm leaves. Bhila’s drooping finger picked out a nondescript rectangle tucked into the middle of the jumble, apparently empty except for two dozen or so men slumped against the walls.
Without a word Bhila descended the stone steps cut into the side of the bluff. Mandhi glanced back to make sure that Taleg was behind her, then followed. The dank, swampy smell of the river rose to smother them. A few moments brought them into the warren of warehouse passages. Bhila stopped when they approached a group of four guards sitting outside a bronze-barred wooden door set in a mud-brick wall. “Get me the man named Navran,” he said to the first of the guards.
The man grunted and lumbered up onto a ledge in the wall and bellowed over the top. “Which one of you is Navran? Get to the door. You’re leaving. No, the rest of you stay back or we’ll beat you away. I’ll stab your eye out if I have to. You don’t need eyes to row.”
The other guards raised the bars holding the door shut. Mandhi’s pulse quickened. In a moment two years of searching would end, and she would no longer be the only child of Cauratha. She glanced up at Taleg. His expression was impassive, but the knuckles of the hand were white where they gripped the staff.
The leather hinges creaked. A man stepped out. Mandhi’s breath caught, and a shock of revulsion passed through her before she could muster any conscious thought. His hair was filthy with dirt, hanging freely off his shoulders in knotty locks. His beard and mustache were untrimmed and colored by dust. A mud-browned shirt hung from his knobby shoulders, cinched at the waist with a fraying bit of rope. Below the waist he wore only a loincloth. Thin, rickety legs led to feet with cracked yellow nails.
“You’ve got the muscle to keep him in line if he decides to bolt,” Bhila said, gesturing to Taleg. He went on, but Mandhi didn’t hear any more. She was searching the man’s face. If there was any trace of her father there, she couldn’t make it out beneath the dirt and untrimmed mustache. His gaze, though. He stared back at her with unflinching fearlessness.
“… yours now,” Bhila finished. “You’ll follow me back up the hill?”
Mandhi blinked away her reverie. “Yes, of course. Taleg, you keep the slave, the man, in front of you.” She couldn’t bring herself to say his name.
Taleg nodded and pointed where he wanted Navran to go. Bhila continued to talk aimlessly as they left the warehouse district and climbed into the city proper, his words scattering harmlessly away from Mandhi’s ears. At the top of the stairs, she thanked Bhila and dismissed him, then motioned for Taleg and Navran to follow. She did not look back at them. She couldn’t.
They walked half the distance back to the estate, then Mandhi stopped. No use going any farther. She glanced behind her, saw Taleg and the miserable debt-slave standing behind her, and motioned into an alley.
“There may be a mistake,” she said as soon as they were reasonably private. “But if so, never fear, we’ll release you with no harm done. Tell me truly, now. Do you belong to the Uluriya?”
The man’s mouth opened slowly and his tongue flexed, as if he were unsure how to speak. “I don’t know,” he said. His voice was deep and hoarse.
“You don’t know? Don’t try to fool me. You’ve got nothing to lose here. We are looking for a man that we believed to be Uluriya, as we are. But your beard is untrimmed and your hair untied, so I want to know if we have the wrong person.”
The man looked between Mandhi to Taleg with that same dark, unsparing gaze. He took a very long time to answer. “I was born Uluriya,” he said. “That was a long time ago.”
Mandhi pulled the second star-iron ring from her finger. “And this? Do you recognize this?”
The man appeared startled, and a shade of anger flashed in his eyes. But a moment later the impassive mask descended again, and he simply nodded.
“Is it yours?” Mandhi went on. “Why didn’t you keep it?”
“A man took it from me.”
“A man. You mean Rishakka, the slave trader in Ahunas.”
Navran did not respond. He continued to stare at Mandhi.
“So? Was that the man or not, or are you trying to deceive me?”
“It was a slave trader. I don’t remember his name.”
Mandhi shoved the ring back onto her own finger. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
The man’s gaze slipped to the pair of rings on Mandhi’s finger. “Maybe not.”
She wasn’t going to pry anything else out of him, now. With a grunt of disgust she turned out of the alley and into the traffic of the street.
