Page 88 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)

“Sitting around while still dressed in a man’s robes, giggling with some boy you have never met!

It’s a good thing your father brought you to me.

I can see you have never learnt how to behave like a woman.

Take off those robes at once. I have poured some water in that bowl.

Here is a cloth. Clean yourself and then dress in a more becoming manner.

” She throws down a cloth and marches out of the tent, closing the flaps behind her.

The sound of her grinding stone outside is fierce.

I am alone. And unused to it. On the trade routes there were always people.

Slaves, my brothers, other traders, even my quiet father.

Here there is no-one but me in the tent, and the camp outside is small and peaceful, not like the hot swarming cities I have been used to.

Slowly I take off my robes and begin to wash.

My thick black hair has begun to grow out.

Now, for the first time in my life that I can recall, it is past my shoulders.

I try to tie it back, catching my hands in it and finally succeeding in making it into a tangled knot at the base of my neck.

Once clean I look around. There are some clothes lying on the bed, but I am unsure of whether they are the right ones.

They look gaudy after my plain blue robes.

A long red cloth and a smaller orange cloth, all decorated with little silver discs here and there.

A couple of brooches, designed to hold the fabrics together in a becoming way when wrapped around the body.

A multi-coloured shawl for my shoulders and a wrap for my hair, although my face will remain uncovered now that I am to be dressed as a woman.

The wrap is woven in reds, oranges, yellows and covered with symbols and patterns.

A pair of simple leather slippers are the only things that look familiar, so I put them on and then stand, uncertain.

How to fold the cloth correctly to make my woman’s clothes?

Oh, for a simple blue robe, dropped over my head in moments and then tied at the waist!

My aunt must have heard the silence that fell after the slow washing sounds had stopped. She appears inside the tent.

“Why are you not dressed? Do you intend to wear only shoes? You’ll find a husband a lot quicker like that, but I am not sure he’s the sort of husband you’d like to have.”

She looks me over approvingly as I stand naked before her, as though inspecting a goat for sale.

Only seventeen, I have a slender body the colour of golden sand, except for my forearms and feet, the skin around my eyes and a small part of my neck, all burnt walnut-brown from the sun.

My tangled hair has already fallen out of its badly made knot and although it is not smooth, it is at least thick, dark and glossy.

My breasts are small but shapely and I have a wiry strength that can be seen in my thighs, belly and arms as I shift nervously from one leg to the other and attempt to cover myself from her unrelenting gaze with my hands.

“I didn’t know what to wear.”

“What’s wrong with the clothes I’ve laid out for you?”

“They’re very…” I falter.

“Very?”

“Bright.”

“And your blue robes are not? Bright enough, I think. Now put those clothes on.”

I stumble over the clothes until my aunt must step in to pin them correctly. The wrap for my head is worse.

“Let’s start by combing your hair. You look like a wild thing. I can see your hair is new to you – did you keep it cut short before?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it will grow longer, and you had better get used to it. It will be very fine once it has grown to a good length; your mother always had good hair. Come here. The knots in this! It will hurt but you will just have to bear it. It will be a lesson to you to brush it every day.” She drags a wooden comb through the tangled mass, taking no notice of the way my head jerks back with every stroke and disregarding my yelps of pain.

By the time she has finished the comb has a broken tooth and my tangles have become soft dark waves.

“Better,” says my aunt. “Now for your headdress.” In a few quick twists she wraps up all my hair, piling up the bright fabric into a high turban. A few folds hang down at the sides and back, but my face, still darker round the eyes than the rest of my face, is fully visible.

“There! You look like a beautiful young woman instead of a skulking boy. And lift your head up. I know you are not accustomed to having your face on display, but you must get used to it. Now then, you are properly dressed, and your hair is brushed. Do you have any jewellery?”

I nod, my scalp still smarting from her attentions. “I have a celebra, ” I say, clasping the heavy necklace round my neck. Aunt Tizemt gives an approving nod. “And my tchirot .” I pull out my square silver amulet from the old jeweller Winitran.

My aunt frowns. “A tchirot is a man’s jewel.”

