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nalini has been engaged twice; both times she escaped.
her first engagement was entered into when nalini was still in her natal home, far away and long ago. she was thirteen, and her parents were eager to see her married off. nalini never saw the man that was to be her husband, and knew next to nothing of him, beyond the fact that he was old. old enough to be her father. she knew she would be forgotten, that this would bring her more sorrow than the life she already led. it was a turning point, a breaking point, that finally drove her to run.
oceans and years later, she had turned ninteen, and her mother maritza had determined to find her daughter a good man to call husband. though nalini felt uneasy at this idea, she trusted her mother, and put all her hesitation down to nerves. but the anxiety never left, and her nerves increased to nauseating heights. nalini was not ignorant of what happened between man and wife— visiting courtesans had told her what happened in a bed— but the idea of being with a man pushed her near to tears. a month after the engagement was made, nalini begged her mother and father to end it. joaõ didn’t much like the man, thinking he would be a bad match for his daughter, so he broke it on nalini’s behalf. the breakup was nasty, and a rejected man was more dangerous than an enraged bull. six months later, nalini left with her brother for piedmont, partly to escape court.
seasons and cities spun by as nalini traveled, and two years into her stay at hampton court, nalini met vittoria, who she dearly wishes she could call her wife. the irony is not lost on her: the one time she would accept an engagement is when it would be forbidden in the eyes of god and the law.









