by Sharon Shinn
“Oh, you didn’t wake me up. I didn’t hear you till I was on my way back from the water room. But Gabbatha, she sleeps light, she may have heard you arguing all night for all I know.”
“We’ll be quiet, I promise.”
“You’ll go to sleep, is what you’ll do,” Hepzibah replied. “Foolish girls. Don’t think I’ll be telling Jerusha to let you sleep in tomorrow, not if you don’t have enough sense to take to your beds at a reasonable hour.”
“I’m sorry,” Rebekah said again. “We’ll be quiet.”
She apologized one more time, watched Hepzibah navigate the last few yards down the hall to her own room, and then shut the door. Flying across the room, she landed on the mat beside Martha, who had covered her mouth with her hands to press back the laughter.
“Quiet! She’ll be awake all night now, straining to hear every word we say,” Rebekah hissed.
“Spiteful old cat,” Martha whispered. “She doesn’t know what it feels like to slip out of the house at night and lie in the arms of a lover—”
“Martha!”
Martha rolled her eyes. “Well, what do you think? I’ve known him almost three months! Every time he goes away, I’m afraid I’m never going to see him again. I just want to hold him as close as I can.”
“But, Martha—”
“Oh, like you never had such thoughts about your precious angel! Who, I notice, you did manage to find in the crowd tonight, even though he couldn’t recognize you, so you had to be the one to walk up and introduce yourself to him—”
“Ssh! Be quiet! You still haven’t told me—”
“Oh, we’re done talking about me now. I want to hear about you and the angel O-ba-di-ah.”
A rush of excitement and terror left Rebekah speechless for a moment, just at the sound of his name, and she realized all her preaching at Martha was hollow and hypocritical. Martha had known her illicit lover longer than Rebekah had known hers, but Martha had done nothing that Rebekah did not long to do—might someday do, if the opportunity arose and the temptation was great enough.
Well, the temptation was already great enough. What Rebekah was counting on was keeping the opportunities to a minimum.
“I—he is—he came there looking for me,” Rebekah said. “He wants me to meet him again, but I—it is so frightening, because I want to, but I know I can’t—I mean, I shouldn’t, even if I could—”
Martha rolled to her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. “You can,” she said. “If you want to.”
Rebekah stared at her. “How? And I don’t want to—”
“You do want to! Don’t lie to me, even if you’ve been lying to this poor angel. ‘Oh, Obadiah, you beautiful angelo, I’m a good Jansai girl, and I don’t sneak out of the house without my brother’s escort.’ ”
Rebekah’s face was burning. “Well, I don’t! Certainly not to meet men! Martha, if your father knew—”
“My father doesn’t know anything,” Martha said shortly. “And your father is dead. You can do what you like.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Very well, but you can sneak out of this house and meet your angel friend. I can help you.”
“You just want to disgrace yourself with this—Chesed boy!”
“If you keep scolding me,” Martha said calmly, “I won’t help you keep an assignation with your angel.”
Rebekah opened her mouth to reply hotly that she did not want to keep an assignation with Obadiah, but she could not make the words come. Dear Jovah, blessed god, she was as bad as Martha—worse than Martha, because she at least seemed to have some notion of what was at risk, and she wanted to do it anyway.
“What must I do?” Rebekah asked humbly. “I want to see him again.”
Martha returned to her father’s house in the morning when Ephram came by to collect her, but her good-byes to Jerusha and Hepzibah and the other women were brief and sunny. “Oh, I’m coming back to spend the night,” she said carelessly. “They’re recaulking the garden wall at my father’s house, and the smell drifts up to my room at night. I can’t sleep at all, thinking I’m going to be poisoned.”
“You know you’re always welcome here,” Jerusha said with a smile. “You keep Rebekah out of trouble.”
“Yes, awrie, that’s what I try to do,” Martha said.
“Will you be here for dinner?” Jerusha asked.
“I don’t think so. Ephram can’t be spared till later, so it will be well after sundown, I think.”
“Well, we won’t look for you till you arrive.”
