Courtship Rite

49

THE COBALT BLUE vial was cradled by a miniature cushion in a brass goblet that squatted upon the room’s side table. The se-Tufi Who Rings the Soul’s Bell was smiling at the tiny coal on the end of an incense stick she had just ignited. Humility stood stiffly, formally before her. “You have done well,” the old crone said, turning to finger the vial. “This is a poison to delight an assassin’s soul.”

“It does not give the subtle unobtrusiveness that is desirable. It is not clean — for when does the blow stop throbbing?”

“You are reluctant to deliver this death to the Kaiel?”

“I kill one at a time,” said Humility frigidly.

Soul’s Bell peeled a fruit, carefully cutting away the poisonous parts, and offered a slice to her guest. “You may relax. Please recite the Lattice of Evidence.”

Humility did so, by now flawlessly.

“Good. It means nothing to you, of course, but it is like a seed crystal and you will find that much will grow around it in the years that follow. The pressure of events forces us to hurry you. Every Liethe lives out the Code of her stage. For you it is not the Time of Changes, but nevertheless we need you. The hoiela larva pretends to fly before it builds its cocoon. For the day that follows you shall be a crone. Please undress.”

Humility obeyed, not understanding the order, her arms and body moving to remove her garments with their usual grace.

Soul’s Bell watched critically. “That is not good enough. Move as if you were old. Move as if the mere act of walking were a Trial of the Spirit.” She noted Humility’s hesitation without impatience. “Walk as you will during the twilight of your life.”

Humility remembered her mentor of the Kaiel-hontokae hive. She became like the se-Tufi Who Finds Pebbles, slow, dignified, every movement painful but each too proud to ask for help. Soul’s Bell watched her, then gave her a plantinum-headed cane. “You are a crone now.” She took a thin pencil and other tools and began to draw lines upon Humility’s face, shading her jowls, peppering her hair, shading her breasts so that they seemed to sag, aging her as if these flying fingers were the abrasive sands of some time-storm.

Then she dressed Humility in the eccentric luxury of an elder Liethe. “Be as the crones are. Think as we do. Every action must be seen first in ghost thought that reverberates through the future until it rebounds off its own peculiar distant consequence. Only then make your action real. You are slow. You are deliberate. Your mind is cunning and never in a hurry. You have forgotten nothing of a full life.”

And so it was that this young girl, in the mask of wisdom, hobbled into the Deliberation Chamber of the Liethe hive at Soebo in her first initiation to the world of the crone. An old woman, jeweled in nose ring, chanted the nodes of the Lattice of Evidence. Humility first knew then that Winterstorm Master Nie’t’Fosal was up against the knife. Each monotonous invocation of a question from the Lattice prompted one or another of eight crones to answer with an accusation and a line of evidence, coded in poetic meter so that every detail of the judgment might be remembered with error-correcting exactness. Question and poem were repeated, flowing back and forth among the crones, fixing the memory of an event no Liethe dared commit to paper.

The details of the judgment impressed themselves upon Humility, passing through her mind and finally across her lips until the poetry of’t’Fosal’s guilt was tied to the Lattice cues like the flowers that give meaning to the trellis.

There were questions upon which no poem budded. Then the discussion ceased to be formal and debate raged. It was said that no clear poem could be composed unless the evidence itself was clear. However long it took, the crones were faithful to the Lattice which methodically exposed the world of sin, event at a time, through the multi-faceted eye of the squat Night Seer, the insect who had become the Getan symbol of justice.

Humility contributed her knowledge of the Kaiel analysis of the underjaw. She told of the blue vial and connected it to the o’Tghalie idiot being studied by the Liethe biologists. The flow of words became formalized, condensed, blunt, then slowly, in a back and forth ritual, were forged into poetry.

His crime was against kalothi, the worst of all crimes. He had taken Death as a slave to feed him power but should not Death serve only the rituals of kalothi? Who can safely keep Death as his personal slave? Thus the Liethe poem ended. The most omnipotent of Storm Masters was condemned to death by execution.

The beams of sunlight from the high windows of the Deliberation Chamber had turned through many angles and hues before the decision was composed. There had been a sunset and lanterns and the pastels of dawn and the direct rays of highnode and another sunset. Humility felt aged with tiredness, stumbling from the chamber with her platinum-headed cane.

She could be old, she could think and move with the cunning slowness of age, for she was a trained actress, but the process of the deliberation itself had aged her. She alone had had flashes of impatient need to pass through the tedious process. The Winter-storm Master’s crimes were monstrous. The decision could be made in the time it took for a nod of a head, and yet none of the crones had shown impatience. Only later was she thankful for their stern example.

