Amjad Aal Shalaan could barely raise his gaze to the man whose voice boomed out the question. His father and king loomed over him in full regalia, his responsibility-carved face frozen in a mask of control. His eyes blazed with an amalgam of regret and wrath, agony and outrage. Amjad’s unfocused gaze panned to his brothers, who flanked his father, then to the sea of tribal representatives who crowded the expansive glory of Dar Al Adl—Zohayd’s Hall of Justice. Their faces blurred into a homogenous mass of anticipation as his father’s question reverberated off the arches and domes of the venerable place in a taunting echo. Will you forgive? But he’d already forgiven what no other man would have. He’d forgiven his bride for not coming to their marriage bed a virgin. He’d soothed her fear, assured her he wouldn’t hold against her what he couldn’t provide himself. What mattered were her life choices after she became his wife. Then he’d forgiven her when he’d discovered that she carried a baby.
