The Inner Yard

The palace holds a thousand people, and every one of them belongs to someone. Imila belongs to the Great Royal Wife. She came across the sea as a girl and was trained by Auset, who runs the household. Khenti stands guard in the same palace. In a house this large,

Aithra of Kydonia came up the river as surety for a treaty about copper. For one year she lives in the palace at Thebes: honored, fed, attended, and watched. Then, she will go home. The scribes write her name as Imila because they can't write it any other way.

The widow Imila has turned down six proposals in ten years and has a reputation for being impossible to help. Khenti son of Pahery has come home after fifteen years as a soldier with a bad shoulder and no plan at all. Auset, Imila's housekeeper, has quietly arranged three

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.