The Match

Imila is nineteen when she walked through Khenti's gate with her mother's linen chests. That was the whole wedding. He's twenty-six. He runs his father's estate and owns none of it. He has met his new wife four times, always in front of both families. Nobody in the house is unkind to her. Auset has run it for twenty-two years and hands over nothing she isn't asked for. Khenti has never once in his life started a conversation he didn't have to. Two hundred and twenty-four days in, Imila has the keys, the old man's good opinion, and a husband who is plainly fond of her. What she doesn't have is a single document with her name on it. Somebody is going to have to ask for one, and it was never going to be him.

This story stands on its own in The Inner Yard. It is the fourth story in the Imila and Khenti universe, set in Middle Egypt. They are both from landholding families and were matched when they were children.

The Inner Yard is a romance set in a world built from late 18th Dynasty Egypt. It takes liberties.

Contents

Chapters 1-3: The Gate, The Hour Before, The Linen

Chapters 4-6: The Night, The Hook, The Girl

Chapters 7-9: The Good Night, The Three Weeks And What Came After, The Neck

Chapters 10-12: The Water, The Asking, The Court

Chapters 13-15: The Summer, That Night, The Meal

Chapters 16-18: The Arithmetic, Four Days, The Box Under the Window

Chapters 19-21: The Middle Room, No Form for It, The Names

Chapters 22-24: What Khenti Got Wrong, Thursday, The Roof

Chapters 25-27: Tiye, The Second Paper, The Second Paper Again

Chapters 28-30: The Strip, Fourteen Weeks, What He Said About It

Chapters 31-33: No Reason, The Middle Room Again, What It Was Like By Then

Chapters 34-36: The Old Man, The Third Argument, The Child

Chapters 37-39: Telling Auset, The Shade, The Last Scene