Although he no doubt intended “admirably disciplined” as a compliment, I found myself regretting what I had done to deserve it. I could not keep from sounding plaintive as I said, “Must that get in the way? As near as I can tell, your actions against the Banu Safr have won you acclaim, not censure. I understand that your brother is concerned for your family’s image—but surely it does you more good to assist in this work, upon which he has staked the Aritat reputation, than to sit idle just to avoid me.”
He did not answer immediately. The silence weighed upon me, until I voiced a bitter addendum. “Or is that the precise issue? Not propriety, nor even the general weight of rumour. Me, myself. I am a scandal at home; I carry that scandal with me here. Were I another woman—one whose reputation was not in doubt—then perhaps other factors could prevail. But I am not, and so a decent man may not associate with me.”
The fury and shame of it burned within me. I was so very tired of being judged in such fashion; and yet, being tired of it achieved nothing. Whatever my feelings on the matter, I must endure. The only way to escape would be to surrender, to retreat into obscurity and never show my face again… and that, I would not do. The path I followed had brought me to Jacob, Tom, Lord Hilford, Suhail himself. I would not surrender the hope of this man’s companionship, not if there were any possible way to keep it.
“It is not you,” Suhail said. He spoke with conviction—as if his conviction could convince the world. “Isa—Umm Yaqub. I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for you, and will defend that against any man who says otherwise. But it is on behalf of your good reputation that I must not go with you. To travel like that, with a woman who is neither my kin nor my wife…”
“Then what if we were married?”
I sometimes imagine there is a clerk behind a desk situated between the brain and the mouth. It is his job to examine utterances on their way out, and stamp them with approval or send them back for reconsideration. If such a clerk exists, mine must be very harried and overworked; and on occasion he puts his head down on the desk in despair, letting things pass without so much as a second glance.
Suhail stared at me. Then he looked at the floor. Then out the window. Then, in an uneven voice, he said, “A limited-term marriage? As you did with Liluakame, in Keonga. It… could work. The Sheqari school of jurisprudence holds that such things are permitted; the Taribbi says they are not. My brother is an adherent of the Uwani school, which has not rendered an opinion either way. But it might be possible.”
Until he mentioned them, I had not known that limited-term marriages existed in Amaneen legal thought. It was an elegant solution: as he said, I had done something of the kind in Keonga, when I married and then divorced Liluakame so as to satisfy the demands of my status as ke’anaka’i. I might do the same here, silencing the gossips by making an honest woman of myself, so to speak. Of course it would cause even greater scandal back home when the marriage ended—we certainly did not have such arrangements in Scirling law—but for now it might suffice.
The clerk was still derelict in his duty. I said, “It was not a limited-term arrangement that I had in mind.”
Suhail went utterly still. Then, very carefully, he spoke. “Did you just ask for my hand in marriage?”
My face could not have been hotter had a drake breathed on it. But I had advanced too far to retreat; the only way out was through. “I suppose I did. Dear heaven.”
We sat in silence. I could not look away from Suhail, nor him, apparently, from me. I could have drawn his portrait with my eyes closed; I had sketched him once during our voyage, and had looked at the image more times than I should admit in the years since. I thought of trying to find him long before I knew I was coming to Akhia. I never had the courage to follow through.
As a young woman, I had naively thought that I wanted Jacob Camherst to be my friend, because I could not conceive of a man being both friend and husband. But so he had been: husband first, then friend, as we inched our way toward something like a working partnership. Ill chance, however, had taken him from me before we could progress very far. Suhail had begun as a friend, and so I had thought of him, with great and focused determination… but that was not the entirety of what I wanted.
He said, a little breathlessly, “Everyone says you have no intention of marrying again.”
I would have asked who everyone was and why they thought this was any of their business—but the matter at hand took precedence. “I had none. Until this very moment. Intentions change.”
“Why?”
It was the same question I had asked Jacob, the day he came to propose marriage to me. I felt belated empathy for him, being put on the spot in such a fashion. “Because… because I do not want to go into the Labyrinth of Drakes without you. Never mind the practicalities of it; that is what we have al-Jelidah and Haidar for. I do not want to see that place without you at my side. I want you to show me the ruins that inspired you, and I want you present for any discoveries I might make. Now, and always.”
I paused to swallow. My mouth had gone very dry. “I—I said a thousand times that I had no interest in marrying again because marriage would almost certainly place restrictions on my life. A widow has freedoms a wife does not. But when I look at you, I do not see obstacles for my career, I see—” My face burned even more. “I see wings. A way to fly higher and farther than I can on my own.”
Far, far too late, it occurred to me that Lieutenant Marton could almost certainly hear us, as could anyone passing by the window.
Suhail eased forward in his chair. His eyes flickered as he searched my face: for what, I could not tell you. Evidence of insincerity? Of love? Of incipient lunacy? He would not find the first; the second, most definitely; the third, quite possibly.
The clerk had woken up at his desk and was frantically sorting through his records of what had transpired during his delinquency. Stammering, I said, “But you were considering only a limited arrangement. I presume too much, suggesting—”
“You presume nothing that is not true.”
I fell silent, save for the beating of my heart, which felt as loud as a drum.
“I would marry you,” Suhail said, “even if it meant my brother disavowing me on the spot. Which, I should warn you, he may do.”
What would my mother say? I lost one husband in Vystrana, and found another in Akhia. Suhail’s was not the only family that might have pronounced opinions on this matter. “We shall simply have to support ourselves with archaeology and dragons.”
Suhail laughed, and it was the light, joyous sound I had first heard during the voyage of the Basilisk. “I honestly cannot tell whether you are the most practical woman I have ever met, or the most deranged.”
“Why can it not be both?” I said. Inside I was soaring, as I had in the caeliger, on the glider I had called Furcula—only this time, I would not crash. “Now, before I commit an act that truly will start a scandal, tell me: how does one get married in Akhia?”
When I went in search of Andrew, I found him talking to Tom, with a demeanour I instantly recognized as suspicious.