Courtship Rite

41

Six SMALL BOATS were chartered from the Goei, a carpenters clan whose members often took up seafaring. Their double-masted ships were sturdy, the clinker-built stakes running along shallow sides, then rising in a rounded stem to hold a high bowsprit. The vessels were of necessity constructed with low draft to negotiate inferior harbors since they were forbidden access to Mnankrei ports.

The Goei knew the foggy coast of the Island of Mnank as a sneak thief knows the windows of the nearest rich community. It was a week away in the best of sailing weather, two in the worst, and there was always a wind. In these northern waters, dominated by the Mnankrei, they either smuggled or stuck to cabinet-making.

The shoreline of Mnank twisted in such a cacophonous noise of bays that only the best were used by the trading fleets. No one could patrol them all. Smugglers thrived. Thus the swift and tiny craft of Joesai’s party beached on a sandy inlet in the rosy twilight fog without mishap and began the trek south to Soebo through a land wondrously lush. In some places the ground was even moist and choked with flowering rushes! They traversed the eldritch woods that grew the sturdy timbers of the great Mnankrei ships until they broke into the cleared plains below where they began to meet their first farmers.

Joesai moved warily. Sometimes he took out the bound book Kathein had given him and pondered upon the difficulties of Hannibal or re-read the obscure details of Sherman’s march through Georgia. Sherman never maneuvered in a direction which revealed his destination. The strategy pleased Joesai and he adopted it by striking across the Yearning Valley toward Ciern rather than directly over the central plains to Soebo. When camping he ordered the construction of a perimeter defense in the fashion of a Roman Legion advancing through hostile territory. All the while he made quiet contact with the people.

At each village they demonstrated the rifle by splatting a bag of water from afar with a lead pebble. Joesai demanded the obeisance due to priests but in turn offered respect. He and the ten fingermen of his Hand Council made it clear that they were the forepriests of a Gathering come to investigate the origin of the deviant underjaw. It frightened the farmers to hear that the strange underjaw carried human genes, obviously the meddling of some priest, though few of them believed the Mnankrei would do such a thing. Still, the tale loosened lips and Joesai learned the extent of Mnankrei unpopularity.

Besides his fascination for the pages of The Forge of War, which he carried in a waterproof sack of baby skin, he was reading Oelita’s book in the edition published by Teenae in Kaiel-hontokae. The Gentle Heretic’s forays into bio-logic enraged him, but she made good sense with her stories chiding priestly alienation from the underclans. It was interesting reading because his life now depended upon the good will of the surrounding underclans. The country folk they were meeting had been propitiative and overawed by Kaiel discipline — but if crossed could turn murderous.

Joesai’s expedition lived off the land out of necessity, but his band had strict orders to make sure that the farmers were repaid in work and so they found their pace slowed by sun-heights of remortaring stone farmhouses or digging wells or repairing a weak bridge or cutting ripe pa-twine for a family short of stout labor. Such exchanges caused some amazement since these country clans had never seen priests doing manual labor. Joesai enjoyed working on thatched roofs and digging ditches. He was in no hurry to reach Soebo where Mnankrei strength outnumbered him hundreds to one.

What they learned while they toiled was shaping his whole strategy. The discontent voiced by every clan always stemmed from Mnankrei use of continuous Culling, which was seen as a threat to the established clan breeding rights. Joesai fanned the discontent whenever the subject was broached by using one of Oelita’s favorite arguments modified slightly by his own prejudices. During times of plenty, Culling by the priesthood was a sacrilege and could not be justified as a pursuit of kalothi because kalothi did not demand the death of an inferior man, only that he spill his seed upon barren ground.

Joesai laughed when he found himself making converts to Oelita’s heresy by campfire. It did not bother him at all that the Kaiel used continuous Culling within the creches of their own clan. That was different. That was an internal clan decision. Common law applied only to cross-clan affairs.

Once, to foment rebellion he led a disciplined attack, eighty strong, on a local temple and freed a retarded woman, beloved by her father, who was being readied for Ritual Suicide. The only Mnankrei priest — there were a mere five of them — who was foolish enough to protest by drawing a knife was shot from a distance in the leg. While Eiemeni patched the wound of the old priest, sprawled in agony upon the ground, Joesai delivered his moralistic speech to the stunned farmers. He wasn’t really listening to himself. Already he could repeat Oelita’s argument by rote. He was enjoying the impression he was making and dreaming of the look Oelita might have given him if only she had been here to watch his show.

Then the surgeon in Joesai demanded that he check Eiemeni’s work. It was his first close look at a Mnankrei priest. The blood and the pain of a man made helpless by his own foolishness was not impressive. Even the flying-storm-wave cicatrice seemed out of place here among the rolling fields.

