3

When he was twenty, my father left his homeland of Saro-Urok and came to the land of Efea to make his fortune. The very day he arrived on the wharfs he saw a sixteen-year-old Commoner girl in the market and fell in love with her beauty. This is not a remarkable story. As foreigners say, there are more women in Efea than stars in the sky. The foreign men who come here to make careers in the royal service are generally young and unmarried and thus quick to fall into and out of love.

What is remarkable is that my father has stayed loyal to my mother for twenty years.

Even though he is only a baker’s son, he is still considered Patron-born. Patrons are people either born in the old empire of Saro or descended from ancestors who emigrated from Saro to Efea any time in the last hundred years. The law forbids people of Saroese ancestry from marrying the native people of Efea, who are called Commoners.

As Father moved up the military ranks he could have contracted a marriage with a Patron woman to help advance his army career. It is the usual path for ambitious and successful Patron men. Commoner girls are for youthful liaisons. Patron wives are for status and sons.

That all he has to show for the relationship with our mother is four daughters, two stillborn sons, and several miscarriages makes his loyalty all the more unusual. Most Patron men would have abandoned one Commoner concubine and taken another, hoping for a son. Most Patron men would have smothered Maraya at birth and handed unlucky twin girls like Bettany and me over to the temple.

Father did none of those things.

But I’m certain he will kill me if he finds out I’ve been running the Fives during the months and years he is away from home at the wars.