Rebekah spent the day alternating between exhausted lethargy and sweet hysteria, imagining what the night might bring. She was willing enough to watch the baby when her mother impatiently asked her if there was anything productive she might be able to summon the energy for, and she spent a few pleasant hours entertaining him while he was awake and dozing beside him while he slept. He had just settled into another nap when her mother found her midway through the afternoon.
“Wondrous. You’re actually still helping,” Jerusha said dryly. “Asa’s here and she wants to measure you.”
Rebekah sat up drowsily. “What? Measure me?”
“For your bridal dress. Come on, the baby’s fine. She’s waiting in the fabric room.”
Rebekah followed her mother through the shadowy halls of the upper level to the wide, cluttered chamber they called the fabric room. Here, stacked against every wall, were bolts of fabric of all descriptions: cotton for making everyday jeskas, silks for fashioning formal clothes, heavy canvas sheeting for repairing the tents on the traveling wagons, fine linens for bedding. Every woman of the household knew how to sew ordinary clothes or hem a curtain, but Asa was called in when special styling was required. She was a short, heavy woman with dull gray hair and thick features set in a complexion that, to this day, was flawless. She lived with her son’s family in a grand house near the market, and every wealthy Jansai woman of the past two generations had hired her to design her wedding dress.
“Oh. You,” Asa said when Rebekah followed her mother into the room and Asa got a look at her. Rebekah could only suppose Asa had been to so many houses and met so many young girls that she hadn’t been able to remember what this particular bride looked like.
“Good afternoon, awrie,” Rebekah said more respectfully than she felt. There were half a dozen women scattered throughout the room engaged in their own projects, and Rebekah was sure they were all watching this exchange with interest.
“Don’t just stand there, girl, come here where I can see you,” Asa said sharply, motioning her over. Rebekah reluctantly crossed the floor to stand in the center of the room, directly under the skylight. It was the only place in all of the women’s quarters that admitted natural sunlight, a decided advantage when a seamstress was picking out colors and textures. On dreary winter days when she’d been confined to the house too long, Rebekah had sometimes come to this room just to be cheered by the cold infusion of white sun.
“Huh. Now lift your arms. Now turn.” Rebekah complied. “Where’s my measuring string? Hold out your arms again.” Rebekah waited patiently while Asa calculated the reach of her hands and the height of her shoulders from the floor. “Very well. Now strip down.”
Rebekah dropped her arms and stared at the seamstress.
“What?”
“You heard her. Come on, come on, give me your jeska,” Jerusha said impatiently.
Rebekah was sure she heard a titter from someone in the room, probably Hector’s sister’s daughter, a snide and spiteful girl. “I am not getting naked here in front of—in front of all of you!” Rebekah said, crossing her arms against her chest.
“Jovah love me, I’ve seen your body so many times I could draw it from memory,” Jerusha said.
“Not since I was about six years old!” Rebekah exclaimed.
“And when you’ve been bathing in the water room and when I was nursing you through some sickness and—oh, you ridiculous girl, jus
t take everything off and don’t be silly.”
“I don’t—”
“Stop arguing! For once! We will promise not to look at your delicate flesh any more than we can help.”
Now there was no chance that anyone in the room was failing to eavesdrop on the conversation. Rebekah was completely mortified, convinced she was blushing on every square inch of her so-far-covered skin. “What does she have to measure my body for? I’ve never needed to be measured for any of my jeskas, except when I was growing taller.”
“Wedding dress is different from a jeska,” Asa said. “It shows your new husband how beautiful you are. What a prize you are. What a handful he’ll take hold of when he whisks you into the bedroom.”
Rebekah choked back a gasp and heard Hector’s niece snicker again. “Mother,” she whined.
Jerusha appeared to be about fed up. “Come on, now. Off with that jeska. We do not have all day to stand here and indulge your modesty.”
