Courtship Rite

26

IN A BARE ROOM, the se-Tufi who was recognized by the way she cocked her ear, stood in the role of teacher, facing her sister se-Tufi. Both had assumed the erect Resting Power Position. They were interacting through the catalyst called the Nine Tier Matrix of Understanding to transfer to Humility the essential knowledge of Aesoe’s previous concubines.

Many se-Tufi had served Aesoe but he was aware of only three Liethe — Honey, Cairnem, and Sieen — personae created, unknown to him, out of his deepest woman fantasies by the Kaiel-hontokae hive. It amused the crones that he was blissfully proud to be able to distinguish between three identical women just by the way they thought and moved.

Humility was learning, first, the persona of Honey.

Action Mode:

Cocked Ear uttered some warbling sounds, then broke the Resting Power Position to set her body into a pensive stance. With her left hand she pulled and slightly twisted a strand of hair. She returned to The Position and gave Humility the Go signal. Humility had been listening and watching. She broke Position and exactly duplicated Cocked Ear’s motions. Only Honey, of the three, played with her hair when she was pensive.

Thought Mode:

Humility recited, one by one, the cues from the mnemonic list called the Attributes of the Male, while Cocked Ear answered from her store of knowledge about Aesoe. Humility paused briefly while she memorized the answer before producing the next cue. It was more important to know Aesoe’s mind than Honey’s since Honey was only a figment of Aesoe’s erotic imagination.

“Vanity,” said Humility.

“He believes that he knows all. Thus everything he does not know can be used as a mask. We hide behind the image of the woman he expects to see,” replied Cocked Ear.

Humility attached a mask image to the cue. She cleared her mind. “Vanity; consequences.”

“Since he is the only one who knows all, he must tolerate mistakes from others. Making a mistake with him transforms him into a teacher.”

Humility recorded a mental picture of an all-knowing teacher impaled upon a (mi)stake. “Vanity; control handle.”

“Since he knows all, he must be teaching Truth, therefore he cannot tolerate disobedience which is deviation from the Truth. He can be controlled by the subliminal threat of disobedience which freezes him in his Teacher Aspect.”

The drills of the Nine Tier Matrix went on for sun-heights, alternating between Action Mode and Thought Mode. Other se-Tufi who had been with Aesoe took over when Cocked Ear tired, but Humility was not allowed to show fatigue. It was like learning an intricately choreographed dance so that, should a dancer be replaced, the audience would never notice. The grueling workout exhausted her, a sacrifice to Liethe perfectionism.

Action Mode:

The gestures and behaviors that clued Aesoe to the Honey persona were words and sentences constructed out of a lexicon of behavior that the Liethe had invented to facilitate mimicry and role change. The lexicon was complex enough to allow rich combinations, yet simple enough to learn quickly. Each motion of the lexicon had a verbal symbol so that an accurate mimic could be communicated through the haunting song of a warbling language.

The se-Tufis who drilled Humility sang at her, sang their corrections, and she sang back at them. At higher levels of the Action Mode one sister would mimic Aesoe in exaggerations of dance, and Humility would reply, with comic abandon, in a whole sentence of Honey’s body talk. Exaggeration quickened learning. Behaviors as cues were only as effective as they were different from other behaviors.

Thought Mode:

Honey, Humility learned, was sweet and scatterbrained and submissive sexually. She was conjured from the faery substance of an Aesoe fantasy woman who was totally loyal to him but was so desirable to other men that she might serve as a delicious reward, when he wished it, for those who were loyal to him. She was the easiest of the roles to play, allowing forgetfulness and demanding little more than radiant charm and careful attention to the needs of the men important to Aesoe.

If hurt, Honey expressed resentment by a slight slowness, followed by a sudden gush of affectionate forgiveness. She forgave everything. She was never jealous. She was quick to serve, anticipative, restless, shifting and changing in the way she dressed or sang or put her fine meals together.