When they reached the estate and entered the outer chamber, she heard Habdana shouting Mandhi and Taleg have returned through the house before them. Navran stepped into the room and looked around. His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed as if a curtain of suspicion fell over them. She imagined how it looked to unfamiliar eyes: colored tiles and fine rugs on the floor, lacquered tables and silk cushions against the walls, and the air scented with cinnamon and rose. It meant wealth and comfort and the strong possibility of a trick, or some more insidious slavery.
She pointed Navran to the door of the men’s ablution chamber. “Through there. Taleg and a serving boy will help you get clean, which you so desperately need. Then—oh, no.”
The curtain over the door of the men’s chamber parted, and Cauratha came through supported by Habdana’s hand. Her father’s steps stuttered into the room, and the boy eased him onto a bench near the wall and put a cushion under his feet. Cauratha took a moment to gather his breath, then said, “Navran.”
Navran turned to Cauratha. Mandhi could barely stand to watch her father’s face. His eyes took in the man’s unkempt hair and filthy garment, and his visage crumpled into confusion and disappointment. “Mandhi, is he the one?”
“As far as I can tell. He says it’s his ring.”
Cauratha raised his hand. “Bring it to me.”
Mandhi twisted the second ring off her finger and passed it into her father’s palm. He glanced at the ring, then up at Navran. “Is this yours?”
The man shifted from one foot to the other in evident discomfort. “It was.”
“Where did you get it?”
“My father gave it to me.”
“Your father. Yes, that may be the case. Did he ever tell you where it came from?”
“No.”
“You never asked? Because you must have seen it wasn’t an ordinary ring.”
Navran slouched and lowered his head, as if attempting to fold in on himself. “I didn’t talk to my father much.”
“Well.” Cauratha seemed ready to say something, but he swallowed his words and shook his head. With a creaking sigh he reached for Habdana’s hand. “Let us go in. You will need to be cleansed and dressed properly, and you must wear your beard in the Uluriya style. I’ll call for a barber.”
He rose to his unsteady feet and shuffled forward. Navran stood awkwardly at the entrance to the men’s ablution chamber. Taleg prodded him gently from behind, and with a glance backwards he stepped through the curtain.
Mandhi pushed through the curtain into the women’s chamber and washed her hands and feet rapidly, muttering prayers and curses with equal vehemence. For once, she had returned before nightfall and could forego the full ablution—and good, because she had no patience for it. She shook the drops of water off her hands and charged through the inner door, straight into Srithi.
“Oh!” Srithi shouted and tumbled backwards, catching herself before she fell. “Mandhi! I was coming to see you. Did you find Navran?”
“Yes. Unfortunately.” Mandhi brushed passed her towards the door to the men’s chamber.
“Wait!” Srithi shouted. She tugged at the sleeve of Mandhi’s choli and cupped her hand to Mandhi’s ear. “I found the saghada.”
“Oh.” Mandhi’s fury abated a little. None of this was Srithi’s fault. She unclenched her fists and turned to her friend. “Thank you. Who?”
“His name is Ghauna. Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“But it’s better that way, no?”
“Yes, probably.” Of course, even if he had met Mandhi or Cauratha, he would have no idea who she really was. Or else he would never agree to what she was going to ask.
“I thought so. I told him that a young Uluriya woman needed help and discretion, and he seemed willing enough. He’ll see you tonight.” Her voice dropped. “I think he’ll want coin, though.”
Coin was no problem. She could just ask—ah, no. She couldn’t ask her father, nor Veshta who normally supported her and Cauratha. “I don’t suppose you have anything you could give me,” she whispered.
Srithi grinned. “Of course I do. But you have to tell me what this is about.”
Mandhi grabbed Srithi’s hand and kissed her on the cheek. “I will. Afterwards. I promise.”
She glanced down the hall. Cauratha had emerged from the men’s ablution chamber and rested on a stone bench next to Taleg.
“I have to go talk to Taleg and my father,” she said. “Later, tell me exactly how to get to Ghauna. And tomorrow you can know everything.”
She hurried to where her father sat, the folds of her sari rustling insistently around her.
