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6
"You fools," Ramy heard Father speak chokingly, after a long taut silence in the gloomy room, as he spoke of the sisters' late mother. "The only blessing tonight is that your mother and her saintly baba are in paradise and do not know these things you have done within this air they gave you to breathe."
Ramy looked up startled at the sudden sound of his voice, as if someone had poked her with a sharp object.
"You," Father said to the baba, "what jealousy possessed you? Did you want the monkey's mouth on yours also?"
"No, Father!" the baba wailed in her syrup-thick, almost masculine voice.
Ramy sighed as Father yelled at her sister. All three of them knew that she loved her baba, and that the baba was as much her spouse as was young Lord Dumonhi. Ramy blamed herself as the First Cause. She had seduced her loyal, gentle companion, Jory, out of some inner anger at Dumonhi, not so much because he was mostly away, but because when he made love he was callous as if he were milking cattle. Now she had brought the wrath of the Universe down. She understood the outcome. Best case, and least likely, she would have her tongue cut off and be sent into exile at a far monastery, to live silently in a cell alone. Worst case, her father would kill both her and the baba any moment now. In any case, poor Jory would die. Judging by the way his scabbarded sword lay loosely by Father's side, and by the condition of the large linen-storage basket, their lives had no value anymore.
"And you, Cause of Celestial Disharmony!"
She felt the hurt inside his anger, and knelt upright, buttocks resting on her heels. She wiped her face with the ends of her plain linen robe and said: "Whatever my fate, I accept it, Father. I only have the wish to tell you once more that I love you and I am sorry I caused this hurt."
As she spoke, she stared at his fearsome face, his huge eyes and rippling jaws like a dragon's—and only understood his silence when thick blood flowed from the downturned corners of his mouth. His eyes were wild holes, and blood spiderwebbed on his clothing.
The baba threw her hands up and wailed anew.
Ramy jumped up and ran to wipe his mouth with the hem of her long robe. But he rose. The sword flashed in the air. He froze in a gesture as if to slice her in half down the middle, which he easily could have, as he had once slain his enemies in battle—and some of them in leather or wooden armor!
She knelt on the floor directly before the dais, opened her robe at the chest, and pulled it back to expose her neck. She inclined her head deeply, until her forehead touched the floor, and waited for the sound of the wind.
Instead, he threw himself back on his pillow, groaning with pain, and tossed the sword aside. "What have you done to me, you garden weed?"
"I have brought disgrace to our family and to my husband's."
"Ah well you know it, viper." He pulled the decapitated basket close and took out a linen towel to staunch his blood. He spoke in a halting, painfully slurry voice: "I should throw you both out that window. But you, foolish wasp"—he used the human word to wound the baba—"you useless spider, because you could not be discreet in your insect-like spitefulness, this matter will be the laughing stock of the Obayyo for the next thousand kjirs. Dumonhi will not fall for it for a moment. Ah dammit, a pox on you both. If he were here, he could honorably wound his shame by killing you with his bare hands or any way he chooses, as is his right. I probably must pen you up like animals until he returns from the campaign on Far Tomi Shore. Your fate will be most unpleasant, for he may turn you both over to their family babas, and I cannot imagine what they will invent by way of torturing you both to death."
Ramy spoke in a high, even voice, for everything was suddenly very clear. Even the pain, the loneliness, the abandonment that Dumonhi's callousness had caused her had evaporated. She felt sorry for Jory, and wished him life, perhaps as a bandit if he escaped. Dumonhi notwithstanding, Jory was the only male she had ever loved as a lover, though her father thought of him as a monkey. "Father, we will commit duello by dawn this very night."
The silence in the room was as profound as the black shadows that flooded the corners and the floor around her knees. Her sister was a dark mound in the darkness.
Father rose, wiping his mouth with the spattered linen. Leaving his sword thrown aside, he stepped shakily from the dais and bent close to look at Ramy for the last time. His expression was a mixture of fury and pain. A trail of tears ran down the creases in each cheek. He held the towel before his mouth and could no longer speak. But he touched her cheek lightly with the backs of two fingers. She touched herself there and found blood on her fingertips. She licked her fingers and tasted his forgiveness, which filled her like a spring breeze. He touched baba similarly, forgiving her also. Without ever looking on his daughters again, he stomped out of the room to his private chambers. Servants slid the doors shut, leaving the two sisters in moonlit isolation.
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