Only my other two sisters, Merchal and Simasde, knew what it was like. They had had arranged marriages since they were born, properties to inherit since our mother died. They had to go with it, never taking chances like the other two. They walked a fine line as much as I did, and so I had always gotten along with them better.
My father and I talked of mundane things, promised to write each other, and relived memories. He cried and I shed a tear, a rare occurrence for which he thanked me. Then he left and sent in Eliandra then Liliat in turn.
"Welcome to womanhood, little sister," Eliaindra told me with a slap to my back after she closed the door. "Though I know you were already welcomed well." She smirked.
"What ever do you mean?"
"My first tumble with a man, well to be fair he was a boy and a virgin as much as I, was nothing like yours."
I blushed. "You heard?"
"The whole province heard. Jealously, I'm sure, for we've all admired Cassipe from afar, but he's never had eyes for anyone but you."
"What do you mean?"
"I find it so funny," she said after chuckling, "that for a woman bound for the harem he's taught you nothing of what he should."
"What do you mean?"
"Can you say nothing else? What do you mean?" she mimicked. "I mean the fact that man has been in love with you for some time. I've heard from your maids how the priest who was sent for you disappeared. I wouldn't put it past him to killed the man with his bare hands. I've been to Caldor, I know how these things are done. The tutor is never to touch you, and little sister, pleasure for the harem bound woman is forbidden outside the harem. Tell anyone when you get there how he made you scream and he'll be put to death."
I paled.
"The harem has never been explained to you, has it?"
I shook my head.
She grabbed an apple and slouched in her chair, taking a generous bite and looking evil. I knew the ancients had believed a woman had bitten an apple from the tree of knowledge and condemned mankind to pain, but I had never understood until that moment.
"The harem is the source for the queen's pleasure. It has always been filled with the most beautiful of all men, but the queen is only one woman, and men are not like us. What made you scream, little sister, is called an "orgasm." Women can have as many as they like as often as they like, but we do not need them every day. Men need at least one a day though very few can have more than that.
"So the queen stacks her harem with women to see to the needs of the men. For many centuries the women of the harem were ugly so as not to be competition, but more and more the queens have chosen a consort and tend to call on the other men very few times, so the queens have selected beautiful women.
"But this queen," she whispered and drew nearer to the edge of her seat, drawing me forward on mine, "likes women almost as much as she likes men."
I gasped at that and she laughed at my shock.
"Do- can she really do that?"
"You haven't grown up the way we have. When I was on board my ship for a year with no men around, all we had was each other."
"But you said women did not need...orgasms like men do."
She raised one brown eyebrow. "You have had one, would you really like to go without?"
"I guess not."
"So, little sister, you had better appreciate women."
Liliat had similar advice but a much kinder delivery. She too warned me never to tell about the pleasure between Cassipe and myself, and also not to expect any more from my tutor.
We ate dinner together and when the sun set Cassipe and I climbed onto our horses, and rode off with our pack mules behind us and my maids sharing one horse to bear their dainty weight.
We rode in silence and passed the capital, breaking an hour before dawn in the Black Woods of the North. The maids set up two tents while Cassipe made a fire. I agreed to cook and made our meal quickly with unleavened dough and meat cooked on a metal plate with vegetables from the garden and herbs from my collection.
Cassipe lectured me on the virtues of humility and then I was left alone in the dawn to practice with my sword. My maid Welmet was trained as well but I was an official knight and had the duty of guarding our party. I worked up a sweat and washed in a small brook before coming to bed. My maids slept at the foot of the tent leaving me the larger space while Cassipe slept in the tent next to us.
I awoke when the sun was high and knew I was two or three hours early. Then I heard it; a moan. It sounded like Welmet might be ill. "Arte you all right?" I sat up and gasped.