Honey was an adventurous lover, reflecting Aesoe’s uncommon curiosity. When Aesoe wished to show her off to his intimates, she became exhibitionistic, willing, but when he meditated she was unobtrusive. She spent her time alone practicing her dance and music and singing. Very occasionally she wrote her own songs and might shyly perform them for Aesoe if he wanted to hear them enough to be sufficiently persuasive. She was that way because he enjoyed persuading people. Honey could not tolerate a finger playing in her bellybutton. She was that way because he enjoyed having simple teases. Yes, an easy role.

“And what is Cairnem like?” Humility asked during a break for tea and rolls.

“Cooler. Aesoe thinks of her as the greatest artist so we conspire always to focus on Cairnem’s performance. When Aesoe wants to sleep with her, he pretends disinterest. She enjoys sex only as the aggressor — when she is taking a man away from something that is important to him. She is rigid and only makes love in the overposition. She cries and loses control at orgasm. She is the planner of Aesoe’s household, the one who gets things done.”

“Where did she come from?”

“We created her out of his fantasy need to be with a competent woman.”

“And Sieen?”

“Sieen is the most difficult role. She requires intellectual continuity. You will not be allowed to be Sieen for many weeks. The crone mother will brief you on her and run you through your basic drills. Sieen is Aesoe’s confidant. He tries out policy on her, explores ideas with her before he takes them to the Council. She is almost dull in public and merely competent while serving other men. Only with Aesoe does her mind erupt and her face catch fire and her body warm to the sensual.” Cocked Ear brightened, remembering being Sieen. “She’s no role. It’s like sailplane soaring — with the ground expanding and no updraft. God! when you are Sieen, you’re alive. Then you know you’re Liethe! That’s where we learn about Kaiel policy before it is made and where we make Kaiel policy!”

“With a little help from the old crone,” Humility added cynically.

“You will be a master of Kaiel policy before you are ready to be Sieen.”

“Who decides who gets the roles? What if two of us wish to be Sieen the same night?”

“Whim. If there is a dispute we throw dice. But not while Aesoe is looking!”

After dinner six of the girls were singing or playing to relax — but the crone mother did not let Humility relax. When the ancient one was through instructing the orn-Gazi Who Cries for Berries, that pleasant girl appeared and, trying out the ways of seduction she had just learned, gently informed Humility that the respected hag wished to see her.

The old woman sat in her luxurious room on a huge round pillow that she used as a bed. Two beeswax candles burned on her silver inlaid desk. Behind her was a rich tapestry celebrating the pleasure of laughter. Beside her was a small pantry of pale wood. Stoicism was for the young. In the midst of this splendor, Humility was not sure whether she should remain standing or take a cushion.

The crone mother was the oldest se-Tufi she had ever met, surely near death, but it would not be her mind that would fail her, it would be her heart. The se-Tufi had been the longest lived of the Liethe lines until recently and they lived twenty percent longer than the average Getan who died of old age. Someday the se-Tufi would be replaced by a sister line that had their ability and a better blood pump. The Code allowed no less. No line could hope for immortality.

It was macabre to be confronting herself at the end of her life, as if her travels across the Pile of Bones and the Itraiel Plain had taken her on a journey in time to meet herself as she would become. No words passed between them. Finally the crone mother rose, and Humility ached to help her stand on those legs, but one did not help a crone mother unless asked. The woman took her by the arm, on the band of signature, and carefully brought her to cushions near the candles. Her gesture said that discipline deserved pleasure. She poured liqueur into two tiny goblets, carefully, for her hand trembled. Then sighing, she sat down again, offering the second delicate sipper with a smile that carved her face into finer lines than any artist could have wrought.

Humility was tired. She wanted her mat and her cell, she craved the hardness of the floor and sleep, but the unspoken moments gave her time to work the White Mind. The day vanished. Her body relaxed. In the whiteness appeared her urgently central concern and she spoke first.

“The Kaiel and Liethe are traditional enemies.”

The old woman smiled mysteriously. “You are anxious to go to work?”

