(no subject)

For my WiP class I have to write a story about a secret and/or a crime. So I dallied a long time, and then I gave up and chose one of my old favourites, about whom I once attempted to co-write a novel. Anyway.

( to my son, on his sixteenth birthday, from his father, a gift. )

This is the first section of the story.

Vastraharan

By the hair and the arm, and waist and hip, and his hands groping at your breasts he leads you to the crowded hall where your husband has pawned all—riches, titles, honour, self—and there you stand among the men who purport to rule all people and know yourself more a man than any. And know yourself a woman under their eyes, and the first threads of shame twining your body and hot anger peeling away, as the garments draping you, under the eyes of strangers and kin, while your husbands watch and your friend helps at his leisure.