After a rather climatic ending to an incredibly climatic quarter, I promptly disappeared. Family affairs, work overload, and general sleep debt dragged me down. Last week I finally took my first day off in three months: no writing, no working, no cleaning the house. I took wore my PJs all day and read that novel I’ve been meaning to read for too long. And I must say, that one day has had a miraculous effect on my productivity, and I am happy to report that I am now about 80% finished with the writing of my next novel.
This novel has proved more difficult and more involved than either Farro or Sulfur. It’s a somberer, mellower tale and requires me to back off on my character where before I might have pushed. There is a scene involving elephants, for instance, where I decided to spare a character from being horribly injured. Anyone familiar with my works will recognize what an accomplishment this is for me, but even then I was not completely merciful. No conflict, no story, I say.
This novel also requires an absurd amount of research. Aside from the literature already sitting on my shelf (reminder: my scholarly focus has always been on Ancient Egypt), I have been in contact with historians and anthropologists that have lent depth to my settings. Their advice has been fascinating but time consuming. After all, when you don’t thoroughly control your environment, you are forced to adhere to the real boundaries. After this novel, I intend to rewrite a contemporary novella I’ve had stashed away for six years now. I’m looking forward to writing something contemporary. I know contemporary, I live contemporary. It’s not like history, where I’m reaching back in time and filling in the holes with some sort of barely-passable plaster.
Now, for your patience, here is a sneak peak at my new heroine, Aisha:
They were different like the seasons.
Her father was like the Flood, for his voice filled the hall. Speaking incessantly, speaking loudly, speaking nonsense. He drank all the beer set before him and paid no mind to the flecks of grain stuck to his trembling lips. He was always moving, always consuming. His presence weighed heavily upon her shoulders, and his words—those silly, ignorant words—threatened to smother her.
Lady Kiya, aged and genteel and patient, was the Harvest, for her beckons brought forth the food. She was the lady of the house, the first wife, the professional homemaker. By her lord and husband she had borne four children, all sons. She was in every way the perfect wife, fertile, obedient, and self-assured.
And then Lord Pathi would be the Sowing, for he was the sower of seeds. He was huge and powerful and older than the graying Lady Kiya sitting at his side. He was a warrior, a politician, a judge. He was a father of four, and yet he still desired more. And who was to stop him, when he was rich and could afford what so few could—a second wife?
If they were the seasons, then Aisha was the earth upon which they trod. She was at the mercy of their whims. She was clay waiting to be molded and painted and fired. Her father had offered her up, Lady Kiya had assented with a backwards sneer, and Lord Pathi—her groom—had felt the shape of Aisha’s hips before at last saying, “Very well, I’ll have her.”
So now there she sat, at one end of a table far too long for the four people sitting around it. She had every comfort as the bride: a chair with a cushion, a goblet of beer, a platter of smashed chickpeas, and roasted flat bread. In honor of the occasion, Lady Kiya had even ordered a roasted lamb haunch. It occupied the center of the table, charred black and cut full of garlic, cloves, and coriander pods.
They picked the meat straight from the bone, and it fell away with a plume of steam and a smell of cumin and lard. The grease staining her father’s hands shimmered in the light of the braziers.
It wasn’t that Aisha wouldn’t eat, but that she couldn’t. She didn’t dare move for fear that the delicate façade her sisters had spent all morning creating would crumble away. The makeup had dried hours ago, and it fractured and cracked with each word she spoke and with each smile she forced. Her mask was peeling away like bark from a tree, and she feared that her groom would see her plain face and know how her father had lied to him.
For Aisha was no beauty, just as she was no singer or dancer. These pretty accomplishments were better suited to her younger sisters. Beautiful, lucky girls, who sat at home thinking their eldest sister was so fortunate for having married herself into a rich family.
They were young and romantic, but Aisha was old enough to know the truth. She wasn’t picked for her face or her skills; she was picked because she was older than her juvenile sisters and thus more likely to bear the children Lord Pathi so desired.
He would sow his seed within her, and while the child was growing within her womb she would be subject to the first wife’s desires. She was only the second wife, and as such she was Lady Kiya’s servant in all but name.
This was her life now. She was a wife now and would be expected to fulfill the duties accompanying the station. He was a huge man, tall and muscular, and though she feared the strength of his arms, she knew she would have to bear through her husband’s passion. Scars and veins stretched over his arms like spider webs. When he reached forward, his muscles curled and bulged and stretched.
Tonight he would reach for her with those arms, and he would rip at her clothes as he ripped now at the lamb. He would order her down and take her from above. His bulk would cast a shadow over her so he need not see the plain face her sisters had worked so hard to disguise.