I close a hand over it protectively. “It is mine and I will wear it.”

She shrugs. “As you wish. You do not have a lot of jewellery. That will change when you have a husband. If you are lucky, he will bring you many gifts, as your father did for your mother. He spoilt her. He was a good husband, though,” she adds, grudgingly giving him his due.

“You would be lucky to find such a man.”

“I am not sure I want a husband.”

“What, you with all your giggling with strange young men? Huh. I will see you married within one month at that pace.”

“Is that what I am here for? To be married off?”

“Now, now, no need to get angry. You are here to learn some women’s skills, for your father tells me you have not learnt them from anyone.”

“I have plenty of skills.”

“Really? Can you use herbs for healing as well as cooking? Can you spin? Weave? Sew? Do you know where to find the wild grains and how to make a milk porridge? Cheese? Butter? Or did your slaves do all the work? Can you sing? Dance? Play music?”

“No…”

“Can you read and write the tinfinagh alphabet? I would wager that your father and brothers have not taught you. The boys learn it, but they do not pass it on, it falls to us women to do that. No, niece, you must admit to being ignorant of many things. It will be my job to teach you. And if you meet a young man that pleases you before I am finished – well, you will have to learn even quicker, for no man will want a woman who can trade but not cook.” She gives a rare smile at my dejected face.

“Come, it is not so bad. We will sit together, and we will talk as we work. I will tell you about your mother and your father when they were children. We can gossip and you will meet girls your own age and find out that it can be fun being a woman. It is not all work.”

“It sounds like it is.”

“Well, for now you are right. I have a bowl of grains out there and they will not grind themselves. You will learn to grind the grain and roll it to make couscous while I make you some more clothes, for you have nothing but your old blue robes and what you have on. A good thing your father left me with a generous quantity of new cloth for you from his stores. Come.”

***

The women’s skills are every bit as dull as I had feared.

What skill is there in the washing of sweaty greasy sheep’s wool in the little water available, hauled one laborious bucket at a time?

The dyeing, staining my hands a multitude of colours.

My arms ache with the endless carding, using the big wooden combs studded with metal spikes to make the wool soft and ready for spinning.

The spinning! Never-ending fruitless attempts to make the spindle twirl without stopping, one hand holding the distaff, the other frantically pulling at the wool, trying to produce a regular, even thread.

And after all that work, the tedium of weaving!

Back and forth, back and forth and the cloth growing barely at all.

Hours of work for no visible reward. What skills are these?

Where is the quick banter, the knowledgeable eye cast over goods, seeing the quality at a single glance, sweeping aside the unimaginative engravings, the shoddy dyes, the badly cut stones.

Reaching out for the sparkling gemstones, the soft bright leather, the fine clay pots and when the bartering is done, the pride of the war waged and won.

And the greater prizes. The shining bars of salt.

The gleam of gold. The rippling muscles under black skin.

These were my skills and now they are deemed worthless.

***

The days come and go. My mind feels slow and dull, its once fast-moving spirit searching across the dunes to find the trade routes and the caravan that has left me here.

I wonder about my mother. Did she wish to travel as well, or did she stay in the camp willingly?

Did she feel her spirit grow heavy with each child that kept her tied to the camp or did she enjoy this life? I cannot find the pleasure in it.

Sometimes when I sit gazing at the dunes, having escaped my aunt’s many chores for a moment, Amalu finds me, and we talk.

“Enough, enough!” he cries, as five children chase him across the dunes to where I am sitting. “I have no breath left!”

They fall on him as he reaches me, climb all over him while he laughs and succumbs to their insistence that he play the camel and allow them to ride on his back.

“I beg you to save me,” he gasps, and I cannot help laughing.

“I am afraid I cannot,” I say. “If you are a camel then you must endure your burden in life. Otherwise, I will have to sell you off for meat.”

“Alas, have pity on a poor exhausted camel,” he says, lying on the ground. The children thump him and yell that he must continue but he will not and at last they leave him be, tempted by rolling down the sand dunes towards the encampment.

“I think you are safe now,” I suggest.