“I am very well, I can assure you.” I flushed, looking back at Dagan. “Thank you both.”
Her eyes twinkled. “It appears to be so. Please let us know if that changes.” Ummi turned and squinted at some noisy revelers. “Come, Humusi. We’re not needed here. And it appears we’ve a situation to attend to.” Ummi flashed a smile, exposing rows of gapped teeth, and they marched quickly away. People cleared a path as they wended through the crowd toward the commotion.
These women had given up every possibility of marriage and children to be Koru warriors, the most elite fighters in service to the sarratum. In fact, I’d witnessed one warrior removed from the Koru altogether for being caught in a man’s bed. The commitment had to be absolute, nothing to muddle their minds.
Yet tradition said I was supposed to marry. I was a young, orphaned girl with no father to put food in my stomach and clothes on my back, even though I was managing well enough on my own with my friends. But tradition also said if I did marry, my husband would be my legal guardian. He could make decisions for me. If we ever stood before a judge, he would speak for me. It was hard for me to think of entering a marriage where we wouldn’t be seen by the law as equals. He could, under the law, take everything I owned and cast me out. I couldn’t do the same. The power would not be mine as a woman.
When I was young, a man had once exercised his power with his wife, Zuzu. He’d said she was stealing the family money to squander it away. She said she was simply purchasing goods their family would need. He took her in front of Lugal Marus and had washed his hands of her. She ended up down by the well, begging for food while he remarried and another woman raised her children.
But Dagan would never do something like that, even though he could.
He was always kind, and worked hard for us. He’d been transforming the ragged patch of weeds behind our home into a plot flush with barley, which was nearing harvest any day. He’d been wanting to introduce the crop to this city, and had even told me of plans to take it to more cities in the north. Expand on it. Build a big, booming, prosperous business.
What if Dagan made good on his desires to move away from Manzazu? I was excited for him and wanted him to succeed, but if he left, that would mean I’d have to abandon the healing practice I’d been trying to build. What of my ill patients? Mirrum? Could I possibly give up everything simply for a tradition?
But Dagan’s finger running down the back of my arm filled me with a low, deep longing, my body a traitor to my thoughts. Lying with him was getting more and more difficult not to do, but I didn’t want my body to make a promise my brain hadn’t yet decided. Iltani lay with whomever she pleased, and that was fine for her, though I’d begged her repeatedly to be careful. But for me? I knew what it would mean to Dagan. I swallowed as he softly played with the curls hanging down my back.
“My sweet? Will you look at me? You were lost in your thoughts again.”
Outside the tent, Nanaea danced in the center of the crowd, her hair falling down to her waist, bouncing and swaying. She tipped back a flagon of brew, drinking deeply, then spluttered with laughter as a young man spun her around. How happy she could be while my insides were perpetually knotted like a rope. Beyond her, Simti and Ilu danced on the dais, their arms wrapped around one another, lost to the romance of the night.
I turned to look at his earnest, handsome face. A face with lips I’d kissed a thousand times and wanted to kiss a thousand more. I ran my hands over his warm shoulders. “I’m right here.”
He took my hands in his. Kissed each one, then brought his amber eyes to mine. There was longing there. Hope. And at the back end, a little bit of fear.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
Pinpricks covered my body. Nerves or excitement? Both?
“Will you let me make you as happy as Simti is this night?” His breath came fast. He licked his lips, his eyes pleading. “Be my bride, Kammani, Healer of Manzazu. Be my wife. And let me spend the rest of my life showing you how much of my heart you really hold.”
My stomach flipped as my heart pounded. “But…what of my healing practice?”
His eyes grew confused. “Your…healing practice?”
“What if you want to go to the north to expand your crop and all of my work is here? I couldn’t leave my patients.”
Understanding filled his eyes. “Ah. Well, we could make an arrangement, could we not?”
“I wouldn’t sacrifice what I’ve built, Dagan.” I ran a finger down his cheek. “My work is too precious to me.”
“But couldn’t you establish a new practice if it meant I could better provide for a family? There is great opportunity in the north.”
“No! I wouldn’t want to do that just for better trade. Not until I’d helped as many people as I could in this city. Or…or…trained an apprentice or something.”
“Well, marriage means we’d have to compromise. At least a little.”
“But what if I don’t want to compromise? By law, you could force me to!”
His brow furrowed. “Do you think I’d ever force you to do anything? You know I would never do that. We could make it work somehow. I swear it.”
“Dagan, listen—” But my response was swept out of my mouth, out of my head, as a long, strangled scream tore the night in two.
“Who was that?” I whispered, panic spreading through my body like fire.
We leapt to our feet, and Dagan pulled his dagger from its sheath as shouts erupted near the far end of the courtyard.
He looked at me, fear twisting his features.
“That sounded a lot like—”
“—Arwia,” I finished.
Hands clasped tightly together, we fled the tent.
WITH TORCHES HELD high, alarmed wedding-goers clustered in the corner of the courtyard near a small thatch of olive trees draped with silk streamers.
Arwia stood near Nasu, her face a sickly shade of amber, one hand pressed to her ear. Blood seeped onto her tunic and dripped down her long strands of black hair.
“Nasu!” Dagan shouted.
“Over here!” Nasu raised one lanky arm.
We weaved through concerned bystanders to get to the former Alu guardsman. He greeted us with worried eyes. “She’s hurt. Badly.” He flexed his angular jaw.
“Let me see your ear, Arwia,” I demanded. Blood was seeping through her fingers.
She moved her small hand away from the side of her head with a wince, and I held in a gasp. Her ear was nearly severed from her head.