“What is my assignment to be?”

“My child, your first assignment is patience. Think no farther than the five pleasure points of Aesoe’s penis.”

Humility was somewhat offended. “I am no novice to stand while Geta turns.”

“So I have heard. Your reputation is that you act with consummate skill. But do you know why you do what you do? Be sure in your own mind that it is right. Only you will bear the consequences. Whatever the Liethe do in secret, in public they side with the law of the land they live in.”

“I need only to be competent. I take orders from those wiser than myself.”

The old woman sighed. “Tell me, why are the Kaiel and the Liethe enemies?”

The Queen of Life-before-Death had nothing to say. The enmity was an understood.

“You see, you are Action Without Thought. Aesoe does not even know we are traditional enemies. He thinks of us as mere women for hire and a bargain at the price. He is more fond of us than some men are of their wives. Vengeance is only in the Liethe soul.”

“The Kaiel are mass murderers.”

The se-Tufi crone sipped her drink, and trembling, set it down, emotion shaking her frail body. “Yes? That is something which touches you?” She spoke her question searchingly, as if she did not understand what Humility was talking about.

“The Judgment Feast of the Arant,” said Humility warily.

“That was ages ago. I believe I am correct when I state that there was no Kaiel clan at the time.”

“The rubble under our feet is Arant! This whole city is built on the bones of the slaughtered Arant! Dig down! You’ll find their cellars. You’ll find the treasures they hid before they were wiped from the face of Geta! The Kaiel clan was founded so that the Arant would never rise again! The Kaiel were given Arant territory and Arant coin and they took it, thus they have the blood of the Arant in their bellies!”

“I see,” said the old woman as if she were blind. “Why does that concern the Liethe? We seek only two things: beauty and the power that beauty brings.”

“Have we not avoided Kaiel-hontokae like the poison? It is part of our tradition! It has always been important. Why did you bring a Liethe hive here? I assumed it was to attack.” Of course it was to attack — the hag was leading her on.

“You speak of the Arant rubble beneath our feet. Do you know the old Arant name for this city?”

Humility spent some time accessing an unused part of her mental files. “D’go-Vanieta.”

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Repeat d’go-Vanieta. Keep hammering the word with repeats until you break off the rust of the old speech. Change the inflection.”

Suddenly Humility was giggling.

“Ah,” smiled the old woman, “you have it!”

“God’s Vagina?”

“Now recall the passage in the innkeeper’s memoirs when Liethe was confronted by the sailor who brought her to the island of Vas.”

“She said she came from the Vagina of God. But she was only teasing the sailor!”

“I doubt it.”

“You think she was Arant?”

“I feel she was born here, yes. But Arant? No. I’ve been doing research at the various Kaiel libraries. People are willing to tell their inmost secrets to an old woman with smile wrinkles who is about to die.”

“I would not tell you my secrets!”

“And I would not tell you what I am about to tell you but that you are se-Tufi like me and I know you and have foreknowledge of what you shall become. I do not wish to die with my most unpopular opinions unshared.” She paused, wheezing before she spoke again. “I believe Liethe was a servant. I believe she was ugly and unloved by men.”

“Mother!”

The crone was enjoying her minor heresy so much that she took another tiny glass of pale liqueur. “I believe she was an ignorant servant who worked in Arant basements doing routine cloning work, day after day.”

“The Arant never knew how to clone! Only the Liethe know cloning!”

“We have no information about the Arant except what their enemies said, and their enemies all agreed that they were great biologists. In point of fact the Kaiel know how to clone; they have always known how to clone but make minor use of the technique.”

“Where did you find this out?”

“Here in Kaiel-hontokae. You don’t think all I do is suckle young girls!”

“The songs speak of Liethe as the most beautiful of all the Liethe.”

“The songs would. She left no writing, she left no research, and she was abysmally ignorant of genetics. She had no husbands. She spent her time cloning herself and it was not she, but three daughters of her clones who codified our ways. She left us with a page of comment that is single-mindedly obsessed with beauty and power. Think! Who would have a goal to be beautiful and to use her beauty to dominate the most powerful men?”