It was easy to kill on command. A hand was only an instrument. A hand made no life and death decisions, weighed no moral issues, deliberated no consequences. She had once felt superior to the crones who ordered her to kill, and now the killing seemed the simplest of it.

The se-Tufi Who Rings the Soul’s Bell guided her with an arm around her shoulders to the crone’s quarters. “First a bath for you. Then you can be young again.”

Humility said nothing until she was in the tub, waited on by giggling Liethe children, each naked but for a belt and bead skirt, who poured pitchers of warm water over her and ran for more. Soul’s Bell was scrubbing her. Sometimes the crones were harsh, and sometimes they were kind to their charges. “Am I to assassinate’t’Fosal?”

“If you wish. There is no hurry. Whoever will do it, will do it. You would do it best.”

“I don’t think I could.” She shuddered. “Knowing why he dies, having condemned him, could I strike? Yes I could strike — but swiftly and cleanly?”

“Bear this in mind, little One-Who-Sometimes-Has-Humility: the Storm Master’s death will be no ordinary execution. He is the foundation stone of a large building, and does not a building fall when its foundation stone is removed? Perhaps on us. There is an art to such things so that the building falls into a heap and not out into the street. Knowing the nature of the building he supports will guide you. Remember that we do not wish to destroy ourselves.”

“Am I to have no help?”

“No. Should you fail we will mourn you at your Ritual Suicide in the Temple of Raging Seas.”

“I thank you for your confidence!” She flicked some water from her fingers at the smiling crone mother. It was impossible to be formal with a woman who was washing your body with a servant’s circumspection.

“You will succeed. Who else at your age has carried traceless justice to twenty men?”

“What happens to old assassins?”

Soul’s Bell rang with laughter. “They become judges. You know that now.”

“The nas-Veda Who Sits on Bees was at the Deliberation today. I’m sure of it.”

“Such is not for me to say.”

“I know her. She trained me. The red veil did not deceive my eyes.”

“The woman with the red veil is our Liethe Judge of Judges.”

“Here in Soebo?”

“We are having our own private Gathering.”

“Why do we do this?”

“We are aligned with the priests. We rise or fall as they rise and fall. If they become corrupt, will we not be destroyed with them? The priests must have their checks.”

The arrogance of that statement triggered a fury in the young assassin. “And what if we become corrupt?” she erupted, raising a tidal wave in her tub.

“Have you not noticed that one in every three Liethe has been replaced in Soebo? I am new here and was not ready for the hasty journey from Hivehome, I assure you. Thank God for the strength of the Ivieth! You are among the newcomers. Why do you think Fosal trusts a Liethe to murder at his command? Are we not the slaves of the Mnankrei?”

Humility was horrified. “I cannot believe the Liethe have lost their center!”

“Love a thief too long and you become a thief, it is said.” She motioned to one of the girls to bring a large towel. “Here. Let me mop you. I have a daub of perfume and we shall do your hair. Tonight you sleep with High Wave tu’Ama.”

“He is Flesh’s man, not mine. I have my own business to attend to!” Standing in the wooden tub, she glistened by torchlight.

“The High Wave should be the ruler of Soebo. A weakness in the councils, in Ama himself, allowed control to pass to the Swift Wind. When Fosal dies, others of the Swift Wind will replace him but Ama will fight them and you must know him well so that your calculations are exact. You will meet him as Comfort and you will like him. He is a weak man; again he will lose his fight, but he is sensible and just. He has his following. It may be possible to pass command to him and in that case we can dispense with our Kaiel option.”

“I should be meeting Fosal, not Ama. He has requested it.”

“He will wait.”

“He will wait in hot wrath and beat me when I arrive.”

“My child,‘t’Fosal expects you to deliver his blue vial to the camp of the Gathering. He will be patient with you this once.”

Humility felt the gentle toweling of the old crone. She, too, was being patient this once. She, too, depends on me. The nakedness of her wet body chilled the Queen of Life-before-Death to the verge of shivers. They were all depending on her to save their skins from both the Mnankrei and the Kaiel. Clans! Did a clan never think beyond itself! The burden was like a padded overcoat of the north, but there was no warmth to it. Was life to be like this, so serious?

Ah, she sighed, while the two breastless Liethe slipped a fluffy cloak around her shoulders. Life had once been as warm as this bathrobe. Reverie recalled the simple pleasures of the pillow and the table and the wit of a flirtation and even the thrill of a cunning murder stripped of its overwhelming consequences. Youth was passing so quickly!