Slowly, furiously, Rebekah untied the sashes of her jeska and let it fall to the floor at her feet. Under that was the hallis, made of straight panels of cloth that hung down her front and back, designed to cover her body should the folds of the jeska spread too wide or dance aside in the wind. Once she had slipped the hallis over her head, she was left standing only in a sheer, transparent covering of silk, designed to wick away heat in the summer and coddle the skin with warmth in winter. She stood there adamant, refusing to strip this final shield away.
“Fine, fine, it doesn’t matter,” Asa grumbled, holding up her measuring string again. “Lift your arms now. Higher, do you think I can duck under your elbow like that?”
This was even more intensely embarrassing, as Asa wrapped the string around Rebekah’s chest, laying it right across her small breasts and snugging it tight. “She’s thin enough to please him, but there’s enough here to really please him,” Asa said with a cackle, and Rebekah prayed that the floor would open along its seams and allow her to melt through. “That’s a treat for any man on his wedding day.”
“Built like my mother,” Jerusha observed. “Of course, she died a fat old lady with a stomach that stuck out farther than her bosom, so this little girl better watch her appetite as she gets older.”
“Good hips, though,” Asa said, dropping the string to circle Rebekah’s waist and cinching it in. “Nice and narrow.”
Jerusha groaned. “Too narrow, if you ask me. Makes for a lot of screaming when the babies come.”
“And a nice midsection. You want to watch the sweets, or your stomach will swell up big like your grandmother’s, but right now you’re as scrawny as a young boy,” Asa said approvingly. “I had a figure like this one day. Wouldn’t know it now.”
“We all had figures like this one day,” Jerusha said with a sigh. “But three children and a hard life and—” She shrugged. “That’s the way of it, though. You’re young and beautiful for five minutes, it seems.”
“Then you’ve got a husband who can’t be satisfied and babies who won’t stop wailing, and you’re camped out somewhere south of the Heldoras in a rainstorm,” Asa agreed. “And you say, ‘Send me back now! To my father’s house! Everybody loved me, and I didn’t have to lift a finger. I didn’t have to wonder what this brute was going to say or do next—’ ”
“Asa,” Jerusha reprimanded her, giving her daughter a quick look. Rebekah was pulling her hallis over her head and trying to pretend she wasn’t in the room. “We have a bride here.”
“Misty-eyed now, red-eyed in the morning,” Asa said incorrigibly. “That’s what my mother told me the day before I got married. I was happy when that horse’s ass died and I could go to my son’s house to live in peace. Happier than I had been on any day since the day before my wedding.”
“Asa,” Jerusha said again.
“You’ve been fortunate in your marriages. Everyone says so.”
“And Rebekah will be fortunate, too. Isaac is a wonderful boy.”
Asa looked skeptical. “Not if he’s anything like his father. Though Simon’s not as bad as some, I’ll give him that. Lucky for her she’s not marrying Michael’s boy. I told my son to keep his daughter out of that household, no matter how rich Michael is.”
“Well, money can sweeten the bitterest poison, and Hector says Michael is not so bad,” Jerusha claimed. “But it’s Simon who’s the far-thinker, Hector says. It’s Simon who understands trading. We’re better off with Simon. Rebekah will deal much better with Isaac.”
“So!” Asa said, putting her hands on her broad hips and looking up at Rebekah. “What colors would you like to wear on this most happy occasion?”
It was another hour of torture before Rebekah could finally slip away from the fabric room and go bury herself in blushes in her own room. She had not, by the time Asa posed the question, been able to think of a single hue or fabric that would seem suitable for her wedding, but under the prodding of Asa and her mother, she had made some random selections. If she remembered correctly now, she would be attired in a collection of silky greens, some the palest sage, some striped with ochre and saffron. The dress would be molded to her shoulders, cling to her upper body, and be gathered tightly at the waist, in a display of immodesty that still left Rebekah speechless.
