“Indeed, a warrior has need of space to not feel confined,” he agreed.
“I suppose.”
“You do not like it,” he remarked, clear disappointment in his tone now.
“I didn’t say that,” she said quickly. “It will just take getting used to.”
“What do you not like about it?”
“Dalden, stop it. It’s beautiful, really.”
“You are mine, thus do I know you well,kerima, and you are not pleased with where you will live.”
She held out her hand to him. When he clasped it, she brought his fingers to her mouth and bit one of his knuckles, hard. He raised a golden brow at her, though he barely felt any pain. He then grinned at her and pulled her to him. She pushed away.
“Bah, that wasn’t an invitation. I was just proving you’ll never know me as well as you think you do, which is a good thing. Surprises add spice to life, after all. As for these quarters, Iwillget used to them. But you saw where I lived. The house I had planned to build for myself would have been four times as big, but it still wouldn’t be a castle. This place is like a—a fairy tale to me. Fairy tales are nice, but they are to be enjoyed temporarily, not permanently. I can’t see staying here forever.”
“You wish to live elsewhere?”
Instead of answering that, she asked him, “Did you plan to always live here, even after you took a lifemate and started your own family?”
“There is ample room here for more than one family,” he stated.
“Yes, but you’re missing my point. You have no desire to spread your wings? To have a place that’s exclusively yours, rather than your parents’? Where I come from, people tend to leave home as soon as they’re done with their schooling, to get out and start their own lives. Parents nurture up to a point, then turn their creations loose and hope they become productive adults. Youarean adult, right?”
That got her a scowl that she couldn’t help chuckling over. It was so rare of him to display frowns of any sort, other than in confusion.
“Sorry,” she said. “But I had to ask, when nothing else around here is what I’m accustomed to. Do women even work on your planet, you know, make things, build, create? Do they have occupations?”
“Not in the way you mean.”
“Take me home.”
“Yet they do have hobbies.”
“Doesn’t suffice for a working woman,” she mumbled. “And yet youdohave industry here, craftsmen, woodmills. Evidence is all over your town. Where do you hide it?”
“Kan-is-Tra has not these things. We do not tamper with nature above the surface of the ground, other than to add to it in the growing of food.”
“And below the surface?”
“The gold metal is extracted in many areas of the world, including here in Kan-is-Tra. Usually Darash who live near each mine have the knowledge of crafting and shaping the metal into useful objects.”
“And the furniture I’ve seen?”
“It is made in countries to the south. Twice a year we get huge caravans of merchants who bring these things to us. There are potters in the north. Most all Darash are skilled in weaving, sewing, and dyeing. Glassmaking is known in the east, but is generally not transported by caravan because it rarely survives the trip.”
“I guess that’s something,” she said with some relief. “How hard is it going to be for me to commute to one of these craft countries to get a job?”
No answer and a really blank look. Brittany sighed, but recalled that there was a better information source attached to her hip.
“Martha, what wasn’t to understand about that question?” she asked.
“He understood it, doll, he just didn’tunderstandit, if you get my drift. Sha-Ka’ani women have simply never had a need to work. They go from one protector to another all their lives, so they never lack for support—which doesn’t mean they don’t have responsibilities. If you need an example, think of them as the medieval lady of the keep who keeps everything running smoothly, supervises the servants, and makes sure things get done and done right.”
“That isn’t work, that’s home chores.”
Martha chuckled. “The culture you came from had evolved in leaps and bounds in just the last hundred years, and took giant leaps where women are concerned in just the last fifty years. So I know your women didn’t always have this ‘gotta work’ attitude. You have it because you were born when it was already starting, and by the time you reached adulthood it was already fully in place. You expected to support yourself, expected to continue doing so even after you married, because your people have let their economy go bonkers, forcing them to hook up to combine incomes in order to get anywhere.”