Reverie recalled sea priest Tonpa and how Teenae had coveted boots cobbled from his hide. Joesai knew her soul. She would never forgive Tonpa for hanging her upside down from the yard-arms of his topsail. She carried vengeance to the grave with her, a concept he did not understand but one he respected. He daydreamed of a return from Soebo that defied Aesoe’s silly banishment, wearing Tonpa’s cured hide and giving it to the finest boot-maker in Kaiel-hontokae. That would please Teenae and perhaps make up a little for her loss of Oelita. Maybe then she would not be so angry at him. I think she loved that woman, and never knew it.

All thoughts led back to Oelita.

He lay by his campfire, without his family, alone, relaxing after reading, watching the brilliant stars Stgi and Toe rise like motes on the zephyr of Geta’s swift rotation. They were the love stars in the Constellation of Six. The immensity of the white sands of the night sky contrasted the vast stellar universe of The Forge of War against Oelita’s tiny planetary effort — a hot black iron skillet and a dancing drop of water. The People of the Sky would be out there killing.

God had seen fit to give His Race a history that told only of a beginning when the Race and the People were still one. Long ago, eons ago, the People of the Sky had sunfired the city of Hiroshima while they maintained laws against killing criminals. What would their power and ferocity and inconsistency be now after millennia of practice among the stars? They would have their gods to carry them, too. Did not The Forge of War speak of battle-gods?

By now they might be everywhere, singing their alien Passage Chants. What if they reached Getasun with their starwind sails? To what hideous level would they have perfected torture and killing-without-eating? Was Oelita’s love powerful enough to shape a planet that could hold off even the People of the Sky?

Eiemeni dropped down beside Joesai near the fire, bringing with him his woman. Her name was Riea, and she was a fierce one. Perhaps that was why Eiemeni had come to cherish her and stumbled about attending her like a foolish boy.

“You are watching our love stars,” she said.

“The myth may be wrong. They may be death stars.” Joesai was sour.

“You read too much, old man,” she replied affectionately, adding a stick to the fire.

“Reading mellows me like mead in a burned cask.”

“You’ve been thinking of thirst that isn’t slaked by mead,” said Eiemeni.

“I’ve been thinking of the ironies of life. You’ve been with me for a while now, Eiemeni. You saw me drive Oelita to madness. I forced her to believe in God, to see Him and to know Him. In the meantime I’ve become an atheist who slobbers over the philosophy of nonviolence.”

“Joesai,” said Riea, “cease such riddles. We are plain talk people.”

“There is no God of the Sky.”

Riea laughed. “You’ve been without your wives too long.” And put her arms around him.

Gently he cuffed her.

She only snuggled closer. “Keep your eyes to His Sky. You do not see God? In a moment you will see His Streak overhead.”

“God is a rock.”

“Do you believe everything you read? Even God plays jokes.” Eiemeni laughed, whacking his bond master with the back of his hand.

“I’ve re-read my pages of The Forge of War so often by now I can almost think in the ancient language. They have strange words. There are battlegods and helicopter gungods and airgods and sailing gods and steamgods. Language sneaks through time like a miser on new adventures in old cloths. Our word for ship is their word for boat. Our word for God is their word for ship. Their word for sky is our word for highest. Their word for sun is our word for star. If we said ‘sky’ to our ancestors they would think of the night sky, the stars. ‘God of the Sky’ translates to ‘ship of the stars’. Think about that for a while.”

“You’re mad!”

“Yes.” And he laughed the great laugh, understanding completely Oelita’s madness.

“God is intelligent!” admonished Riea.

“God reasons!” stated Eiemeni.

“God is silent,” said Joesai, “and His Sky is full of pin-bright points of death-without-nourishment. Perhaps they cross the void even now with a cargo of sunfire for our cities. We may not be ready when they reach us.”

“The Forge of War drives you mad!”

“It has already driven me mad! I see dark visions among the futures. Kalothi can be overwhelmed. Poisoned. Trampled. Snuffed out. All of it.” He began to pile wood on the fire by fistfuls.

“Stop it!” said Eiemeni holding him. “All of Mnank will see us!”

“Kalothi shall burn brightly! The beasts of Riethe are driven away by fire, so says their book. Tomorrow we turn course and march on Soebo. The pettiness of such as the Mnankrei will destroy us! The Kaiel shall rule! All power to the Kaiel!”

“Eighty of us shall burst upon Soebo and slaughter the lot of them?” chided Eiemeni quietly.

“Ho! Do not think slaughter! Then you become as the Insect Lords of Riethe. Think of kalothi receiving its wood! The Last of the List, those Mnankrei who dare call themselves priests, shall die for the Race. Through their Contribution we shall bring Oelita’s gentleness to our world. How can the brutality we saw at the granary fire in Sorrow survive the acid juices of our bellies?”