“Just not yet,” Taleg said when she came within earshot. “He still has the mind of a laborer and a slave. You heard him. He barely speaks. He doesn’t understand why he’s here. His religious upbringing was defective. We can’t, we can’t simply drop the whole weight of the Manjur inheritance on him at once.”
Cauratha closed his eyes. “Mandhi, do you hear what Taleg is saying? He thinks we should hide Navran’s name from him until he is ready.”
Mandhi’s heart leapt into her mouth. She had hoped for something like this, but she felt intense relief that Taleg had brought the word and not her. “Yes. He will be ready, but not yet.”
“I can’t lie to him.” Cauratha’s lips trembled. He folded his hands on his lap and thought for a while. “But tonight we can let him rest and eat in peace. Tomorrow, after we perform the sacrifice, we will dine together, and I’ll tell him the truth. Most of the truth. We’ll see when he is prepared for the rest of it.”
The sun had slid behind the distant horizon of the west, leaving the last bit of orange to leach out of the sky. Mandhi counted the coins in the purse Srithi had given her, while Taleg stood watch at the corner of the house. By all appearances, he was merely an escort for a merchant’s daughter going out for a nightly walk. As intended.
“I don’t know, Mandhi,” Taleg said quietly.
“You don’t know what?” This was dissembling. She knew exactly what he meant.
“I don’t like going against your father’s wishes. He has trusted me with so much. With you, to begin with.”
“He said I had latitude to choose, as long as he had another Heir. I’ve delivered him his Heir, and now I’m choosing. And if I have to choose against my father’s will, at least we’ll be within the law of Ulaur. So we agreed.”
“Yes, we agreed, but…”
Mandhi straightened and drew as close to Taleg as she dared without violating their pretense. “Do you love me?”
Taleg looked at her, directly and intently, his pale eyes like chips of moonlight. “Yes,” he said. He threw back his head and turned to the road. “Tell me where we’re going.”
It was a short walk through the Uluriya Quarter of Virnas, thick with wealthy merchant estates and the homes of prominent saghada. But they had to get farther away. They crossed the city, passed beneath the shadow of the king’s palace, and came to the East Quarter, the artisan’s quarter, where the silversmiths and silk merchants mingled their shops around the long market road. Many of the doors had the pentacle over them, and Mandhi began to count the ones they passed. The roads at this hour were empty save wanderers like themselves and a few stray goats. The forges were quelled, but the district still stank of charcoal and the tang of borax.
“Here,” Mandhi said. The ninth door on the left bearing the pentacle.
“Are you ready?” Taleg asked.
She brushed passed him and squeezed his hand. “I have been for a very long time.” She knocked on the door.
A middle-aged man in a shabby blue kurta answered, his lips parting into a sly smile as soon as he saw Mandhi. He bowed.
“The stars upon your house,” Mandhi said.
“They are,” the man said. “You must be the one that Srithi told me of. Come in. My house is pure, those who follow Ulaur may enter without fear.”
Mandhi and Taleg came inside, touching only the tips of their fingers to the water in the clay vessel by the door for ablution. Taleg crouched to get through the door and stood with his shoulders slouched and head down to avoid banging against the palm thatch of the ceiling. The house had but one room aside from the curtained bed-chamber in the rear. A woman and a small child sat at a low table, and the woman bowed her head to Mandhi briefly but said nothing.
“So, you need the services of a saghada,” the man said. He reached up to bring down one of the baskets hanging from the rafters. “My name is Ghauna. I serve the Uluriya families of this district, but I have never seen you before. Of course, that is the point, no?” He winked at her.
“I need you to perform a wedding,” Mandhi said. “It must be according to the law in every respect. But no one else can know.”
“I guessed as much,” Ghauna said. He removed an ivory brush, a jar of oil, and a silver-bound palm-leaf book from the basket. “And where is the groom?”
Mandhi pointed to Taleg.
The man made no effort to hide his surprise. His eyes grew wide, and he looked Taleg up and down from the crown of his ruddy head to his broad, sandaled feet. Taleg grew red, and Mandhi took his hand with defiant brazenness.
