He glanced down at himself and at Roshnani. "We won't have any need for the fowl's blood," he said.
She sat up, looking at the little driblet of blood from between her legs that stained the cloth. "So we won't."
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so," she answered. "It hurt some, but I expected it to, so that wasn't so bad. I'm sure it will be easier next time, easier still the time after that."
"Did you-like it?" he asked hesitantly.
She gave the question serious consideration before she answered. He was getting the idea she generally thought before she spoke. That, to him, was a point in her favor. After a moment she said, "When it doesn't hurt any more, I think it will be pleasant enough, though I still may find your lips and tongue sweeter, as they can touch just the right spot." She looked at him anxiously.
"Does that make you angry?"
"Why should a truthful answer make me angry?" Abivard said.
"I knew I shouldn't believe everything I heard in the women's quarters," his new bride answered, "They said a man was apt to be so proud of his prong-"
"Is that what they call it?" Abivard broke in, amused.
"Well, yes. Anyhow, they said he was apt to be so proud of it that he'd forget anything else. I'm glad to find they were wrong."
"Men aren't all the same, any more than women are, I suppose," he said. Roshnani nodded. Abivard wondered if she already knew the touch of lips and tongue. Stories said the inhabitants of the women's quarters, especially if their husband was old or infirm or had a great many wives and made love to each only rarely, sometimes sated one another's lust. He couldn't find any way to ask her. He didn't suppose it was properly his concern, anyway.
Roshnani said, "What you say stands to reason, but of men I must say I know little."
"I hope you will end up satisfied with this man, at least." Being young, Abivard was ready for a second round almost at once, but didn't take it from her, not when he had just made her bleed. Tomorrow would be another day. If she was to become his principal wife, he wanted her pleased with him in bed: they were more likely to be in accord thus on the proper running of the domain. Hurting her again wouldn't help that.
He got out of bed, pulled on his caftan, and picked up the bloodstained square of cloth. Roshnani started to put on her silk drawers, then shook her head. "I don't care to soil them," she said, and stepped back into her gown. "Fasten enough of the toggles to make me decent for the showing, will you please?"
Abivard did as she asked, then threw wide the door to the dihqan's chamber. The hallway outside was packed with eagerly-and curiously-waiting people. He held up the cloth with Roshnani's virgin blood on it. Everyone broke into loud cheers, as the proper sealing-or, in this case, unsealing-of a bargain. Roshnani faced the folk of Vek Rud domain with her head held high.
After the ritual showing, Abivard shut the door once more. From the hallway came ribald howls, but he had already decided against that second round. Instead of undoing the silk gown once more, he made sure all its toggles were closed in their proper loops. "We'll have you just as you should be before you go into the women's quarters," he said.
"I thank you for the care you show me." Roshnani looked and sounded as anxious now, in a different way, as she had when he had brought her to bed. And no wonder-she would live with these women for the rest of her days and, a newcomer, find her place among them.
Abivard took the key and used it to unlatch the door that led into the secluded part of the stronghold. Burzoe and Denak waited not far down that hall; he had expected them to be there. Leading Roshnani up to them, he said, "My mother, my sister, I present to you my wife."
The three women embraced one another. Burzoe said, "May you serve this domain as you did your father's. May you give us many fine heirs. May you be happy here." As usual, that came last with her.
"The God grant your wishes, mother of the dihqan," Roshnani said softly.
Denak said, "You must tell me everything of your journey here, and of the ceremony, and-" She, too, lowered her voice after a glance at Abivard "-other matters. I, too, am to be wed this season."
Roshnani turned her eyes toward Abivard. "I shall speak of whatever you wish-soon."
He could take a hint. Bowing to his wife, his mother, and his sister in turn, he said, "With your gracious permission, ladies, I shall take my leave. No doubt you will wish to discuss matters with which my merely male ears should not be profaned."
Roshnani, Burzoe, and Denak all laughed in a way that made him retreat even faster than he had planned. No doubt you will wish to discuss matters with which my merely male ears would be scorched, he thought. If Roshnani was going to tell Denak about his performance, he didn't want to be anywhere within fifty farsangs when she did it. Fleeing that far was impractical, but he could take himself out of earshot, and he did.
Frada let out a low whistle and pointed ahead to Nalgis Crag and the stronghold that sat atop it. "Will you look there?" he said. "Any army could sit at the bottom of that pile of rock forever, but if it tried to go up-"
"It'd go back down again, and a lot faster, too," Abivard finished for his younger brother. Only one narrow, winding track led up to the stronghold of Nalgis Crag domain; even from a quarter of a farsang away, Abivard could see a dozen places where a handful of determined men could hold up the army Frada had mentioned.
"They have to have a way to get water, too, else the stronghold wouldn't have got the reputation it owns," Frada added, speaking with the tones of an aspiring general.
"I'll be pleased to get inside strong walls again," Abivard said. "I've felt half naked on the road." He gestured at himself. Like all the warriors in Denak's wedding party, he wore a helmet and carried sword and lance, as a proper Makuraner fighting man should. But the rest of his gear, and theirs, was leather hardened with melted wax, the same sort of light protection some of the Khamorth nomads used. The stronghold smiths were beginning to re-create the iron suits lost in the Pardrayan debacle, but even one of them would be awhile in the making.
Frada turned to Denak and said, "How fare you, sister?"
"I revel in being out of the women's quarters," she answered, "but I wish I did not have to travel veiled. I could see so much more of the countryside without this covering for my face."
"Till we got into the territory of Nalgis Crag domain this morning, there wasn't much to see," Abivard said. "Only desert and rocks between our lands and Pradtak's; save for patches of oasis, Makuran is less than fertile."
"When you've done nothing but look out windows these past ten years, even desert seems interesting," Denak said. As she usually did, she tried to look on the bright side of things: "Nalgis Crag stronghold is so high above the rest of the domain, I should have a broad view from the women's quarters."
Abivard had never worried much about the propriety of shutting high-born women away from the world as soon as they became women: it was the custom of his land, and he went along with it. He had not even worried about his sister being closed up in the women's quarters of the stronghold of Vek Rud domain. That had happened when he was scarcely more than a boy himself, and he had grown used to it. But to have her closed up in a women's quarters far away..
that sent a pang through the core of him.
"I'll miss you, sister of mine," he said seriously.
"And I you," Denak answered. "We can, perhaps, write back and forth; I hope Pradtak won't mind." If Pradtak did mind, that would be the end of the idea, as they both knew. Denak went on, "What point to learning my letters, though, if I'm not allowed to use them?"
Abivard wondered why Godarz had decided to let Denak learn to read and write. Few Makuraner women could; he didn't think Burzoe knew how, for all her cleverness. His best guess was that Godarz, seeing ability, couldn't bear to let it lie fallow no matter how unusual the field. One thing his father had never been was wasteful.