Women Who Lie Alone in Tombs

I’ve published a new short story, ‘Women Who Lie Alone in Tombs’.

This is the description:

After a failed insurrection, Ixin follows her lady Ai Jaruq to a Mongol queen’s court to join in a wider revolt.

In the lost Khitan kingdom, there were women who found space to live unwed — the ‘women who lie alone in tombs’, without husbands. Is that what Ixin wants, or can she strike out on a new type of life altogether?

A slice of thirteenth-century women’s lives, mostly historical, with a zest of speculation.

And this is the Afterword:

‘Women Who Lie Alone in Tombs’ is a post-Amgalant story. It fits into the Amgalant world shortly after the events of those novels, although of the characters, only Yisui Queen features in Amgalant Two: Imaginary Kings.

 Bibliography? I greatly recommend Women of the Conquest Dynasties: Gender and Identity in Liao and Jin China by Linda Cooke Johnson. It’s here I read most about Khitan women who managed to remain single and lie alone, without husbands, in their tombs.

Qip pops up again in my less historical sword & sorcery, set in the same time and place as Amgalant but with a fantasy slant. You can find Qip in my story ‘The Grief-Note of Vultures’ in New Edge Sword & Sorcery #0, which is a free download in digital: newedgeswordandsorcery.com

In case you wonder what’s historical and what isn’t, here’s a partial list (you can ask me others).

Attested:

Swell-root and its uses. It’s a particular root that swells in moisture.

The institution of ‘fake pageboys’ in high Jin circles.

Single women, and the push to make them allowed in Khitan society.

Khitan attitudes to chastity and sex before marriage.

The first Khitan widow-queen who chopped her own hand off to lay in her husband’s tomb and silence critics of her continued rule.

Unattested:

Qip. But I bet she existed.

This short story is free for the week 23-30 April in our HistFic Outside the Box on Bookfunnel. My Amgalant novels are also on sale at 50% off.