Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe

“Certainly, on that blessed day when the gods call our father to sit with them as a saint in Heaven, my husband will inherit all his worldly stuffs, including this, our clever sister Inas, to dispose of as he will.”

At her father’s direction, Inas had read many things, including the Holy Books and domestic law. She knew, with a scholar’s detachment, that women were the lesser vessel and men the god-chosen administrators of the universe the gods had created, toyed with and tired of.

She knew that, in point of law, women were disbarred from holding property. Indeed, in point of law, women were themselves property, much the same as an ox or other working cattle, subject to a man’s masterful oversight. A man might dispose of subject women, as he might dispose of an extra brood cow, or of an old and toothless dog.

She knew these things.

And, yet, until this moment, she had not considered the impact of these facts upon her own life and self.

What, indeed, she thought, would Safarez the merchant’s son do with one Inas, youngest daughter of his wife’s father? Inas, who read as well as a man—a sinful blot so dire that she could not but be grateful that the Holy Books also stated that the souls of women were small, withered things, of no interest to the gods.

Humaria finished the last of her tea, and sat cradling the blue cup in her plump, pretty hands, her eyes misty.

“There now, sweet, rest,” Shereen murmured, capturing the cup and passing it to Inas. She put arm around Humaria’s shoulders, urging her to lie down on the couch.

Inas arose and carried the tray back to the cooking alcove. She washed and dried the teapot and cup, and put the biscuits back in their tin. The sventi she left out.

She was wise in this, for not many minutes later, Shereen slipped into the alcove, veils dangling and flame-colored hair rippling free. She sighed, and reached for the leaves, eating two, one after the other, before giving Inas a swift glance out of the sides of her eyes, as if Shereen were the youngest, and caught by her elder in some unwomanly bit of mischief.

“Our sister was distraught,” she said softly. “She never meant to wound you.”

“She did not wound me,” Inas murmured. “She opened my eyes to the truth.”

Shereen stared, sventi leaf halfway to her lips.

“You do not find the truth a fearsome thing, then, sister?” she asked, and it was Inas who looked away this time.

“The truth is merely a statement of what is,” she said, repeating the most basic of her father’s lessons, and wishing that her voice did not tremble so. “Once the truth is known, it can be accepted. Truth defines the order of the universe. By accepting truth, we accept the will of the gods.”

Shereen ate her leaf in silence. “It must be a wonderful thing to be a scholar,” she said then, “and have no reason to fear.” She smiled, wearily.

“Give you sweet slumber, sister. The morrow will be upon us too soon.”

She went away, robes rustling, leaving Inas alone with the truth.

The truth, being bright, held Inas from sleep, until at last she sat up within her chatrue, lit her fragrant lamp, and had the books of her own studies down from the shelf.

In the doubled brightness, she read until the astronomer on his distant column announced the sighting of the Trio of morning with his baleful song.

She read as a scholar would, from books to which her father, the elder scholar, had directed her, desiring her to put aside those he might wish to study.

The book she read in the lamplight was surely one which her father would find of interest. A volume of Kenazari mythology, it listed the gods and saints by their various praise names and detailed their honors.

Nawar caught her eye, “the one who guards.” A warrior’s name, surely. Yet, her mother had been named Nawar. A second aspect of the same god, Natesa— “blade dancer”—in the Kenazari heresy that held each person was a spirit reincarnated until perfected, alternatively took the form of male and female. The duty of the god in either aspect was to confound the gods of order and to introduce random action into the universe, which was heresy, as well, for the priests taught that the purpose of the gods, enacted through mortal men, was to order and regulate the universe.

Inas leaned back against her pillows and considered what she knew of her father’s third wife. Nawar had been one of the married women chosen as guardians of the three dozen maiden wives sent south from Kenazari as the peace tithe. Each maiden was to be wed to a wise man or scholar, and it had been the hope of the scholars who had negotiated it that these marriages would heal the rifts which had opened between those who had together tamed the wildlands.

Alas, it had been a peace worked out and implemented locally, as the Holy Books taught, and it had left the mountain generals unsatisfied.

Despite the agreement and the high hopes of wise men, the generals and their soldiers swept through Kenazari shortly after the rich caravan of dowries and oath-bound girls passed beyond the walls of the redoubt. Fueled by greed, bearing off-world weapons, they murdered and laid waste—and then dispersed, melting back into the mountains, leaving nothing of ancient, wealthy Kenazari, save stone and carrion.

The priests of the south found the married escorts to be widows and awarded them to worthy husbands. Reyman Bhar had lately performed a great service for the priests of Iravati, and stood in need of a wife. Nawar was thus bestowed upon him, and it had pleased the gods to allow them to find joy, each in the other, for she was a daughter of an old house of scholars, and could read, and write, and reason as well as any man. Her city was dead, but she made shift to preserve what could be found of its works, assisted gladly by her new husband.

So it was that numerous scrolls, books, and tomes written in the soon-to-be-forgotten language found their way into the house of Scholar Bhar, where eventually they came under the study of a girl child, in the tradition of her mother’s house...

The astronomer on his tall, cold column called the Trio. Inas looked to her store of oil, seeing it sadly depleted, and turned the lamp back ‘til the light fled and the smoky wick gave its ghost to the distant dawn.

She slept then, her head full of the myths of ancient Kenazari, marriage far removed from her dreams.

Their father sent word that he would be some days in the city of Lahore-Gadani, one day west across the windswept ridges of the Marakwenti range that separated Iravati from the river Gadan. He had happened upon his most excellent friend and colleague, Scholar Baquar Hafeez, who begged him to shed the light of his intellect upon a problem of rare complexity.

This news was conveyed to them by Nasir, their father’s servant, speaking through the screen in the guest door.

Humaria at once commenced to weep, her face buried in her hands as she rocked back and forth, moaning, “He has forgotten my wedding! I will go to my husband ragged and ashamed!”

Shereen rushed to embrace her, while Inas sighed, irritable with lack of sleep.

“I do not think our father has forgotten your wedding, sister,” she said, softly, but Humaria only cried harder.

As it happened, their father had not forgotten his daughters, nor his mission in the city. The first parcels arrived shortly after Uncu’s prayer was called, and were passed through the screen, one by one.

Bolts of saffron silk, from which Humaria’s bridal robes would be sewn; yards of pearls; rings of gold and topaz; bracelets of gold; ubaie fragile as spider silk and as white as salt; hairpins, headcloths, and combs; sandals; needles; thread. More bolts, in brown and black, from which Humaria’s new dayrobes would be made, and a hooded black cloak, lined in fleece.