Inevera nodded, watching for a moment as Manvah took strips and began to work a weave. After a moment, she reached into the pile and began her own basket, her strong fingers growing in confidence as she felt the peace of weaving flow over her once more. ‘Some adaptations are harder than others.’

Manvah chuckled. ‘And how is dear Kajivah?’

Inevera hissed as a splinter lodged into her finger. ‘My honoured mother-in-law is well. Still dim as a guttering candle, and still wasting everyone’s time with her inane prattle.’

‘Still no luck finding her a husband?’ Manvah asked.

Inevera shook her head. ‘She wants no man to come between her and her son, and Ahmann thinks no one worthy of her in any event.’

‘And your dice have no answers?’ Manvah asked.

I have no dice, Inevera thought, and needed to breathe and calm herself. ‘I consulted the dice once. They told me Ahmann would accept Dama Khevat as his father-in-law, and that Kajivah could not refuse if he were to ask Ahmann for her hand. Unfortunately, Khevat’s response to the suggestion was that he would rather marry a donkey.’

Manvah cackled, and Inevera laughed with her. It felt good to laugh. She could not remember the last time she had done it.

‘If you cannot find her a husband, assign her a task, like any Jiwah Sen,’ Manvah said.

‘This is the mother of the Deliverer,’ Inevera said. ‘I can hardly set her to carrying jugs of water, and any real task would be beyond her.’

‘Then give her a false one,’ Manvah said. Her fingers continued to work, but her lips pursed as she stared off at the wall for a moment. ‘Ask her if she will plan the Shar’Dama Ka’s monthly Waxing Party.’

‘There is no—’ Inevera began.

‘Invent one,’ Manvah cut her off. ‘Convince Kajivah it is a great honour, and will please her son and keep him in Everam’s favour. Assign her a dozen assistants to help her plan food, decorations, music, ceremonies, and guest lists. You’ll hardly ever see her again.’

Inevera smiled. ‘This is why I come to you, Mother.’

Manvah finished the base of her basket, and began creating the frame for its walls. ‘Everyone in the city knows the deeds of my grandsons, but there has been no word of my granddaughters. Are they well? Progressing in their studies?’

Inevera nodded. ‘Your granddaughters are all well, and will soon be dama’ting. Amanvah has already taken the veil and married.’

‘And who is the lucky suitor?’ Manvah asked.

‘A chin from the Hollow tribe,’ Inevera said. ‘He is nothing to look at – small, weak, and dressed in more colours than a colour-blind khaffit – but Everam speaks to him.’

‘The boy who charms alagai with his music?’ Manvah asked. Inevera raised an eyebrow, but Manvah dismissed her with a wave. ‘Everyone in the city speaks of the chin in the Deliverer’s court. The boy, the giant, the woman warrior,’ she looked pointedly at Inevera, ‘and the greenland princess.’

Inevera turned and spat on the floor.

Manvah tsked. ‘That bad?’

‘I forbade him to marry her,’ Inevera said, not bothering for once to mask the venom in her voice.

‘There was your first mistake,’ Manvah said. ‘Never forbid a man anything. Even Kasaad, meek as he is since you stripped him of his blacks, can be stubborn as a mule when forbidden, and your husband is Shar’Dama Ka.’

Inevera nodded. ‘It is written in the Evejah’ting: Forbid a man something, and he shall desire it tenfold. But my heart spoke before my mind.’

‘And how did the Deliverer react?’ Manvah asked.

Inevera felt her spittle gather again, but swallowed it, breathing deeply. ‘He told me I did not have the right. He said he would make her his greenland Jiwah Ka, with dominion over his Northern wives.’

Manvah paused her weave, looking up to meet Inevera’s eyes. ‘Did you expect that he would keep his wedding vows when you have not?’

The words stung, and part of Inevera regretted telling her mother of her infidelity with the Andrah, but she breathed deeply and let the feeling blow by.

– She will tell you truths you do not wish to hear—

‘I at least had the decency to do it in private.’ Inevera bit the words off. ‘He flaunts her, taking her in my own pillow chamber and shaming me before the entire court.’

‘I didn’t think I had raised a fool,’ Manvah said, breaking off a long end of wicker with a snap, ‘but it must be so, if you think the distinction matters a whit to a cuckold. You hurt him, and he is returning it on you threefold. This was a bill you should long have expected to come due. But in truth, what difference does it make if he bent some Northern whore? Great men are expected to conquer women, and you remain Jiwah Ka.’

‘In title, but no longer in truth,’ Inevera said. ‘I have not taken his seed in almost two Waxings.’

Manvah snorted. ‘If that is what defines a Jiwah Ka, I stopped being Kasaad’s decades ago. I have not had him since Soli.’

‘Kasaad is not the Deliverer,’ Inevera said.

‘Then stop your posturing and go to his bed,’ Manvah said. ‘Show him you remember he is Shar’Dama Ka,’ her eyes flicked to meet Inevera’s, ‘and remind him you are his Damajah. The woman is gone, I hear, and without accepting his proposal. Make him forget her.’

Inevera sighed. ‘It is not so simple. The Northern witch brought more than just her gates of Heaven to Ahmann. She has whispered poison in his ear.’

‘Poison?’ Manvah asked.

‘It was bad enough she and her harlot mother walked the palace unveiled,’ Inevera said, ‘but now they have brought the notion that our women should fight alagai’sharak like the Northern savages. To please her, Ahmann has decreed that any woman to take an alagai in battle will be Sharum’ting, and accorded all a warrior’s rights.’

Manvah shrugged. ‘What of it?’

Inevera gaped. ‘You cannot possibly approve.’

‘Why not?’ Manvah asked. She picked at her blacks. ‘You think I like having to wear these? I look at the Northern women and dream of being so free. Of owning my own pavilion, instead of running Kasaad’s. And why should I not? Because Kaji’s clerics saw women as cattle, and worked oppression into the holy verses? It is easy for you to cast a dim eye. You get to strut about the palace in the nude.’

‘I am hardly nude, Mother,’ Inevera said. Manvah looked at her, and she cast her eyes down, knowing dissembling did not work with her mother. Inevera dressed as she did to tweak the noses of the Damaji and remind them of her power, but there was no point denying that she gloried in it, as well.

‘You never approved of alagai’sharak when it was Soli at risk,’ Inevera said. ‘Should we add our daughters to the fight as well as our sons?’

‘I hated alagai’sharak when it was a meaningless sacrifice of our men to the Andrah’s pride,’ Manvah said. ‘But have not your precious dice told you Ahmann is the Deliverer, sent by Everam to lead us through Sharak Ka?’

‘They said he might be,’ Inevera reminded her.

Manvah levelled a look at her. ‘You’d best pray he is, or you have wasted the last quarter century of your life. And did they not say Sharak Ka was coming in any event? Alagai kill women as well as men, daughter. Do not let the fact that allowing us to defend ourselves is a Northern notion blind you to its power. You remember Krisha and her ugly sister-wives beating your father. There are women built to fight. Let them. Nie, encourage them. Make the Northern custom your own and you will steal the fruit from this mistress of the Hollow’s tree.’