Implied Spaces Read Online Free

twelve when my family had me marry. He was only a few years older. “
    Despite the efforts of the sultan and other rulers to set up timekeepers with sandglasses regulated by the Ministry of Standards, days and years were necessarily approximate in a land where the sun did not move.
    Aristide took her hand and kissed it. “You will delight him,” he said, “have no doubt.”
    She blushed, bowed her head. “Only if I survive the bandits.”
    He kissed her hand again. “Do not fear the bandits, Ashtra of the Sapphire Eyes. The caravan guards make a formidable force, and—come to that—I am rather formidable myself.”
    She looked away. He could see the pulse throb in her throat. “But the stories—what the bandits are supposed to do to captives—The stories are chilling.”
    “Stories. Nothing more.” He stroked her hand. “You will pass through the gates of Gundapur, and live in halls of cool marble, where servants will rush to bring you sherbets and white raisins, and music and laughter will ring from the arches. But for now—” He reached for the strap of her water bag, and raised it dripping from the spring. “Allow me to bear this for you. For I believe there is a bank of green grasses yonder, shaded by the graceful willow, where we may recline and watch the dance of the butterfly and the stately glide of the heron, and enjoy the sweetness of wildflowers. There the wind will sing its languorous melody, and we may partake of such other pleasures as the time may offer.”
    He helped her rise, and kissed her gravely on the lips. Her eyes widened. Aristide drew her by the hand into the shade of the trees, and there they bode together on the carpet of grass, for the space of a few hours on that long, endless afternoon of the world.

02
     
    Aristide slept a few hours, the tail of his headdress drawn across his eyes. When he woke, he found Ashtra seated near him, contemplating the silver ripples of the water through the trailing leaves of the willows. He paused for a moment to regard the woman sitting next to him on the bank—Ashtra, raised in a preliterate world blind even to its own possibilities, brought up in a society founded by swashbucklers, warriors, and gamesters all for their own glorious benefit, but who condemned their descendants to an existence bereft of choice. Married at twelve to a youth who was a relative stranger, now traveling at nineteen to meet a husband who was even more a stranger than that youth. To live in what Gundapur considered luxury, and bear her husband, and bear him children, as many as possible until childbirth broke her health.
    “Come with me, Ashtra,” he said.
    For a moment he didn’t know whether she had heard. Then she said, “Where would you take me?”
    “Wherever you desire. Eventually to the Womb of the World.”
    “You belong to the College?” She turned to look at him in alarm, and shifted slightly away from him.
    People often feared the magic of the College and its missionaries.
    “I’m not of the College,” Aristide said, and watched as she relaxed slightly. “Still, one does not have to be of the College to travel to the Womb.”
    “There are said to be sorcerers of great power at the Womb of the World. And monsters.”
    “There are monsters here .”
    She turned away, and for a long moment regarded the lake.
    “I have a family,” she said finally.
    “What do you owe to this husband who you barely know?”
    “It’s what my family owes him. If they had to refund my bride-price, they would be destitute.”
    “I could pay the price myself.”
    Ashtra turned to him, amusement in her blue eyes. “You do not travel as a prince travels. Are you a prince in disguise?”
    “I travel simply because simplicity appeals to me. And though I am not a prince, I have resources.”
    Again she turned to face the waters. “I have a husband. And what you offer me are fantasies.”
    For a moment the swordsman contemplated the many ironies of this last statement,