Starting the letter was hard. How formal should she be? How honest? Finishing it seemed like an impossible task. Mehr had never had much cause to write lengthy letters, and her feelings for Arwa were far too huge and complex to reduce down into words. But Mehr struggled on. She stained her fingers black and wasted copious amounts of ink, but the letter was finished in time for the messenger to carry it alongside her father’s missive for Maryam.
It was an inadequate letter, full of useless platitudes and soft, meaningless chatter. It wasn’t the message Mehr had wanted to write, but being honest about all the love and fear curdled up inside her wouldn’t have helped Arwa. So she lied, and wrote that her husband-to-be was handsome and kind, that her wedding was going to be beautiful. She wrote that she was happy.
She hoped Arwa would read her letter and believe every word.
There was no time to think about the letter after that. The household was in chaos. There was simply not enough time to plan a wedding, even one that had been reduced to nothing but its bare bones. From the murmurs of the servants, Mehr knew that a feast was being planned, suitable entertainment was being arranged, and the Lotus Hall was being decorated in fresh flowers, sourced by some miracle despite the withering desert heat.
Her father may have said that there would be no music or dance, but this was the wedding of the Governor’s daughter. All the noble guests—and there would be guests, despite the short notice—would expect the Governor to provide a respectable celebration in honor of his daughter’s marriage. The servants understood that. They recognized the unspoken expectations of his station, and their own.
Mehr’s station gave her the privilege of taking no part in the preparations. She sat in her room, worse than useless, as the maids fussed over her. All she could do was wait and wait, agonizing over what was to come.
Nahira took it upon herself to make the experience infinitely more difficult by hovering over Mehr with all the ferocity of a tiger protecting her cub. The seamstress arrived to fit Mehr for a hastily made bridal robe, and Nahira nearly made her stab Mehr with a needle by scolding her until she was a nervous wreck. The maids came with questions; Nahira sent them scattering. Mehr tolerated all of this. But when Nahira began explaining what happened between a husband and wife in the marriage bed in extensive, excruciating detail, Mehr found that she’d reached her limit.
“I know what men and women do,” Mehr snapped. “Gods, Nahira, Lalita was—is—a courtesan. She told me enough.”
Nahira huffed, making low sounds under her breath that didn’t sound particularly complimentary.
“Is my hearing going?” Mehr said. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Nahira gave her a level look. Then she said in a clearer voice, “Your father should have told you about that. Not her.”
Mehr shuddered. “I’m glad he didn’t. I can’t imagine a conversation I’d like less.”
“If Lady Maryam hadn’t left, then she would be the one sitting here telling you about the marriage bed.” Mehr grimaced and put her face in her hands. Nahira patted her shoulder. “There you are. It could always be worse.”
After that Nahira was quieter, perhaps aware now of how fear had altered her behavior and made a fool of her. The quiet left Mehr far too much room to think, and she regretted having snapped at her old nursemaid. There was nothing Mehr could have done to alleviate Nahira’s worry except allow her to fuss, and she had even denied Nahira that comfort. But Mehr hadn’t wanted to think of her wedding night, and Nahira had forced her to do so.
Now that she had begun thinking about it, she couldn’t make herself stop. As the evening of her wedding came, as her maids dressed her, as they marked her with scent and lined her eyes with kohl, as her lips were daubed red, she thought of the night ahead. She was going to be intimate with a stranger. Not only would his duties be her duties, his burdens her burdens, but his body would become an extension of her own. Marriage was a matter of the soul, but Mehr had willfully forgotten that it was also a matter of flesh.
It’s too late to run, Mehr reminded herself.
Nahira didn’t hug her good-bye. She pressed Mehr’s hands between her own, her grip firm and her mouth thin.
“Good-bye, Lady Mehr,” she said. Her voice trembled. She swallowed. “Take care.”
Mehr nodded, unable to speak. She had to be brave, and if she spoke she would cry.
Guards guided her to the Lotus Hall. Rather than slipping behind the partition screen with the other women, Mehr was led to the main entrance. Through her veil, she could see the vastness of the room and smell the sweet perfume of the flowers wreathed along the walls. Noblemen watched her from the edges. Behind the partition screen, the women watched Mehr too, their bodies reduced to blurred shadows. With all eyes on her, Mehr began walking to the center of the Hall, where her groom awaited under the wedding canopy.
Mehr was drenched in gold. Flowers were wound through her braid. The weight of her robe was ridiculous. But Amun was dressed in the same dark, heavy robes he had worn the entire time he had been in Jah Irinah. All the mystics, who stood in a ring around the canopy, were dressed similarly. It shouldn’t have surprised Mehr that they were making a mockery of her marriage. It was no different from what they had done so far, after all.
Before she could reach the canopy, her father stood in her path. He took her arm.
“Blessings on you, daughter.” His voice was rough.
“And you, Father.”
Holding on to her, he guided her last few steps toward the canopy. Then, reluctantly, he let go of her arm and stepped back into the crowd.
I release you, the act said.You belong to another man now.
The act was only symbolic. But Mehr, of all people, knew that rites and rituals had power.
She did not want to belong to Amun or to the Great One he served. But she stepped under the canopy regardless.
Kalini was presiding over the ceremony, of course. If the wedding had been a true celebration and not the farce it was, her father would have selected a senior member of the local nobility to preside over the ceremony. Being selected would have been a great sign of his favor. Her father had himself led numerous wedding ceremonies in the past, as was his right as a respected member of the nobility and Governor of the province.
Mehr saw Kalini take a step forward from the rest of her kind, heard her sonorous voice ring out, echoing over the Hall as she began the traditional marriage chant. The words washed over Mehr. They didn’t matter. All her focus was on Amun.