“I see why this is a secret,” the man said. He pointed to Taleg. “You cut your hair in our style, but do you truly belong to the Uluriya?”
“I do,” Taleg said.
“I have never heard of a Kaleksha who became an Uluriya. But don’t tell me about it. I agreed to do this, but I want to know as little as possible. Just tell me your names.”
“Taleg. And my wife will be Mandhi.”
A thrill of pride went through Mandhi at hearing the words. She stepped closer to him so their shoulders touched.
Ghauna opened the book and found the page he wanted. He pulled the lid off the jar of oil, and the smell of myrrh flooded the room. In a moment, his demeanor stiffened into total seriousness. He dipped his first finger into the oil and drew the pentacle on his own forehead and the palm of his left hand. “In the name of Ulaur, who formed the stars and cast them to the earth, who makes the seven-winged amashi his servants, who gave the iron of heaven to Manjur his chosen, whose Heir we remember forever.” He anointed Mandhi and Taleg with a pentacle on their foreheads, then said, “Join hands. This will not take long.”
True to his word, the man performed the ceremony quickly but exactly. When it ended, the pleats of their hair were braided together, and the hands they clasped together were fragrant with oil. The man read the last lines of the rite, then carefully folded the book shut. Mandhi gasped for air as if she had not breathed in an hour. Her heart thudded in her chest.
“Now,” Ghauna said. “Unbraid your hair so that no one sees it when you return. And don’t touch each other until you’re far away from here. I don’t want the least bit of trouble coming back to me for this. Now, does one of you have something for me?”
Mandhi tossed the pouch of coins onto the table. The man emptied it into his palm, nodded once, then slipped them into the pocket of his tunic. “The stars upon your house. Go.”
Taleg ducked out the low door, and Mandhi followed. Without hesitation, he took up his usual, swift, fearless gait through the city. Mandhi followed a pace behind him. It seemed like a mile stood between them. How had she stood so close to him for so long? Her hands were shaking, and her tongue was dry. The smell of myrrh covered both of them. If anyone met them they would know that something was afoot. She hadn’t thought to bribe the doorkeeper at Veshta’s estate. But no, perhaps a bribe would raise more suspicion. They would enter quickly, go through their respective entrances, and then—
When they reached the estate, the doorkeeper merely nodded at them before opening the door of the outer chamber. When they were alone, Mandhi took Taleg’s hand and whispered, “Go through the men’s chamber, then to your room. I will go to my bed-chamber and ensure that all is safe. Then you can come to me.”
Taleg nodded. A thin smile wanted to escape his lips, but he seemed to try to hold it back. Without a word, he disappeared through the curtain.
Don’t run. Oh, she wanted to run. Instead, she washed her hands and feet in the ablution chamber and walked up the stairs to her room with quiet, measured steps. Srithi’s chamber was next to hers, but when she peeked through the curtain she saw Srithi’s silhouette in the bed and heard her quiet breathing. Her own room was dark, lit only by the slivers of moonlight leaking in from the window over the courtyard. She slipped inside the curtain and parted it to watch his approach.
No one moved for several long minutes. Then, with steps as silent as a tree planting its roots, Taleg appeared through the shadow. Mandhi let the curtain fall and retreated into the darkness of her room.
Taleg entered. “Mandhi,” he whispered.
Mandhi stepped forward and found his hand. His fingers closed over hers, and he raised her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. His other hand clutched her waist and pulled her to him.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
She took his hand and put it on her breast. “Do you feel how hard my heart beats?” It was hammering as if to break itself against her ribs.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t fear. It’s joy.”
She slipped her hands underneath his dhoti. His skin was warm, his flesh firm and smooth. He pulled aside the folds of her sari. The silk fell away in ruffles at her feet. His hands encircled her waist. He lifted her feet off the ground, bringing her up into his chest. She threw her arms around his neck, leaned in, inhaling the smell of sweat of his chest, the cumin on his breath, the myrrh on his forehead.
They kissed, hard, lips and tongues mingling and releasing all the frustration and impatience they had built up over the last year. His hands flowed from her waist to her thighs and rose to cup her breasts. And they fell into her bed.