CHAPTER ONE

It was the season of dust.  

The sky was copper with dust.  Dust smeared the white cotton of Natharie’s plain skirt and breast band.  Dust rose in a plume from the distant road as some messenger rode pell-mell for the river bridge.  Dust clung to her sweating skin; the itch and smell of it filled her nose until she could taste it in the back of her throat.  The whole world was an oven and only the flies danced.  

Despite this, Natharie strode joyously through the shin-high grass, her bare arms swinging and the white skirt flapping around her knees.  Today was her nineteenth birthday, today Natharie would at long last be declared a woman.

    Queen Sitara, Natharie’s mother, followed her, all her gold chiming and glittering in the hazy sunlight.  Three of Natharie’s sisters, Shu, Vikka and Rasura -- younger than she, yet women already -- walked with their mother, all swaying hips and superior airs.  Behind her blood family walked Natharie’s aunts, cousins, maids, attendants, and nurses.  Anun, the rough, round, bawdy captain of the women’s guards strode with them, her voice rising in a hoarse bellow over their clear song.  Even the old nun, Sathi, followed Natharie today, and Natharie stretched out her long legs, determined to keep ahead of them.   Little Malai, Natharie’s youngest sister and the only remaining girl-child of the family took the excuse of the festive occasion and ran, only half a grinning, giggling step behind Natharie.

    It was all Natharie could do to keep from laughing as her smallest sister’s high, panting voice struggled to get out the words of the womanhood hymn that rose up from the glittering procession.  

    "The grain full ripe falls to seed the earth.

    "The grain will grow up toward the sun.

    "The girl gives birth to the woman, who gives birth to the world.

    "So turns the wheel, until Heaven is achieved."

In the traditional way of things, Natharie’s womanhood ceremony would have been held when she was thirteen or fourteen.  Mother’s had happened when she was only nine.  No one could become a bride until they became a woman, and this was why Natharie’s ceremony had been so long delayed.  Treaty obligations written before Natharie was even born gave her, the King of Sindhu’s oldest daughter, to the King of Lohit.  When the old king found himself widowed, he had sent for Natharie, but her parents had demurred and delayed, for one year, and another, and still another after that.    

Now, the old king was dead, and Natharie was finally free from her extended childhood.  Free to claim the rights and the obligations of womanhood, and of her own home and a new land to go with it.  The new king, Pairoj waited for her to become his bride.

    "The girl gives birth to the woman, who gives birth to the world.

    "So turns the wheel, until Heaven is achieved."

The women of the procession were the only color in the dust-brown world.  Their silks and linens made them a river of color in the pale grassland: scarlet, sapphire, emerald, silver, gold, diamond white. Even Captain Anun had laid aside her uniform for a gown of amethyst and silver.  Tia, Natharie’s ancient nurse, had been stitching the emerald threads onto her red cotton skirt for over a month now.  

"My mistress will only become a woman once in this life," she'd said with a grin.  Natharie had hugged her then.  Neither one of them had been sure Tia would survive long enough to see this day.  Because she had never been declared a woman, Natharie’s childhood servants had stayed with her for far longer than the usual time.  Now, they would all be gone.  That was the hard part of this day, thought Natharie.  So many familiar faces and presences would be given other places, or paid their final pensions and returned to their family homes.  A woman did not need the same tutors, servants and possessions as a girl.  Especially when she would shortly be sent to her husband’s home.  Natharie pushed that thought away.  Later there would be time enough to worry about the future.  Not, she told herself, that there was much to worry over.  Pairoj’s letters held the promise of a bright and considerate husband.  After all, her mother, had come from Lohit to be queen of Sindhu and found here a good life and a kind husband.  She knew this must be a day of endings as well as beginnings.  That was as it should be.  Natharie lifted her chin and lengthened her stride.  She would not go afraid.  She would go with her eyes open.

    Beneath her sloping bank, the sacred river, Liyoni, was low, flat and brown.  The passing boatmen were black shadows who raised their hands to the brightly colored procession as the current carried them swiftly past.  She pushed her way through the chattering reeds that lined the river bank.  The dried edges grazed her skin.  Warm mud squelched between Natharie’s toes and tugged at her sandal heels with loud, sloppy kisses.  A trio of ducks, offended by their noisy passage, burst into the air, complaining as they flew.

    Natharie’s mother and the other women set down their baskets and singing still, they surrounded her.  

    “The wheel turns life to birth to death to life.

    “The wheel turns girl to woman to widow to girl.

    “Take her hand, O! Awakened One!

    “Open her eyes as yours were opened and lead her from the wheel to Heaven.”

    Anun the guardswoman grinned like a tigress and stripped off Natharie’s white skirt and breast band.  Tia crowned her tangled hair with the golden flowers.  Oma, Rasura, Vikka, Shu, all of them, crowded around her and draped more garlands around her shoulders, kissing her and laughing as the bright petals fluttered down to stick to her arms and the backs of her hands.  Malai hung garlands on Natharie’s wrists and hugged her big sister hard.  Natharie was a little surprised at the tears that came so quick and strong to her eyes as she returned the little one’s embrace.

