CHAPTER 10 — Spare the Wife , Spoil the Wife
ULDA
Roarg stands at the sink in the kitchen, eyeing us all with pride as he brushes his teeth.
Then he gives each of us kisses before we sit down to lunch, and we all get more affection after the meal is finished.
Roarg returns to work, and Joktepitha and Namak?ga look dead on their feet so I send them off—Joktepitha with both Crushosh and Opkug—to nap, which leaves the dishes and cleanup and other chores to me and Stephanie.
“You,” I tell the woman-brat. “Scrub this.” I hand her a cooking pot, the iron heavy for my hand and damn near dropping her to the floor.
Sighing, I take it back from her and set it in the sink, thankful that she doesn’t have to support the weight in order to scrub it.
It won’t do to break her, and it’s painfully apparent this female could break very easily.
“Just because our husband has a soft spot for you doesn’t mean you get to sit on your backside all day, no matter how sore you are. ”
I nearly bite my tongue the moment the words leave my mouth.
Oh, longsuffering Eternal. You know heavy pregnancy turns me nastier than an alley cat.
I heave a sigh, ashamed to have caught myself being unfair.
This girl has worked today. Worked hard, as well as being quick to fetch this and that—which can’t be easy for how she’s limping.
I’d think she was playing up her soreness, but I know Roarg’s appetite.
I well remember being his first and only cunny.
There’s a reason I found Namak?ga and brought her home for him.
Proving she only heard one thing, Stephanie, stars in her eyes, is all innocent wonder. “He’s got a soft spot for me?”
“No, he’s got a hard thing for your soft spot.” I point to the cooking pot. “Scrub!”
She snorts, but she does what she’s told.
When we’re done with dishes, sweeping, mopping, and the other inside chores, I move outside to the garden. Stephanie follows, and soon enough we’re both weeding.
The sun warms our backs as we bend and kneel in the grass and soil. We pluck at a line of herbs, and when we near the end of it, I expect Stephanie to move to the flower beds beside us, but instead, she wanders toward the fruit-heavy avort trees.
I bark at her. “Not them!”
She jumps.
“You leave those for me,” I inform her gruffly. “Never bother those trees.”
“S-sorry,” she says, eyeing me warily.
I exhale hard, bringing a trembling, dirt-smeared hand up to my face.
Seeing the tremble, I jut my tusks and brush the back of my wrist over my forehead, pushing away sweat and stray hairs.
“No apologies necessary. I need to…” I shake my head, irritated at myself for being so damned irritable to begin with.
“You had no way of knowing. I don’t have to sink my tusks into you, and I suppose I owe you an apology. ”
She gives me a forced smile. “No offense taken.”
I move to the flower beds and motion for her to do the same. “Well, I’m still sorry,” I tell her brusquely, too abrupt to sound like I’m being authentic even though I am. “What was your trade before you came here?” I ask to put her back to ease. “What can you pass on to the brats?”
The girl blinks at me. “My trade? Pass on to…”
“Soon they’ll be schooling. What can you teach them?”
Stephanie’s eyes go round as beaten shields. “Teach them?”
My patience, thin as a reed, snaps. So does my voice. “Every wife brings some knowledge or wisdoms or even a whole trade to her union. What did you do before you came to us?” I pluck a weed and nod to her to begin doing the same.
She does, but does it blindly. “Um, I work in customer service for a retail store.”
I frown. “And what is that?”
Her brows twitch higher. “It’s where you get paid to be yelled at.”
I blink at her. Several times. “I misheard you. Say again?”
“It’s true. I got paid to be yelled at.” She gives me a long look. “I have to say, I’ve never enjoyed that part of the job, but after being clobbered by you, mean customers look downright tame.”
“You’re welcome,” I tell her, because she seems to be waiting for something. “‘Spare the brat, spoil the brat’ applies to new wives too.”
“Great,” she sighs without enthusiasm.
***
Joktepitha joins us, bringing me Opkug for nursing. I wash up and take a break in the shade while Joktepitha works, Crushosh secured to her front to keep him blocked from the worst of the sun.
Joktepitha, bent and weighted down with her offspring, has all my sympathy. I know the hell that must be on her back.
Stephanie, sharing the same bench with me as we break together, asks, “Who was Roarg’s first wife?”
I pause my patting of Opkug’s back. Rubbing my stomach, I grunt, “Me.”
Stephanie’s face is more curious than a kitten’s. “How did you two meet?”
I give her a disgruntled look. “My parents brought me to his parents and said they’d trade me for a year’s worth of horseshoes.”
