Courtship Rite

4

JOESAI’S BULK OVERWHELMED the small stool in the archives of the Temple of Human Destiny while he copied out of the Kaiel Book of Death in the tiny, precise script of a man who has been a genetic surgeon since the time he learned to write. Reddish sunlight diffused from the curved mirrors around the windows cut into the stone. At dusk he continued to work while the shadows deepened, but finally closed the books, unwilling to pen by glowlamp. Evening found him wandering through the city, memorizing what he had copied, fleshing out the dryly recorded rituals with mental images of planned action.

Since Aesoe had disrupted their lives, orange Getasun had dawned fourteen times to the east of Kaiel-hontokae, marking seven high days and seven low days, waking them from seven sleeps. The Constellation of the Amorists had given way to the Constellation of the Ogre and Joesai’s work was nearly done. He needed only one more boy to complete the team he was to take against the heretic — a mature boy, eager to please, a Kaiel, a brave and cunning youth, a boy who was not in a hurry, one who could play games with his opponents. Joesai already had his quota of girls.

At the Creche of the Seven Holy Martyrs he ate supper from the Master’s table above the machine-born children, watching them. They were used to him. He taught here and they thought nothing of his presence while they joked and reached for the steaming food, but he was weighing them against his needs, deciding which one he would reward with life by removing him from the creche as he had been taken as a youth. Only one in four survived the creche-culling and Joesai knew he was selecting an apprentice who, by being selected, would become one of the survivors.

The review narrowed down to Eiemeni. Yes. That shadow was fast and loyal and deadly. Joesai had heard it told that once Eiemeni had delivered a friend of his to death without tears. Joesai rose. “Eiemeni!” he commanded, stilling the other youths. Eiemeni stood. “Come forth.” Joesai had the table cleared and stood Eiemeni upon it, giving him a wooden bit for his mouth while he took out tools and carved an enigmatic design upon the stoic’s foreleg. In the morning Joesai brought the limping Eiemeni to the training camp outside Kaiel-hontokae and gave him to the group trainer, Raimin, to be integrated into the team. Another few days and they would move out.

Joesai spent the rest of the morning in the city working with miniature hammer at the table of goldsmith y’Faier. At Noe’s suggestion her husband was to assume the guise of a wandering goldsmith, the kind of person who was liable to derive from mixed stock. No one would recognize him as Kaiel. He was a head taller than the ordinary member of his clan, as tall as the Ivieth who pulled the wagons, but too narrow to be of the Ivieth. His face was plain with a commonplace nose that fell straight from forehead to tip. His body decorations were of no recognizable pattern.

Teenae, it was decided, should not hide her identity. She could never pass for anything but o’Tghalie, but then, the o’Tghalie sold their women and it wouldn’t be unusual for a goldsmith to have one as a follower. Certainly no one would suspect that she was Kaiel.

The family had temporarily split into two groups. Gaet and Hoemei tended to Teenae and slept with her. Noe spent these last low days with Joesai, impishly finding this an ideal time to teach manners to her “cactus bush”. An unctuous goldsmith would know all the refinements of the coast. She taught him phrases until he rolled his eyes. She dressed him in robes, one of saffron yellow with embroidery that held metal and stones made by a tailor who was in her constituency, and she showed him how the girdle fastened and how to hold his skirts as he ascended stairs.

Laughing inside, because Noe liked nothing better than to tease an awkward man, she brought out one of her own coastal robes held together by complicated wrappings and gravely instructed him in how to undress her while at the same time praising her beauty.

“I’m a fighter,” he lamented, rebelling.

“But we are walking you to the coast to seduce a powerful woman, not to fight.” Noe nearly lost control of her face.

Later, on his knees, his mind rotted with sly flattery and his fingers sore from deft unwindings, he looked up imploringly and broke role for a moment. “Goldsmiths do this?”

“Of course. They’re very sensual. But much more gently and with far more conviction.” She slipped away from her husband. “Here. I’ll dress again and we’ll start over.”

His imagination began to work on Joesai. One-wife stood against the window while the dusk sun, like a happy farmer unwilling to leave productive mountain fields, plowed the textured furrows of her skin. Joesai saw the hontokae on her breasts sprouting profane tai berries, saw desert wheat springing from the whorls on her belly, and sacred corn from the fluted grooves along her legs. The whole image was too powerful. In one passionate motion his hands surged to grasp her wrists so that he might kiss her, but though he pulled her body close, he could not find her dodging mouth or move her toward the pillows.

“No,” she laughed, “not until you’ve learned your lesson!”

“How do they breed, those coastal barbarians, if they have to go through this to be loved!”

Passing by, Gaet heard the commotion, the outrage, the muffled kiss, the laughter, the struggle. Curiously he peered through the curtained doorway. “Who needs help?”

Noe instantly accepted the alliance. “Take this ruffian away.” But she managed her own escape. “Do you think we’ll ever make a goldsmith out of him? He never learns.”

“He learns when his life is on the line. His only skill is staying out of the stew pot.”

“I was doing some very acceptable filigree with y’Faier this morning,” grumped Joesai. Y’Faier was a goldsmith of Hoemei’s constituency, a man, Joesai claimed, who was suspiciously lacking in the legendary amorous talents, except, Noe teased, when he was alone with the ladies.

“Where is Teenae?” asked the disheveled one-wife.

“With Hoemei.”

“Then you may stay with us tonight. You can teach him manners as well as I can, and I’m exhausted and need your tenderness.” She hugged Gaet with the kiss she had refused Joesai.

“God’s Silence!” the big man roared. “This manners business is madness. I should be out with Raimin training my men to run diversionary attack right now!”

Noe turned to him slowly. “Down on your knees.”

Gaet was breaking into the great laugh. “Down on your knees, boy!” He had an arm so gently around Noe’s bare shoulders that his support felt like her own strength.

She slept between them that night, happy with her marriage, sad that Joesai would vanish for so long. She held his hand while he slept. One day he would not come back to her. He would be dead — not like Gaet who never gambled with danger even in the temple games.

At the dawn of this, the third high day of Ogre, Joesai rose with dream-created plans in which he had cleverly resolved outstanding problems. Good. He kissed the sleeping Noe with a self-conscious tenderness and then kissed his old comrade of the deadly creche, but not so tenderly. Cheating Fate the Gaet, Sanan had called him; Sanan their brother who had not been able to cheat fate and who had gone to the dinner table and tanner. Joesai broke fast on corn bread and honey, solidifying his plans in his mind, then tiptoed into Hoemei’s room where he whispered to a sleepy Teenae a list of provisions she would have to find that day while he gave his men their final briefing.

“Got that?”

“Ummm.” She rolled over and smiled, hugging the covers.

“Ho. You haven’t got that. I’ll write it down.”

“It’s all right,” said Hoemei who seemed to be asleep but was awake. “I’ll remember for her.”