Yashub laid a heavy hand on Gala’s shoulder, sweat dripping from his temples. “I’ll give you three goats and a ration of my last trade to let this one go.”

But Gala looked down the line at the other prospects, his eyes going down to the shekels in his purse and the new coins in his hand. He showed his new wealth to the head guardsman and leaned in close to have a fervent, quiet discussion. After a minute, it was decided.

“This girl goes to Gala, guardsman of Alu!”

The scruffy guardsman swept his arm out to Iltani, who looked ready to gnaw the ropes off her own wrists with her teeth. “Sir, come collect your prize and take her to wife before you sleep tonight. Got a funny feeling you might never wake up!”

The men all laughed, but Gala just stood at the foot of the dais, dazzled, looking up earnestly into Iltani’s beautiful sneer.

“Touch me and lose your manhood!” she yelled at him over the shouts of the men at her feet.

His eyes went wide, but he flushed and smiled as the men around him guffawed and congratulated him with full cups of brew. Yashub stalked to the head guardsman, gesturing wildly toward Iltani, but the man waved him away. Yashub glanced sideways at us as if we held the answers.

“Dagan, he’s your friend. Go tell him she is our friend!”

Dagan’s eyes were bleak. “All I can do is tell Gala the truth and pay him to release her.”

Bile filled up my throat and I fought the urge to vomit. “It’ll have to be today. This very day before he takes her as his wife. It must.”

Beside me, Dagan stood. “I will speak to him right now.”

“Be careful!” I whispered as he stumbled toward Gala, the stench of him receding as he walked hunched over, clutching a cask of sikaru to his chest as if his life depended on it.

He could not let the guardsmen know who he was!

“I will make you love me,” Gala told Iltani loudly, his hand over his heart. “I swear it.”

And he likely means it. But a woman given against her will into marriage is not a woman who would willingly offer her love, no matter the intentions of the man who’d selected her.

Iltani’s eyes glittered dangerously as they led her down the dais to Gala, who stood there, hands on his hips, contemplating his new bride.

“Shall we?” He swept an arm out in front of him and nearly knocked Dagan backward.

Dagan tugged on his tunic, but Gala ignored him, his eyes fastened on Iltani.

Again, Dagan tugged on Gala’s tunic, but Gala swatted him away and pulled Iltani’s ropes on her hands toward what I could only assume was his home. She ground her heels in the sand. “You’ll have to carry me. I’ll never go willingly.”

Gala’s shoulders fell, his eyebrows knotted in confusion. “I’ve been told by all the women in Alu that I am handsome. Do you not find me so?”