Stephanie gawks at me. “Seriously? For horseshoes?”
Stiffly, I nod. I don’t blame her for not believing me. A bride price like mine is the stuff of legend. “It’s true. I was worth an entire year of shod horses.”
“No, I meant—oh, okay, yeah.” Her gaze drops down to her hands as her brows go up. “Gotcha, keeping horses shod is seriously costly.”
“It is,” I agree gravely. “I was shocked when my mother named my price. I was sure no one would think me worth an entire year of shoes.” I press my lips together firmly, but then admit, “I was proud.”
“Understandably. So, ah, who chose his next wife?”
“I did. As is tradition. It was Namak?ga. She chose Joktepitha. And Joktepitha…” I shake my head.
“Let’s just say that Namak?ga has proven she knows well what satisfies the appetites of our husband.
” I run my gaze over Stephanie’s svelte form meaningfully.
“And she has now presented him with two cunnies he enjoys plowing.” I check Opkug’s face; she’s not asleep like I thought.
She’s just being quiet. Such a sweet brat.
“Not that word!” Stephanie whimpers. Then she flinches. “And should we really be talking about this with—with babies present?” Her gaze jumps to Opkug.
Gnashing my tusks at her, I give her a look of disgust. “I grew up in a one room cottage with three mothers, my father, and five siblings. My parents all sported in one bed. Loudly. They didn’t worry about what we heard at night.
They told us to shut up and go to sleep while they made the next brat. ”
“And you turned out just fine,” the impudent little human says with wide eyes trained on the garden before us.
Despite myself, I laugh, making her startle. “Yes, I did. Now shut up and get back to weeding.”
For a while, she does. But like any new wife worth her salt, she proves her mind is circling around her husband. Because from seemingly out of nowhere, she queries, “What’s stopping him from having more wives?”
I’m back at the flower beds too, Opkug with Joktepitha in the shade as I lean over in the sun. “Time. Attention. Money.”
“Is that all?”
I look up sharply. “Wipe that lofty look off your face before I slap it off,” I warn.
Stephanie obeys, obediently wiping her face clear of expression.
Joktepitha glances at the sky and thankfully, wisely, interrupts.
“It’s awful hot out here, Ulda, and you’ve been out in this a while.
” I see her eyes slide over me, worry pinching her brow.
“Why don’t you go inside? Get some water.
Add a pinch of salt. Drink all of it, you’re sweating like a horse. ”
“Sand your tusks. There’s work to be done here.”
“I know. But I’m here now. You could, if you must do something, go into town. Take Stephanie. Get our order from the butcher.”
I straighten, my back screaming, and motion for her to give me Opkug.
“I can keep her with me,” Joktepitha offers.
“No thank you,” I tell her as I collect Opkug’s smiling face. I see so much of Roarg in her, albeit with more feminine features. I pinch her chin. “You’re probably ready to get out of this heat too, hmm?”
She grins a tuskless smile up at me.
I smile down at her before I stifle it and find my new sisterwife.
“Come with me,” I tell Stephanie, and she trails me uneasily back into the house, following Opkug and me all the way upstairs and into my room with hesitant steps.
I pick up a crisply folded hangerok and underdress from my coverlet and press it into her hands. “Change.”
“What are these?” she asks.
A spasm travels from my lower back deep into my belly, forcing me to stifle a severe flinch. “What you should be putting on right now instead of asking me questions!” I snap.
She takes the bundle of clothes and leaves.
I do as Joktepitha counseled, and guzzle two glasses of water with a bit of salt to replace what I’ve sweat out. And my sisterwife, it seems, was right. Part of my woes are due to the fact that I was overheated.
I fit Opkug into the back sling, then change my mind and shift her to the front. Neither option is comfortable, but that’s pregnancy for you. And when Stephanie emerges from Roarg’s room where she evidently did her changing, she’s… beautiful.
Her hair is loose and slides prettily over her shoulders.
Her necklace highlights the elegant lines of her neck—or it would if she’d wear her hair properly in her tres?s, but Roarg is going to breed her through the wall when he finds she wore her hair down into town.
His possessiveness will be good for them both so early on in the marriage, so I won’t peck at her to put her hair up.
As for the dress, its color complements her odd skin tone. But…
“That underdress will need more taking in unless you get pregnant soon,” I sigh. “I knew you were skinny, but I didn’t realize how skinny.”
She blinks dumbly, then looks down at herself. Then her eyes go back to me, and a rueful, honest smile takes over her face. “You sisterwives know how to make a girl feel good. I’ve been told my butt is small and now this. I’ve never been called skinny in my life.”