Quiet Knives Read Free Page B

quarantined, cut off
from society and commerce. They may only travel in the company of a
male of their kin unit, and even then, heavily shielded in many
layers of full body robes, their faces, eyes and hair hidden by
veils. So it is that the first adjustment in our well-laid plans
has been implemented. You will find that your partner Thelma
Delance has ceded her route and her studies to a certain Scholar
Umar Khan. And a damnable time I had finding a false beard in this
blasted city, too. However, as you know to your sorrow, I'm a
resourceful wench, and all is now made seemly. Scholar Khan is
suitably odd, and elicits smiles and blessings wherever he walks.
The project continues only slightly impeded by the beard, which
itches. I will hold a copy of this letter in my field notes, in the
interests of completeness.
    Farewell for now, brother Jamie. You owe me
a drink and dinner when we are reunited.
    * * *
    INAS WAS SLOW WITH her needle next morning,
her head full of wonders and blasphemies.
    That there were other worlds, other peoples,
variously named "Terran" and "Liaden"--that was known. Indeed,
Selikot was the site of a "space-port" and bazaar, where such
outworlders traded what goods they brought for those offered by the
likes of Merchant Majidi. The outworlders were not permitted beyond
the bazaar, for they were unpious; and the likes of Merchant Majidi
must needs undergo purifications after their business in the bazaar
was concluded.
    Yet now it seemed that
one--nay, a pair --of outworlders had moved beyond the bazaar to rove and study
the wider world--and one of them a woman. A woman who had disguised
herself as a man.
    This was blasphemy, and yet the temples had
not fallen; the crust of the world had not split open and swallowed
cities; nor had fires rained from the heavens.
    Perhaps Thelma Delance had repented her sin?
Perhaps Amineh, the little god of women, had interceded with his
brothers and bought mercy?
    Perhaps the gods were not as all-seeing and
as all-powerful as she had been taught?
    Within the layers of her at-home robes, Inas
shivered, but her scholar-trained mind continued its questions, and
the answers which arose to retire those new and disturbing
questions altered the measure of the world.
    "Truth defines the order of the universe,"
she whispered, bending to her needlework. "When we accept the
truth, we accept the will of the gods."
    Yet, how if accepting the
truth proved the absence of the gods? Why had her father given her
such a gift? Had he read the curiat before sending it to her? Did he know of the
hidden--
    Across the room, from the other side of the
guest screen, Nasir's voice intruded.
    "The Esteemed and Blessed Scholar Reyman
Bhar is returned home and bids his daughter Inas attend him in the
study."
    * * *
    HER FATHER WAS AT his desk,
several volumes open before him, his fingers nimble on the keypad
of the notetaker. Inas waited, silent, her hands folded into her
sleeves. The light of the study lamps was diffused into a golden
glow by the ubaie ,
so that her father seemed surrounded by the light of heaven. He was
a handsome man, dark, with a masterful beak of a nose and the high
forehead of a scholar. His beard was as black and as glossy as that
of a man half his age. He wore the house turban, by which she knew
he had been home some hours before sending for her, and the
loosened braid of his hair showed thick and gray.
    He made a few more notes, turned a page of
the topmost book, set the notetaker aside, and looked up.
    Inas melted to her knees and bowed, forehead
to the carpet.
    "Arise, daughter," he said, kindly as
always.
    She did so and stood quiet once more, hands
folded before her.
    "Tell me, did my packet arrive timely?"
    "Father," she said softly, "it did. I am
grateful to you for so precious a gift."
    He smiled, well-pleased with her. "It is a
curiosity, is it not? Did you mark the pattern of the errors?
Almost, it seems a farce--a plaything. What think you?"
    "Perhaps," Inas said,