Free The Terrorists of Irustan by Louise Marley Page B

cession, and how large a house her husband would have, with how many servants. She promised that at her house they would eat the best fish and olives and citrus fruits, and trays and trays of sweet cakes.
    Tiny Laila spoke of nothing but babies. Her toys were all dolls of various sizes and shapes. When the married women brought infants to their gatherings, Laila spent all the day holding them, cuddling them, sometimes sitting still for hours as one slept against her narrow chest, its round head warm and perspiring on the silk of her veil.
    Those happy times were the stitches that sewed the long years of childhood together. The space between Doma Days seemed endless, the day itself short and vivid. From the time she was eight, when she put on the veil and went to live with Nura and her elderly husband Isak Issim, Zahra’s life was a blend of study, clinic experience, and close conversation or frantic play with Kalen, Idora, Laila, and shy Camilla. She imagined sometimes that her girlhood would go on forever, especially because, at fourteen, she had not yet begun her menses. She thought of herself as a child still, devoted to Nura, with Nura and Nura’s anah returning her affection. The days of her own career as a medicant seemed as far away as Irustan’s star.
    Isak Issim was no more than a shadow in the background, a dry presence at dinner that meant she must wear her cap and drape, an occasional voice calling Nura away from their work together. Zahra could not remember him ever coming to the clinic, nor to Nura’s bedroom. Zahra gave him no thought for all the years of her apprenticeship. Not until the end, when she learned just how much power he had.
    It was quiet Camilla who was first ceded in marriage. Her husband was Leman Bezay, newly promoted to be director of City Power. He was forty-six. Camilla, like Zahra, was fourteen. Camilla’s mother swelled with pride at the exalted match of her daughter with a director. Camilla herself, in Nura’s office for her cession exam, was weak with fear.Zahra had often assisted Nura in the examination of a young girl about to be married, but Camilla was the first she had known well. The others had been distant from her, strange, incomprehensibly marked by their fate. When Camilla came, Zahra could hardly meet her eyes. There was something awesome, something final about what was happening. There was an element of humiliation, an odd shame that Camilla should have so little control over what was to happen to her.
    Zahra received Camilla and her mother and an aged uncle in the dispensary. She ushered her friend into the surgery, gaze averted. Both girls unbuttoned their rills when they were alone in the surgery, but there was none of their usual easy chatter. In silence, Zahra helped Camilla to sit on the exam bed. She picked up her portable and it prompted her with questions. She stood close to Camilla, but she stared at the screen.
    “Age?” she asked. Her voice cracked and she flushed beneath her veil.
    “Fourteen,” Camilla whispered in return. Zahra knew that already, of course, but she could hardly think. It was so soon, too soon for her friend to be crossing this line that separated the girl from the woman! Zahra’s heart beat fast and her mouth was dry. She knew of nothing to do but follow the form, adhere to procedure. It was a ritual in itself, this questioning.
    “Menses at what age?”
    Camillas eyes flashed up to hers, then away. “Twelve,” she said.
    Zahra caught her breath. Twelve. This could have happened even sooner.
    “And your genetic history?" Zahra was following the form to the letter, and they both knew it. It made everything easier, somehow. At this moment, Zahra was distanced from Camilla by the formality, the routine performance of her duty. She knew perfectly well Camilla had a clean genetic background. The whole file on her family was right there in the computer. They were all on Nura’s list, and Nura had even helped Camilla into the