Quiet Knives Read Free

called, and were
passed through the gate, one by one.
    Bolts of saffron silk, from
which Humaria's bridal robes would be sewn; yards of pearls; rings
of gold and topaz; bracelets of gold; ubaie fragile as spider silk and as
white as salt; hairpins, headcloths, and combs; sandals; needles;
thread. More bolts, in brown and black, from which Humaria's new
dayrobes would be made, and a hooded black cloak, lined in
fleece.
    Additional parcels arrived
as the day wore on: A bolt each of good black silk for Shereen and
Inas; headcloths, ubaie ; silver bracelets, and silver rings set with onyx.
    Humaria and Shereen fell upon each new
arrival with cries of gladness. Shereen ran for her patterns;
Humaria gave the saffron silk one last caress and scampered off for
scissors and chalk.
    Inas put her silk and rings and bracelets
aside, and began to clear the worktable.
    Across the room, the guest screen slid back
and a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with red string
was placed on the ledge.
    Inas went forward, wondering what else was
here to adorn Humaria's wedding day, even as she recognized her
father's hand and the lines that formed her own name.
    Smiling, she caught the package up and
hurried, light-footed, to her room. Once there, she broke the red
string and unwrapped the brown paper, exposing not a book, as she
had expected, from the weight and the size, but a box.
    She put it aside, and searched the wrapping
for any note from her father. There was none, and she turned her
attention back to his gift.
    It was an old box of leather-wrapped wood.
Doubtless, it had been handsome in its day, but it seemed lately to
have fallen on hard times. The leather was scuffed in places,
cracked in others, the ornamental gilt work all but worn away. She
turned it over in her hands, and rubbed her thumb along a tear in
the leather where the wood showed through--gray, which would be
ironwood, she thought, from her study of native product.
    She turned the box again, set it on her
knee, released the three ivory hooks and lifted the lid.
    Inside were seven small volumes, each bound
in leather much better preserved than that which sheathed the
box.
    Carefully, she removed the
first volume on the right; carefully, she opened it--and all but
laughed aloud, for here was treasure, indeed, and all honor to her
father, for believing her worthy of so scholarly a gift. She had
read of such things, but this was the first she had seen. A curiat --a diary kept of a
journey, or a course of study, or a penance.
    These... Quickly, she had
the remaining six out and opened, sliding the ubaie away from her eyes, the better
to see the handwritten words. Yes. These detailed a scholar's
journey--one volume dealt with geography, another with plants,
another with minerals, still another with animals. Volume five
detailed temples and universities, while volume six seemed a list
of expenditures. The seventh volume indexed the preceding six. All
were written in a fine, clear hand, using the common, or trade,
alphabet, rather than that of the scholars, which was odd, but not
entirely outside of the scope of possibility. Perhaps the scholar
in question had liked the resonances which had been evoked by
writing in the common script. Scholars often indulged in thought
experiments, and this seven volume curiat had a complexity, a
layering, that suggested it had been conceived and executed by a
scholar of the highest learning.
    Carefully, she put volumes two through seven
back in the box and opened the first, being careful not to crack
the spine.
    "Inas?" Shereen's voice startled her out of
her reading. Quickly, she thrust the book into the box and silently
shut the lid.
    "Yes, sister?" she called.
    "Wherever have you been?" her elder scolded
from the other side of the curtain. "We need your needle out here,
lazy girl. Will you send your sister to her husband in old
dayrobes?"
    "Of course not," Inas said. Silently, she
stood, picked up the box, and slipped it beneath the