Courtship Rite

32

IN THE YEAR of the Moth, the week of the Horse began with a celebration dedicated to that mythical sidestepping insect, the Horse piece of chess who was commonly known as the Protector of Infants. Naked children wearing elaborate Horse heads had been prancing about the streets the moment Getasun was fully risen, begging favors and gifts from every passing adult. It was quite evident that none agreed either on the color or shape a Horse’s head should take.

“Watch out!” said Teenae, cautioning Oelita. “There are more hiding in ambush in that alley.” A purple snout with bulbous hoiela eyes sprang upon them, holding the hand of a smaller grinning beast who was hideously hairy to her shoulders. They cajoled two glass marbles from Teenae and Oelita who carried shoulder bags of goodies on this morning.

When the women reached the alley, they found more children.

One was wearing a wooden mask with vaguely maelot mandibles and improbable floppy ears. Another youngster wore a long head with stripes while her companion appeared behind a huge checkered nose. The boy wanted candy. The girls wanted trinkets but fought over a tiny bean shooter.

Teenae had attached herself to Oelita since her return. She felt a fierce loyalty to this woman who had saved her nose, perhaps her life. They were bonded by that encounter and by the code which made the lover of more than one husband her personal charge. Nor could she forget her already once-failed vow to protect Oelita from Joesai. Gaet and Hoemei she trusted to behave circumspectly; Joesai she did not.

“Do you know this Kathein pnota-Kaiel?” asked Oelita.

“Very well.” Teenae was apprehensive about the meeting she had set up.

“I’m not sure I understand why she would be interested in my crystal. Is she a mystic?”

“Your crystal is a Frozen Voice of God.”

“That’s why I thought she must be a mystic. She looks at it and hears things?”

Their chariot had arrived and they climbed in while Teenae gave instructions to the Ivieth porters. Now the two women were squeezed beside each other. “It would be hard to explain to someone who has lived her life under Stgal rule just what Kathein does. She’s a dobu. Think of how a dobu of kembri handles himself in a fight. The force in his opponent’s body does his work for him. Kathein is a dobu of matter. There are forces within all-that-is-inert around us. It resists us with its passivity. If we wish a husband to go to market with us, he comes at the merest asking. If we wish a wagon to come to market with us, we must swear and push and sweat. Kathein is a dobu. She uses the lifeless forces against themselves to work her will. When she commands a wagon, it follows her. When she holds a crystal, it remembers God.”

Oelita shook her head at such quaint hill madness.

The chariot was stopped once by a hideous-headed child with clicking mandibles and a beard who demanded his tribute to the Horse. The Ivieth neglected his charges until he found something, Oelita and Teenae contributed a candy and a marble, and they were on their way again.

The old stone building by the Moietra aqueduct was Kathein’s retreat. Oelita laughed, and lifted her skirts to avoid a patch of mud that leaked through the cobblestones. “So this is the abode of the magician to whom wagons heel and stones talk? The sight of such dark mansion so close at hand instills precaution. How will I greet her?”

“As one who has done her a Great Favor.”

“I will not reveal the location of my crystal until the deal is complete and widely known.”

Teenae felt a stab of pity. She did not comment. To negotiate with the Kaiel, the Gentle Heretic should not have come alone. Then she forgot Oelita as her curiosity surfaced. What had Kathein become?

A young bonded Kaiel from the creches greeted them and brought them to Kathein’s presence in a tapestry-covered room of high ceiling. Kathein was standing. Her expression did not change. She wore trousers and a bodice that held her breasts but exposed them as was the tradition with a nursing woman.

“Kathein.”

“My Teenae.” The voice was warm, unlike the face. “How happy I am that you are back with us. I had my fears.”

“We’ve heard little from you.”

“It is distracting, forging a new clan. Your wounds have healed?”

“You can’t divide an o’Tghalie by zero,” said Teenae, trying for levity and finding none.

“Oelita,” said Kathein, taking up her duties as hostess, “my house is yours. I am astonished at your possession of the crystal and grateful that you have brought it here to me.”

“I have not brought it as a gift.”

“You are refreshingly blunt.” The first wispy smile crossed Kathein’s face. “Soepei,” she spoke loudly to another room, “bring the box.” She returned her eyes to Oelita. “Teenae has told you of our fairness in dealings. I repeat that this is so.” She settled her guests on pillows and offered them hot spiced tea which had been warming on a low table. The box was brought to Kathein and she opened it to reveal a rectangular crystal on velvet, waiting silently for Oelita’s response.

“Your Frozen Voice of God has the same pale blueness as mine.” Oelita used the name with only a hint of sarcasm. “Teenae has told me how much you cherish it.”

“This Frozen Voice of God is the one that was formerly in your possession. It is not mine. You’ll recognize the chipped end.”

Teenae swiveled her eyes to Oelita, examining her friend minutely for shock. She poised, ready to restrain her but Soepei was there, alert, strong, and Kathein sat, ready.

Oelita kept her game face, as if she had simply had a bad throw of the dice. “And my man?”

“Detained at the Temple of Human Destiny. He has not been harmed. He will be free once you have spoken to him. He will receive a bounty from the Temple as reward for his fine care of the crystal.”

“You are gracious.” Oelita’s voice revealed by its hollowness just how stunned she was.

“We are not gracious!” Kathein was irked. “That bounty and that respect has been earned. We appreciate the deliverance of the sacred crystal by whatever means it came!”

“How did you find him?”