    Lastly, Mother came to wrap the girdle of white chrysanthemums around Natharie’s waist.  Then, she stretched up on tip-toe and kissed her forehead.  Fate had declared Natharie should have all her father’s height.  Where Mother was tiny, slender and straight-hipped, Natharie was as tall as most men, with a broad, curving body, and arms and legs hardened by the playing and fighting she did with the female guards who looked after mother and the concubines.  There were many jokes whispered among Natharie and her sisters about...accommodations her future husband might have to make because of her size.

    Mother stepped back to let old Sathi, the only other one here wearing white, hobble forward.  Natharie held still and found that, for all her delight, solemnity came easily.  After this day, her new life would begin in earnest.  She needed this blessing as she had never needed any other.  The challenge of her size was the least of what she had to face

    Someone handed Sathi the clay bowl of henna and jasmine.  The nun raised it up to the coppery sky and began the hymn of departure in her cracked voice.

    “Let the way begun again be the way of peace.

    “Let the horizon that is seen again be seen from the calm and generous heart.

    “Let the eyes be open to see Heaven and the Awakened One and all the Blessed.”

    The familiar voices all took up the hymn, spinning the words over and over again until Natharie felt dizzy.  Sathi dipped her withered fingers into the henna and Natharie stooped down so the nun could mark her brow with signs of tranquility and the turning wheel of time.  Then Sathi passed the bowl to Tia, and took Natharie’s hand.  The ancient nun led Natharie into the river.  Boatmen called out blessings as they passed.  Natharie found she was shaking a little.

    “Let the way begun again be the way of peace.

    “Let the horizon that is seen again be seen from the calm and generous heart.”

    When the water was up to Natharie’s breast, Sathi turned, grasped Natharie’s shoulders and shoved her down into the water.

    The water roared as it swallowed Natharie.  There was no time to draw in extra breath.  The world below was brown and shifting and silent.  Water, sand and silt filled her eyes and ears.  Shadows scattered and sunlight sparkled through the brown water.  Her blood pounded in her ears.  She tried to hold still, but it went on and on, and she kicked at the sand underneath her, but Sathi held on tight.  She grabbed at the wiry fingers, trying to pry them loose, but Sathi still held her.  

    All at once, Sathi let go, and Natharie shot up into the air, gulping in deep, whooping gasps of air, and of the water that fountained off her, which made her cough and gag and gasp again.  Sathi embraced Natharie, and led her  -- a woman grown now, and still coughing gracelessly -- back to shore where the other women still sang for her.

    “Let the new heart bring peace in the time of hardship.

    “Let the new voice bring wisdom in the time of darkness...”

    Natharie coughed out the last of Liyoni’s waters and pushed her streaming hair out of her face.  Then, she froze, ankle deep in river water, her face warm with sudden wonder.

    A horse stood atop the bank.  He was pure black without trace of paler color, so shining and perfect he might have been a polished statue.  His mane flowed like silk, and were it not for the wind that blew it back, it would have hung down almost to his knees.  He tossed his head at her, stamping his hoof as if in greeting.

    Natharie’s jaw dropped open.  The thought flitted through her mind that her father had sent this beautiful creature as a womanhood gift.  But the other women all turned as well, and they too froze like stone.  Now Natharie could see that the horse was surrounded by a crowd of men.  Three were wrinkled things in flowing red robes with high, curving gold hats that they had to keep clutching to prevent the wind from blowing them into the dust.  Their hands were full of scrolls and gold rods and other shiny things that they they kept dropping as they tried to keep their hats on.  They looked like busy little brown monkeys next to the beautiful black horse.  All but one.  That one stood tall and stern, his great arms folded, frowning down on the world.  Smaller monkeys, boys she saw now, scurried around their red-robed masters, picking up what they had dropped, dusting it all off.  The red monkeys shouted and pointed and sent the boys scuttling off on new errands, to the palanquin bearers and other dust-caked servants who waited behind them, to other men in plain robes bearing tablets and styluses, who bobbed and scribbled while the red monkeys held onto their hats and shouted at each other.  

    The men behind looked much more imposing.  They stood in neat formation, four rows of five.  They wore armor that glittered like fish scales.  They carried long spears and wore curving swords at their hips.  Bows and quivers of arrows had been slung over their shoulders.  One young man led them, his face stern, his eyes cold with anger.  Not at her, she thought in the odd, slow moment of her staring at him, but at the men in red.  Beside him, on a smaller horse sat a single woman in a plain white dress carrying a white staff as the soldiers carried their spears.

    They were not her father’s men.  All of them -- the red monkeys and the soldiers, the boys, the secretaries,  the bearers and that one woman in white stared at the women and naked Natharie with the dripping flower garlands disintegrating on waist and shoulders.

    A horse.  Red-robed...priests.  Soldiers.  Natharie knew what she saw, and knowing made her blood run cold.