Everyone would see her in this garb—not only the women, gathered in the garlanded dining hall that would be decorated for the event, but the men as well, attending in the great open dining chamber that adjoined the women’s room. It would not just be her male relatives and Isaac’s family present to gawk at her in the thin, revealing dress, but all of Hector’s and Simon’s business associates and the other wealthy Jansai men of Breven. It had not occurred to her that she would have to present herself to them in a state so close to nakedness it almost made no difference. Her face would be veiled, but her body would be on display, and everyone in the room would have his chance to assess what Isaac would be taking to bed with him that night. The thought was humiliating. She could stroll boldly down the streets of Breven, dressed like a boy and showing off her bare face, and not feel nearly the degree of shame she would suffer on her wedding day.
How could women stand to be married? And how could they stand all the tribulations that came after?
Rebekah shivered on her mattress and concealed her face with her pillow. She wanted to crawl under the mattress and hide her whole body.
She was only partially recovered, and therefore fairly subdued, when she joined the other women for dinner. Hector’s niece made a point of sitting beside her and talking very loudly about her own prospects for getting married in the next year or so. Are you insane? Rebekah wanted to scream at her. Didn’t you hear anything they were saying? But the girl talked on blithely of rich merchants and their enterprising sons. Rebekah toyed with her food and thought she might throw up.
Her spirits revived a little as the night wore on, however, and she thought about what the evening might hold. She dropped by the baby’s room shortly after dinner to find her mother there, nursing him.
“When did Martha say she would be back?” Jerusha asked.
“Sometime after dinner. I thought I’d go down to the garden and wait for her.”
“Hepzibah said you girls were up all night talking. No wonder you were so irritable today.”
“I wasn’t irritable! Nobody wants to be told to go naked in front of everybody in the household—”
“Well, you just make sure you girls go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight. I don’t want you dragging around all day tomorrow, cross-eyed and crabby.”
Rebekah shrugged and headed for the door without even giving the baby his customary kiss. “We’ll try,” she said shortly. “Good night.”
An hour later, she was down in the garden, sitting on a narrow ornamental bench and feeling the air cool down around her. It was full dark already, though the generous three-quarter moon cast down enough light to see by. Rebekah had Jordan’s clothes on underneath her own, but didn’t want to take her jeska off just yet in c
ase Hepzibah or Gabbatha or somebody else came out for a late-night stroll. She could hear voices on the street, boys whooping out their high spirits as they headed toward the fair, men more soberly discussing market values and probable bargains to be had from certain sellers. Now and then she caught the echo of footsteps as a solitary reveler made his way toward the festival lights. Then, for a few minutes, silence.
A few moments later, voices again. “When will you be ready in the morning?” Ephram asked.
“I’m at your convenience,” Martha said. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to come too early.”
“Father’s meeting with Uriah at the city rim at noon,” Ephram said. “He wants me with him. I’ll come for you about an hour before.”
“That sounds good. Thank you.”
A quick knock on the gate, and Rebekah slid back the locks and opened it. “Going back to the fair tonight?” she asked Ephram.
He shook his head and looked glum. “Merchants at the house that Father’s entertaining,” he said. “I have to be there. Sometimes I think—” He shook his head as if to shake away the unworthy thoughts, and then burst out, “I don’t know that I want to be a man any time soon! It’s all talk and barter, barter and talk. Father hasn’t been to the fair once this year. He never has any fun.”
“Father thinks it’s fun to make money,” Martha said. “I wouldn’t feel too much pity for him.”
Rebekah felt a twinge of sympathy, something she rarely felt for the cocky Ephram. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to grow into adulthood either.
“See you tomorrow, then,” Martha said, and came inside the garden, shutting the gate behind her.
They waited in tense silence until they heard his footsteps die away. Then Martha pulled off her veil and jeska, revealing the boy’s clothes underneath. “Charcoal?” she whispered.
“Here,” Rebekah whispered back, pulling it out of one of Jordan’s pockets. She slipped off her own jeska and folded it carefully, hiding it in the shadow thrown by the bench. Then she quickly wrapped her hair in the loose headpiece the young boys favored. It felt strange to have her face so exposed that she didn’t even have locks of hair to cover her cheeks. “Can you see well enough to fix my face?”