Kathein paused. “Oelita, you do not understand this city. It is our city. Almost every human here has a personal contract with his own Kaiel and little goes on that is unreported to us. To hide from the Kaiel, you must hide from every eye.”

“I am at your mercy.”

“No, you are not at our mercy! We are profoundly grateful! We shall be negotiating with you as if you had retained possession of the crystal that God willed to you. That is the Kaiel way. You will not get all you wish because our resources are limited and our objectives different from yours, but when we cross hands on a deal it will not rankle with you in the future. You will not wake up some morning, knowing the true value of your crystal, and feel that you have been cheated.”

Teenae spoke. “She is upset because of the Death Rite.”

“She is upset! You should see Aesoe’s stormings! He called a full Council meeting. Joesai is to be banished!”

“No!” said Teenae, stricken.

Kathein turned to Oelita wearily. “You have powerful friends here in the city. I do not know if Aesoe is angry at Joesai for his handling of you, or if it reaches his heart that my son is Joesai’s son, but certainly the visitation of a Death Rite upon you is the excuse for his fury.”

“Where will he be sent?” asked Teenae in commotion.

“To the port of Kissiel on the Aramap Sea, probably.” Kathein was laughing without humor. Kissiel was on the opposite side of Geta at the other end of the diameter that touched Kaiel-hontokae. “I could kill that man sometimes. I could roast him in burning dung and feed him to the orthoptera! I tried to intercede for him but it did no good. No, he won’t be sent to Kissiel. Aesoe is shaking up a Gathering against the Mnankrei and will send him on the staff of Bendaein hosa-Kaiel to Soebo. Aesoe does not waste the talents of a man he intends to kill.”

“Does Aesoe wish Joesai dead?” asked Oelita.

“Yes!” Kathein answered her coastal rival, her almost hostile rage barely suppressed.

“He has no mercy,” replied Oelita thoughtfully.

“Of course he has no mercy! He’d send his own clone up for Ritual Suicide!”

“Joesai will object,” said Oelita.

“He won’t object to going to Soebo. That’s where his men are,” mused Teenae.

“The Gathering will kill many, Joesai among them.” Kathein was morose.

“I, for one, will bet on Joesai’s kalothi,” Oelita stated calmly.

“He’s foolishly impetuous!” stormed Teenae.

“He’s stubborn beyond reason!” reviled Kathein.

“Nevertheless, he has rare kalothi,” insisted Oelita,

“Would you wish him dead?” Kathein was curious.

“As long as I live, I would make peace with him.”

Kathein closed her hand on Oelita’s wrist. “Aesoe is angry with Hoemei, too, for his part, but he needs Hoemei and cannot exile him. You will negotiate your deal with Hoemei. I will be custodian of the crystal. We have done preliminary work with it but our listeners are improper in their attitude and must be rebuilt” — she sighed — “again. I’ll show you our one conversation with God.” She gestured. “Soepei, bring the silvergraph.”

The page was blurred, meaningless. “It is not more genetic maps. It is writing. Teenae, it is God’s writing. Three pages are superimposed and we cannot read through it, but see the alphabet? It is not our alphabet but it is close enough. It is like the carvings in the wall at Grief. See the ‘p’ and at the side, that could be the inflected ‘t’.”

“There’s the under-edge of a line of writing at the bottom!” exclaimed Teenae in awe.

“We’ve puzzled it out. This is what it says.” She wrote for them:

“What does that mean?”

“God knows. God’s Silence comes in mysterious hushes. We need more silvergraphs. We must have better rituals. We need more reverence and better tools. We need more money.”

“You are deducing much from very little,” ventured Oelita.

“What? Did maelot excrete that crystal?” Kathein was impatient with barbarian speculations.

Oelita’s mind was working, hunting for a place to fit this piece of data. The leaves in her teacup did not give her many clues.

“May I see Jokain?” asked Teenae sweetly.

Soepei took the box of the crystal and the silvergraph and Teenae followed Kathein, who warmed at the mention of her baby. “He may be asleep. I never know. He hardly cries. Sometimes when he is awake and hungry he just stares about his world so intently, as if he really saw something. He’s very patient. He only cries when he’s been ignored outrageously.”

They found him in his basket, awake, cooing, fluttering an arm, not quite sure why one was free and the other pinned. Teenae lifted him, and he took that as the signal to attack her breast with his lips. Teenae squealed. Kathein laughed and put him to her breast.

“You do not visit us,” said Teenae reproachfully.

“It is forbidden.”

“Not everything can be seen by Aesoe.”

Kathein carried her child to the window. “When you love people you cannot have, that is painful. When you see them, you inflict your pain on them though all you might ever wish for is to make them happy. Because of your pain they learn to hate you. I do not wish that to happen.”

“Kathein.” The younger woman could not get her attention. “Kathein.” She took her beloved betrothed from behind, and held her while the baby nursed. “You’re full of nonsense for a mind so intelligent.”

“Oelita is very nice. I’m glad for you.”

“Oelita is the nicest person in the world,” whispered Teenae. “But she is a barbarian. She is too different from us. She’s unformed, uneducated. It will never work. A Six is a difficult creation. We need you, Kathein.”

“Now you have made my pain so much worse.” She patted Teenae’s hand wrapped around her waist. “We have to find a way to protect Joesai from Aesoe. I couldn’t bear it if he died and I was mistress to Aesoe and could do nothing. Go. Please go. Our business is finished.”

Teenae brought out a bright ribbon with a bauble on the end. She pressed it into Kathein’s hand. “For Jokain. Homage to the Horse,” she said.