The thought sent a shiver of disgust through me, even then, but I dared not show it. I had to think of my future—not just mine but Nana’s as well. Though she hadn’t told me, I knew we were at the very end of our funds. The last time she’d gone to the market, she’d come back with a single loaf of stale bread and I had heard her begging our landlord, in hushed tones, to “extend our credit” for just another month. We were a whisker away from being cast out on the streets of the vast and ugly city and then what would we do?
So I listened quietly while Baslik and my Nana discussed my future, making not a peep even as they planned what my life was to be with not a word from me.
“I see that she has pale, creamy skin and hair the color of starlight,” he said to her, eyeing me with a greedy look on his narrow face. “And her eyes are dark pools of midnight with lashes that are both long and lush.”
“Ah, Lord Le’rank, how very poetically you put things,” Nana said, smiling over the rim of her own teacup.
“Yes, well one must praise such exceptional beauty when one sees it,” Le’rank simpered. “She is perhaps a bit too plump but her wide hips should bode well for childbearing,” he continued, still looking at me as though I was an object d’art on display at the museum—or perhaps a choice cut of meat at the butcher’s shop. “In short, your granddaughter looks just as a Moonstone Goddess should—except her skin is not glowing. Why is that?”
“Oh, Lord Le’rank, I fear you have been misinformed,” Nana said, widening her eyes. “A Moonstone goddess’s skin does not glow all the time—it only takes on that special, pearly sheen when it is her time to be, er…” She cleared her throat delicately. “To become heavy with child.”
This was the first I had heard of the matter, so I turned to look at Nana in surprise as Lord Le’rank digested this information.
“In fact,” Nana went on. “It is much better if you do not try to, er, get a child on her until her skin takes on the Moonstone glow. She will not be fertile until that time anyway and it is far and away better to wait until the glow of fertility is on her in order to be certain the child you get on her is strong and healthy—and male. For the first glow always produces a male child, if you will only be patient and wait.”
“I see, I see,” Baslik murmured, nodding. “And when exactly will she begin to glow?”
“Not until her future is secure, I fear, Lord Le’rank,” my Nana said primly. “For how can her body become ready to bear a child until her mind is at peace, knowing that she and the child she bears will be well cared for?”
“I see—so it’s a mind/body connection thing, is it?” Lord Le’rank had stared at me, openly appraising while I modestly dropped my eyes, afraid that he might see the distaste plainly written in them if I looked at him.
“It is, yes.” My Nana nodded. “I did not begin to bear sons myself until I had been wed to my own dear, departed husband for several solar months,” she added.
“Several months you say?” Le’rank exclaimed. “That’s a lot of waiting—what about the wedding night?”
“I fear the consummation of your nuptials must be deferred until Isla’s skin starts to glow—unless, of course, you do not care about getting sons right away,” my Nana told him.
“Of course I want sons! I want them yesterday! I must have an heir—one who looks exactly like me to carry on the family name,” he exclaimed. He frowned at Nana. “Is there nothing one may do to bring on the Moonstone glow sooner?”
“Ah, well, as to that…” Her wrinkled cheeks were flushed like faded roses—she disliked speaking of anything sensual in nature. In fact, it was from our maids—back when we could still afford to employ them—that I had learned the facts of life. “There are…certain techniques that are said to bring the Moonstone glow on sooner,” she said. “But I must not speak of such things when innocent ears might hear them.”
Of course, she was referring to me. As if I didn’t know how a man and woman come together to form a child! But I would not betray my knowledge. I simply rose and said that I would take the tea tray into the kitchen and perhaps refill the teapot if anyone wanted more?
“Yes, child—that’s a good idea,” Nana said, smiling.
And so I left them whispering about me as I took the tea tray away. When I returned, the deal was done.
“My lovely wife to be!” Lord Le’rank took my hands in his own clammy ones and kissed them—wet, slimy kisses that made my skin crawl. And yet I forced myself to smile.