“Maybe so,” she said without meaning it. “But there was talk, before the scholar, of an old rich man who’s already buried three wives, and needs a fresh young one. A lecherous goat!”

“Miravia!”

“It’s true. You know how they talk around what they don’t want said. Hearing nothing ill means there is nothing good. If a man is rich enough, he can buy what he wants. He has a daughter fit for Eliar, an excellent match for our family, but Eliar refused the match the first time it was offered two years ago because the agreement was for him to marry the daughter and I to marry to the old man. Eliar knew I would hate living trapped in Nessumara in a house said to be much stricter than our own. So he refused to make the bargain, knowing how I would hate it.”

“How can a house be stricter than this one, with a men’s court and a women’s court?”

“Most everyone here is related, so we have more freedom of movement between the two courts than may be obvious to you. In a very strict house, all movement is regulated, and women who have married in especially are confined to the women’s court and to a private family chamber where their husband meets with them. It’s like a prison.” The last lights in the weaving hall were extinguished, and the counting rooms went dark. “Even here, it was more informal when Eliar and I were little. But in the last few years we’ve had marriages, apprentices, and fostered girls brought in to complicate matters. And we absorbed a smaller cousin house from Horn that was driven out.”

“Driven out?”

Miravia walked on to the next lamp, opened and lit it, and gravely regarded the light as it flared. “In fire and blood. Many in the Hundred still consider us outlanders although my people have lived in this land for a hundred years. We are honest merchants. Sometimes there is resentment, because we look different and don’t worship their gods. Because we are wealthy, I suppose. Anyway, our house is now large enough that it will branch soon, sons and cousins splitting off to make their own house. Not like that rich old man in Nessumara, who clutches all the generations beholden to him in his fist.”

“Maybe he found another wife when he heard you were betrothed to the scholar.”

“Maybe he did.” Miravia rose, shaking out her loose trousers and the calf-length pleated jacket worn over all. “Poor young scholar. I wonder how he died.”

“In fire and blood,” said Mai, remembering how the tents had burned outside Olossi, remembering the rising and falling whoops of men too weakened by burns for full-throated screams. She let her tears flow, knowing better than to suck them down. There was nothing shameful in sorrow.

“I’ve made you gloomy, too,” said Miravia, hugging her. “How dare I! I’m sorry.”

“It would be worse not to think about it. But we lived and won, and they lost and died.”