Putting my hands on my hips, I glared in mock outrage at my brother and said, “Have you been delaying Tom on purpose?”
“Oh, good God,” Tom said, taking out his pocket watch. “Have I been keeping Suhail waiting?”
“Not in the slightest.” I advanced on Andrew, who retreated with a sheepish and hunted look. “I do not know what you intended, dearest brother, but you shall pay the price for your interference. Have you no care for your sister’s reputation?”
“I—”
“This shall be your penance. You must come with us to the judge and stand as witness to our marriage.”
There are certain moments in my life that I treasure. Most of them in one way or another have to do with dragons… but not all. The look on my brother’s face in that instant is one of the latter.
It was not quite so simple as that, of course. We needed a marriage contract, though it was considered sufficient under Amaneen law for the two of us to sort it out verbally in front of the astonished judge. Suhail had to give me a bridal gift; he offered the best camels and horses and all the supplies I might need for my second excursion to the desert, and I agreed that he need not present those things to me before the marriage itself was formalized. We rushed through these matters, for after so long spent pretending we were nothing more than respectful colleagues, we were eager to have the thing done.
I feel obligated to say I do not actually recommend such behaviour to young people (or even those not so young). There were a hundred questions Suhail and I did not answer before we wed. Our heady excitement carried us over them at the time… but sooner or later we must come down to the ground, and crashing, to return to my previous metaphor, was a distinct risk. I was from Scirland, he from Akhia: where would we live? His people do not have family names in the same manner as Scirlings: would I become Dame Isabella ibn Ramiz, or he Mr. Camherst, or some third alternative entirely? Amaneen custom says that the children of an Amaneen man must be raised in his faith, while Segulist custom says that the children of a Segulist woman belong to her faith: how would we resolve this dilemma? These are but three of the issues that would have been settled in any properly thought-out marriage contract, as opposed to the hasty verbal arrangement we made that day. There are any number of men and women who have rushed into such matters, expecting their love to overcome all complications, only to find later that it is not so simple.
And yet, any warning I issue must come with the inevitable footnote: it turned out splendidly for me. I regret nothing of what I did that day (though I tease Suhail that I should have held out for more camels). Take my cautions, then, for what you will.
Tom made no objection whatsoever; I suspect he was not very surprised. Andrew seemed astonished that his interference had borne such fruit—I believe he expected something to blossom, but not this quickly—and kept laughing immoderately throughout the entire affair. The judge was a friend of Suhail’s, educated with him in boyhood, and while he took Suhail aside for a quiet conversation when we first appeared, whatever objections he raised then were settled without fuss.
Thus was I married, scarcely two hours after I impulsively offered for my husband… and then Suhail and I went to share the news.
My new brother-in-law, I think, knew what had happened the moment we walked through his door. Perhaps it was only that neither of us was maintaining a pretense of aloofness any longer: we engaged in no improper displays of affection, of course, such as young people are prone to nowadays, but I could smile at my husband without fear of overstepping some bound. The sheikh’s wives were there, both of them women I had met only in passing: quiet, thin-faced Yusra, and stocky Iman one step behind her. Three of their children were present as well, including the youth Jafar, who would be fostered in the desert beginning next winter. Mahira finished out the set.
I watched their reactions closely as Suhail told them of our marriage. Yusra made little effort to hide her surprise; Iman, I think, was equally startled, but did a better job of concealing it. Jafar seemed more confused than anything else, while his two younger siblings showed no sign of caring about such tedious matters. Mahira appeared troubled, which did not surprise me, but did dishearten me a little. She had encouraged our friendship; of all of Suhail’s family, I had the best hope of approval and support from her. But of course she was also the most pious of them all, and I suspected—rightly, as it turned out—that her mind had immediately gone to matters religious. It is permitted for an Amaneen man to wed a Segulist woman, but that does not mean the road is an easy one.
You may imagine for yourself how Husam reacted. He did not rage; in a way it might have been better if he had. Instead he maintained a stony composure, suitable for the presence of an outsider—which is to say, myself. This composure, however, did not prevent him from making his disapproval plain.
I did what I could to mollify him. “I have greatly esteemed your brother since I first met him,” I said, omitting a reminder of where and how that had occurred so as to spare Husam’s sensibilities. He certainly would not want to know that my very first sight of Suhail had been when he was shirtless and diving off a cliff. “He is one of the cleverest men I know, and both brave and kind. Your tribe has given tremendous support to our work at Dar al-Tannaneen; it is fitting, I think, that the friendship of our nations be sealed in this fashion.”
That last may have been laying it on with a trowel. Husam’s brows drew together so swiftly I almost felt the breeze. I was happy to let Suhail take over then, telling the tale of how we reached this point and answering their concerns—for after all, he knew his kin far better than I.
The tension was made worse by my still-imperfect command of Akhian, which meant that much of the swift-moving conversation passed me by. I sat quietly, hands knotted together, trying to read expressions without being obvious about it. When Suhail suggested I should return to handle matters at Dar al-Tannaneen, I accepted with relief, even though I had a suspicion my departure was intended to give them a chance to shout at one another in privacy.
But I reassured myself as I left. What could Husam do? He had no power to mandate his brother’s divorce—and even if he did, doing so would have created even more scandal than we already had.
Oh yes, there was scandal. The initial stages of it are difficult to recall now; they have been thoroughly overwritten by the romantic version that followed. Any time a man and a woman wed in haste, people’s minds inevitably leap to the assumption that he has assaulted (or she surrendered) her virtue, and that the natural result of this will be arriving within the year. Such was not the case with me, of course: I assure you that while I do sometimes elide details of my activities in this tale, I have not left out that. But it would be months before anyone would believe I was not so burdened—months in which rumour, already quite energetic, could get the bit between its teeth and race off for the hills. One particularly nasty bit of gossip said it was not Suhail who had dishonoured me, but someone among the Banu Safr; and he was showing pity on me by taking me under his wing. Had I known who began that tale, I would have chased them down and given them a very sharp piece of my mind.
But rumour is a creature with many heads and no body, and I had no way to hunt it, any more than I could smooth over matters with my new relations. All I could do was march into Colonel Pensyth’s office that afternoon and announce, “I will of course be continuing my work as before; have no fear of that. But I will have no further need of my room here, for I have wed Suhail ibn Ramiz ibn Khalis al-Aritati.”