to his own home. Within that poorly heated hovel and amid much buzzing curiosity
among the neighbors, she effected a change of clothing. That involved removal of
all headgear and thus both veils. And that, when she emerged, elicited more
buzz, even unto awe.
They were the first outside Suma to see the face and figure of her whose name
was not Cleya or Saphtherabah, but Kaybe Jodeera.
She was blessed with beauty, true beauty. It was at once a blessing and a curse.
Jodeera knew herself for a beauty. She admitted and understood and accepted the
fact. She had learned that it was not a blessing, but a curse. She had lived
long with it, and paid the price; several prices. One was that it was not wise
for a woman so staggeringly well-favored to travel unaccompanied. Even with a
protector and amid the whistling winds of winter, she might well have proven
invitation to and source for trouble within the caravan. Jodeera knew this; she
had long been beautiful and admitted and accepted it-as curse. Therefore she had
chosen to conceal herself utterly. Better to be a source of speculation and
gossip than of trouble! (She was neither pregnant nor obese, nor even
“overweight,” that delicate phrase for people of sedentary habits who were
without restraint in the matter of food and drink.)
Furthermore, Jodeera and the sun were not enemies. She was not syphilitic. She
was not even pocked.
She stepped forth from the house of her new lackey unveiled and clasping a long
amethystine cloak over the azure-and-emerald gown of a lady, and she was