Chapter 31 · Chapter 31

The scent of Mabkhara smoke hung suspended between the high plaster moldings, curling thin and gray over the perimeter of low divans. Not a single person shifted their posture. In a Riyadh majlis, when the master of the house gives the signal and the elder accepts the finjan, the question that brought thirty witnesses into the room ceases to exist. It is cut down at the root, deliberate and irrevocable.

I remained standing before them, my black abaya draping straight to the edge of the woven wool carpet. My head was covered by the tarha, pinned tight against my hair, framing my jaw and throat in austere darkness. I did not drop my eyes to the floor, nor did I seek out Marzouq’s face to plead for reassurance. A woman of Al-Sulaim does not grovel before men who came to weigh her reputation on a balance of rumor.

"The matter is settled," Ammi Saud spoke again, his voice gravelly and flat. He tilted the porcelain finjan once, twice, in his palm—the subtle gesture indicating he had taken his fill of gahwa and would accept no refill.