Ark(24)

“Then, one day, the other merchant happened to see me. I was walking with my servants, coming home from the market. I remember what I wore that day—two hundred years ago or more it was, but I remember the deep indigo of the dress, the richness of the fabric as it lay against my skin, the kohl thick on my eyes, gold on my wrists and opals on my neck. My hips swayed like rushes in the wind, and my hair was piled atop my head in intricate braids. Every man in the market saw me, and every man desired me. Sannin was no different, although he was old, older than my father by a dozen years at least. I had no eyes for him—he might as well have been a wall or an urn for all that I noticed him. I only had eyes for my lover.

“He was a no one, my Jorin. His father was a poor carpenter, and Jorin had only a spear and a shield to his name, but he was a strong and fierce warrior . . . he was a god, in my eyes, for all that he was poorer than the very dirt underfoot.

“But you know what happens, yes? My father had a brilliant plan. He enticed Sannin to a tavern, plied him with wine, spoke to him of the merits of joining forces, doing business together. My father had a way with words, and he sold Sannin on the idea. But Sannin had one condition. He would only do business with my father if he could have me as his wife. My father never even batted an eyelash. He agreed right there, without so much as speaking to my mother, much less to me.

“He wouldn’t hear a word from me about what I wanted or didn’t want. I didn’t matter. I was given to Sannin like a bolt of linen, and for less than that in bride-price. Less than a month passed between the meeting and the wedding. I wept all that day. Sannin, old as he was, still had plenty of sap left in his tree, let me tell you. He plowed my field with all the vigor of a man a hundred years younger, and with all the gentility of an aurochs in full charge. So yes, girl, I know what it’s like to bleed after a man’s been between my thighs.”

Mirra paused, staring into the past, seeing ghosts.

“Sannin had a temper on him,” she resumed. “He had quick fists, and he didn’t care a whit if I was in his wife, or a servant. My eye was black and blue more often than not. When I was married to Sannin, Jorin, my lover, was furious. He’d been saving his earnings to pay the price for my hand. He’d saved every single coin he’d earned, my sweet Jorin. He starved himself to marry me. Then, just as he was about to ask for my hand, Father married me off to Sannin.

“Jorin didn’t take that sitting down, I’ll tell you. Sannin went on frequent journeys to other cities, selling his goods, and Jorin, crafty, stupid Jorin, he cornered me in the marketplace. I tried to avoid him, tried to be a dutiful wife. But I couldn’t help it. Jorin, he was . . . oh, he smelled of sweat and dust and all things male as his arms crushed me against him. I couldn’t help myself. I met him in the market as often as I could, at first merely talking, kissing behind the rug-seller’s wares, snatching a moment or two.

“Then, one day Jorin laid me down on a blanket on the floor of a dirty little room and he loved me there, hard and fierce and desperate. He loved me as I’ve never been loved before or since. I got with child from that, and my husband found out. He was not a stupid man, my husband. He never confronted me about it. He waited, and he watched. He saw me with Jorin, and then he hired a dozen men.” Another rife pause. “Jorin died a horrible death. He bled out in the dust outside our home, and I couldn’t go to him. Sannin tied me to a chair and sat me facing the window, forced me to watch as my lover and the father of my baby was beaten to death by a dozen men with clubs. Then Sannin turned to me and beat me until I miscarried the baby. When I’d bled the child out, Sannin dragged me through the streets of the city by my hair and tossed me at my father’s doorstep and left me there.

“My father wouldn’t take me in—he closed the door in my face. My mother snuck out and helped me to a healer, an old woman much as I am now. That old woman saved my life and let me live with her, taught me all she knew, and I became a healer. I’ve not tasted the sweat on a man’s body since Jorin died, and I don’t miss it. Jorin was my one love, and he is gone.”

She fixed her one rheumy eye on me and pierced me with her sharp, knowing gaze. “So yes, child, I do know exactly what your pain feels like, and more yet that I hope you’ll never know.” She nodded firmly. “This I know, child: you will survive this.”

Mirra fell silent, but she didn’t take her eyes from me. She took my hand in hers, and her skin felt like dried papyrus that had set out in the sun too long; she smelled of a hundred kinds of herb, and she had a whisker on her chin, dangling from a mole.

“How will I survive?” I whispered. “How? He is a monster . . . and this child will be a monster. I can feel it growing, I can feel in my bones that if I bear this child, it will be more evil than the father. He will be like my father and my husband combined . . . I—I cannot. I cannot.”

Mirra didn’t answer. She shook her head, muttered to herself, too low for me to hear. She patted my hand, heaved herself to her feet, leaning on her staff. She took up her bag of herbs and stood over the cup of wine that sat near my elbow. With one long, sad glance at me, Mirra dipped her fingers into the bag and withdrew a pinch of herbs and crushed them into the wine with strong, trembling fingers. She handed the goblet to me and watched me drink it, then placed the bag in Irkalla’s hands.

“You know what to do, child,” Mirra said to Irkalla. “You have seen this done before, so you know. Be careful to not give her too much, or she could die.” A long, long pause, and then Mirra turned her gaze to me. “The gods have granted me a vision of you, girl,” she said. “You have a purpose yet, and so you cannot die. You will know the love of your man, but not until you have suffered much.”