"Red" Ariennu of Tyre
In this sequence, Marai the shepherd has heard a cry coming from a hut where his family used to live. Inside, he finds three women. One of them is dying. Because of the psychic gifts the Children of Stone have given him, he sees and contemplates her story.
...Touching the arm of the woman who sagged and retched at his feet, Marai helped her sit upright. He grabbed a filthy rag from the floor, because it was all he could find, and offered it to her, so she could wipe her lips. Her heavy-set shoulders hunched forward, weakened by disease and the weight of her sagging breasts. Her eyes bounced, feverish and unable to focus. When her eyes did meet the shepherd's eyes, he saw her story.
Her mother walked the shore at night. She was either a widow or a woman cast out. The man who took her in was a Keftian seaman. He put her up in a seaside hut with enough goods to survive until he returned. Marai saw that the girl was born soon after. The woman stayed with the girls father whenever he was home, but eventually he never returned. The girls mother was with other men after that. She found them easily because she was tall and pretty. -Over the years the mother's looks faded and the girl became a beauty with dark hair that glinted copper in the sunlight. One of the men took a liking to the young girl. The mother made the discovery one day, threatened, beat and drove the girl into the streets to find her own source of income. Beaten nearly to death, she slipped away to other villages and into the arms of sympathetic men.
For the woman's part, her flirtatious, bright nature insured her career. Her desire of freedom meant she would sooner die than become a woman to just one man. She called herself a name that sounded like Weht Awi-enoo. No one knew what it meant. Wealthy men saw her and took her in. She was even pampered with riches and cared for by eunuchs in a noble household at one time. She served in a temple, learning medicine and the arts of healing women's ailments Thrust into the street again, after that failed, she existed as a tramp, a spy, and a thief. Soon she took up with N'ahab-atall when he was still a youth, enjoying him and all of the men as a kind of group concubine. By the time he and his gang of thugs took the wadi, they, too, had tired of her bed. Once tall and stately, she was bent in an illness that filled her belly so full of tumors that she looked great with child. One day soon, she hoped, death would come in the form of a charitable knife across her throat. It would be one of the few kindnesses done to her in an otherwise thankless life. Maybe her own sense of finality, or the drink she used to dull her pain had made her bold enough to be the first to come to him...
...Touching the arm of the woman who sagged and retched at his feet, Marai helped her sit upright. He grabbed a filthy rag from the floor, because it was all he could find, and offered it to her, so she could wipe her lips. Her heavy-set shoulders hunched forward, weakened by disease and the weight of her sagging breasts. Her eyes bounced, feverish and unable to focus. When her eyes did meet the shepherd's eyes, he saw her story.
Her mother walked the shore at night. She was either a widow or a woman cast out. The man who took her in was a Keftian seaman. He put her up in a seaside hut with enough goods to survive until he returned. Marai saw that the girl was born soon after. The woman stayed with the girls father whenever he was home, but eventually he never returned. The girls mother was with other men after that. She found them easily because she was tall and pretty. -Over the years the mother's looks faded and the girl became a beauty with dark hair that glinted copper in the sunlight. One of the men took a liking to the young girl. The mother made the discovery one day, threatened, beat and drove the girl into the streets to find her own source of income. Beaten nearly to death, she slipped away to other villages and into the arms of sympathetic men.
For the woman's part, her flirtatious, bright nature insured her career. Her desire of freedom meant she would sooner die than become a woman to just one man. She called herself a name that sounded like Weht Awi-enoo. No one knew what it meant. Wealthy men saw her and took her in. She was even pampered with riches and cared for by eunuchs in a noble household at one time. She served in a temple, learning medicine and the arts of healing women's ailments Thrust into the street again, after that failed, she existed as a tramp, a spy, and a thief. Soon she took up with N'ahab-atall when he was still a youth, enjoying him and all of the men as a kind of group concubine. By the time he and his gang of thugs took the wadi, they, too, had tired of her bed. Once tall and stately, she was bent in an illness that filled her belly so full of tumors that she looked great with child. One day soon, she hoped, death would come in the form of a charitable knife across her throat. It would be one of the few kindnesses done to her in an otherwise thankless life. Maybe her own sense of finality, or the drink she used to dull her pain had made her bold enough to be the first to come to him...
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