“A Liethe!”

“That is not the right answer, child. It is an easy riddle.”

“I don’t know the answer.” Humility was slightly antagonistic.

“Consider an ugly woman without charm who is ignored by men. Might not she have a raging desire to create the kind of beauty and image that would dominate the men all women desire?”

“I’m not ugly and I do dominate men!” Humility was defiant.

The old woman smiled, recalling herself in her prime. “And you do not have the goal to be beautiful and dominating. You are beautiful and dominating. Perhaps you dream about living longer than any se-Tufi has lived. Perhaps you dream of finding the man who can father a daughter who will found a great line with a better heart than your own. Perhaps you look for the ultimate poison. In ways your beauty may have fostered counter-goals. Sometimes you will seek ways to be ugly so that when you travel you will not be molested. One’s goals only reflect what one does not have.”

“I came here to kill Kaiel.”

The crone mother nodded. “So did I. And I found the most vigorous priest clan on all of Geta. They may break the stalemate. They have a magic ear which can go anywhere on the planet in a single heartbeat. They have delicate instrumentation beyond belief. Did you know that a Kaiel can transplant a single chromosome from an ovum with a success rate of one in a hundred? They even do genetic surgery on the chromosome while it is out of the cell with viruses they grow in beetles. Do you know what that means for us? We could forge sister lines that differ by a single chromosome!”

“Do you think the Kaiel will be the instrument of God’s will to unite Geta?” This was a somewhat horrifying thought for Humility.

“No, my child. They came on the scene far too late. God’s command has already been carried out.” The smile of wrinkles was there again. “Which clan is represented in every major city on Geta? Which clan has achieved access to all policy decisions and is present when they are made?”

“Mother!”

The hag cackled. “How easy it is to rule when you sneak into power as a man’s possession. We’re not a priest clan. Who would have suspected us? Who would have opposed us? What could seem more harmless than a woman for hire who does everything she is told to do?”

“But dear crone, we just lay them! We flatter them, and play them off against each other and, seeming to obey, make them give us what we want…” Her eyes widened.

“Go on.”

“But that’s not ruling a planet! There has to be policy. We’d have to be making momentous decisions!”

“Like which priest clan shall win Geta?”

Humility scoffed. “We aren’t going to do that! We’re going to side with the winners. We’re going to ride to power in their beds!”

“And what of the Timalie? that clan of priests who abhor mistresses? Would we allow them to win?”

Humility burst into the great laugh. “They haven’t got a chance!” She stared at herself as she would be five of her lifetimes from now. “Mother, I think you are serious!”

“Of course I am serious! But don’t think I am impressed with our power. We did all this without knowing we were doing it. Our relative strength is great on the planet as compared with any priest clan, but it is as if we commanded a bee’s brain in a human body. What could be more pitiful than a human whose brain takes all day to send a message to his hand? Rule and hand go together. We may be stronger than anyone else, even the Mnankrei, but we are weak. We must use our position, build on it, or in a single generation all could be lost.”

Humility scanned over her ambition and pride. In a sudden flash, it seemed trivial, bloated. “Will I ever be humble?” she cried out.

The old woman took the young girl and brought her down on the bed, holding her head against a dried bosom and caressing the flowing hair of youth. “Not if you grow up like me, you won’t.” She paused. “You have beautiful hair but it’s dry from your trip. We have superior hair tonics here in Kaiel-hontokae. I’ll buy some for you.”

Humility was sleepy. She struggled to get up, to wake up, to get back to her cell where she could sleep.

“No, no. Stay here. Your journey was enough asceticism for a purification. A night with me in this little room won’t spoil Aesoe’s Palace for you.”

“Why did you bring me to Kaiel-hontokae?”

“I need an assassin. I’m too old for that kind of job.”

But Humility was asleep.