Tortall Read Free Page A

point and name a country, or a city, and speak in strange languages.
    Our companions drifted away until it was only Mama, Iyaka, and me going from booth to booth. We were having agood time on our own when Iyaka suddenly fell silent. Mama and I looked up. Here came a handsome young man, well muscled, with the scars of a warrior on his cheeks and chest. A girl clung to his arm like a vine. She wore a blue silk dress and so much gold jewelry that it was impossible to tell if she was truly beautiful or simply dressed in money.
    The young man, who also wore gold, halted. She had to halt with him, and to stare as he did, at Iyaka. The blue silk girl looked at Iyaka, who had gone pale, and she
smirked
. At
my
sister, who was more beautiful than she without jewelry or silk!
    “Awochu,” Iyaka whispered. The young man in gold licked his lips as if they were dry.
    Mama stood in front of Iyaka. “Is this how you act before the family of the girl you are to marry in a week?” she asked sharply. “You parade this fair with a strumpet on your arm, mocking my daughter’s good name?”
    The girl with gold scowled. She will have wrinkles before she is thirty, I thought as I put an arm around my sister.
    “She is no strumpet!” said my sister’s betrothed. “
She
is my bride-to-be. I will not honor a contract with a witch and the family of a witch.”
    Mama put her hands on her hips. “My daughter is no witch, you pompous hyena! You slander her name and ours to speak so!”
    “She put a spell on me last year,” said Awochu. “My father’s shaman cured me of her spell. Now I will have nothing to do with a witch!”
    A crowd was gathering. People are jackals, always willing to feed off someone else’s kill.
    “You signed a marriage contract in blood,” Mama said. “You did it with your eyes open and your mama bleating like a sheep, saying there were girls ‘more worthy of you.’ More worthy, with Iyaka and her family and chief standing right there! The only witchcraft was in you knowing she wouldn’t lay down for you without marriage, and you being like a spoiled baby who won’t hear no!”
    “She put a spell on me!” Awochu cried. “She put it in the stain she used on her lips, so I was half-mad.”
    “Witch,” someone whispered behind me. I whirled to glare and saw people crowded all around us.
    “Unlawful to spell a man into marriage,” a woman said.
    “Oh, no,” Iyaka said. She shook out of my hold and walked up to Awochu, her muscles tight with anger. “You courted me with flowers and sweets and promises until I barely knew my name. You pursued me because I said no that first day, when you kissed me like a barbarian. And now you sully my name and the name of my family?” She spat in the dust at his feet and looked at the blue silk girl. “You want to be watching now,” Iyaka told the other girl. “This is what you want to marry. He will blame
you
when things go wrong between you.” Iyaka turned her attention back to Awochu. “You want your freedom? You may have it—
after
you pay half my bride price for breaking the contract and lying about me.”
    He had looked arrogant, then petty, then furious. Now he looked smug. “I pay you
nothing,
” he told Iyaka. “Not to one who uses magic for love. Nawolu chief Rusom judges all trade fair disagreements.
He
will know what to do.”
    He marched off to the chief’s pavilion. We had nochoice but to follow, to stop him from lying to Chief Rusom. The witnesses followed, eager for the sight of someone else’s quarrel and judgment.
    Luckily, friends heard Awochu’s claim and ran to fetch our tribe. By the time we could see the chief’s bright red pavilion, Papa, our shaman, and our own chief had come, with my kinfolk. My heart swelled with pride. All of our village had come to stand with my sister. Surely Chief Rusom would see that she was a girl of good family, the kind who would never use magic in a foul way. He would order Awochu to admit to his lie before