Courtship Rite

65

HE’S MORE OF an Expansionist than you are!”

The Kaiel woman arguing in the tavern at Sorrow wore her finery, and silver cheek-inlay that fitted the curves of her facial cicatrice. Her two intense male friends were also Kaiel and were dressed in their formal black robes. All three of them had arrived from Kaiel-hontokae for the wedding. The men were unhappy. It had already been announced that Hoemei was to be the new Prime Predictor.

“His nose bows to his anus and asks permission to sneeze.”

“Why is it that you think he is so formal and cautious?”

“He forbade his brother to move on Soebo when that city was ripe for capture, fearing illusional Mnankrei terrors.”

The woman was exasperated. “But Joesai reached the city before Bendaein arrived! He took the city within days with little murder and less disturbance than Aesoe predicted. Because of that easy transition the underclans there have long ago shifted their loyalty to us. Hoemei is an Expansionist. Of course he is! He was trained by Aesoe!”

“But he is afraid to grow however much his heart…” The creche female interrupted with annoyance. “… which is why he is Prime Predictor and you are not. He is no Lenin, like you, with grandiose plans for immediate world domination and a bee brain to go with them. He is a complex conqueror with a complex mind.”

“You do not sense the simplicity of Aesoe’s plan?”

“I like simple plans! I hate plans so simple they are inadequate for the task at hand! It is not enough to be able to lead men! Who cannot lead the underclans to their death by choosing to oil one’s speech and to veneer one’s lethal program with slogans to impress the masses? Look how that fool Lenin became a butcher trying to extricate himself from the bizarre consequences of his simplistic solutions.”

“Aesoe was hardly as simplistic as you claim. You slight him. When did he ever fail? He had more success than Tae!”

“Aesoe knew small systems very well. He was like Napoleon in Europe. His disasters would have come in a larger theater — like Russia. Hoemei predicted his coming failures!”

The older of the men scoffed and downed his mead; the younger man smiled at the creche-woman’s fire and spoke. “You underestimate Aesoe. He was a superb organizer.”

“How would you know? You know nothing about organization on anything larger than a city Bok level! You do not rule a world in the same fashion that you rule a Bok!”

The girl-woman, with her auburn locks shaved along two off-centerlines, was one of those who had worked within the loose but dedicated structures which had aligned themselves with Hoemei’s organization — though she had remained so far-removed from him that he was unaware of her loyalty. Once she had stood next to him and he had accidentally bumped into her and excused himself and smiled. She remembered his smile to this day. She was one of the many people he attracted who somehow made his projects go easily when he wasn’t even sure where the help was coming from. He would have appreciated her, had he known her, for he enjoyed people who could quickly duplicate his vision and who could create a role for themselves within it.

“I do not like Hoemei’s opposition to our bargaining with the Itraiel,” said the older man darkly, filling up his mug from the mead pitcher and spilling some on the wooden table.

“Have you read The Forge of War or only skimmed it? A military clan is not to be founded casually to pursue the immediate goals of an Expansionist who wants more paperwork for his cluttered desk!”

Their serving girl came over for a moment to wipe the table and they changed the subject. “What do you suppose they’ll be wearing?” asked the young man.

The barmaid glowed at gossip which interested her intensely. “I’ve seen the dress of Joesai at the tailor shop where it was made by my friend and splendid it is in blue and silver brocade with great insects woven in!”

“Will they be by soon?” she was asked.

“You’ll know! We’re closing up then!”

Once the happy girl was gone, the three resumed their quarrel. “Expansion is God’s goal!”

“But God deplores Racial Suicide! A military clan is the most dangerous idea that the Kaiel have ever played with! It is worthy of Hoemei’s caution. Have you seen his military plans? I’ve read the report. It is still too tentative to commit to the Archives. Half of it was written by his brother Joesai. Still, preliminary as it is, it is an awesome document. They show us ways we can safely build a military clan. Beside these maran thoughts, Aesoe is a Napoleon wading through the snows of Russia! Hoemei will take longer to build his clan. He will use it with more caution, more restraint, and not as soon. But he will not stop at Moscow! God has brought us here to mend our wounds and to meditate upon the harshness of human life. When we pass into God’s Sky the very stars will twinkle from the shakings of the Riethe. They will fear to touch us because they will never know where our dagger is. And those future Getans will thank Hoemei for his farsighted caution!”

The older man grumbled. “It is useless to believe that we will ever be gaming the Riethe of The Forge of War. That was long ago. Did it not all happen before the Passage? They will have changed. Change is eternal. They will not be the fools who charged against the machine rifles at Vimy Ridge. Those French peasants so weak in kalothi will long have made their Contribution to be replaced by a more deadly breed.”

“Hoemei plans to breed for military talent like we Kaiel are bred for our ability to predict. Every soldier of the clan will be a military dobu.”

“Of what rank?”

“At least the rank of Alexander the Great or Guderian.”

“Then I will back him.”

“But he does not intend to breed for such talent recklessly as was Aesoe’s aim. Such a talent must be balanced. We must predict, before such violence is unchained, what the balancing forces will be.”

They heard the noise of a crowd outside and the older Kaiel went to see. “They’re here,” he said, beckoning.

The three of them had chosen this tavern because the high steps leading to it would give them an excellent view of the wedding procession. All of Sorrow was dressed in its best and jockeying for position. People hung from windows and were crowded onto balconies. Two children had climbed a wirevoice pole. Other children ran on ahead, happier to lead the procession than to watch it.

“Seven!” said the older Kaiel in disgust as the maran came into sight.

Kathein and Oelita led. Kathein wore a robe of red, slit vertically, blue-dyed hoiela wings showing through the slits, and a headdress of hoiela wings with silver inlay for her facial cicatrice. Oelita wore white Orthei lace with a tall crown of white lace and white paint along the ridges of her facial design.

Hoemei followed them in more subdued attire, a black and gray striped ankle-length skirt, and a billowing silky blouse of gray sheen, open at the front in a swoop that flowed under his stomach to show his scarred chest. The blouse was held in place by a decorated spring-clasp at his waist that did not close over his midriff. He wore the bronze helmet long linked to the high predictors with its polished wings that swept so low over his shoulders that he was restrained from tipping his head to either side.

The young Kaiel woman on the tavern balcony thought she saw him turning her way and threw him her bouquet of desert flowers. He was only signaling Oelita, and her heart sank, but Teenae was watching and caught the bee-loved blossoms with a smile, kissed them, and tossed her kiss to the balcony with her other arm.

Teenae wore an elaborate headdress that began with a green jeweled insect crawling down the shaved centerline of her skull on a hundred silver comb-like legs that wrapped her black hair in happy coils. Her neckpiece, in black and white lace, rose to her chin. Her blouse was white and close-fitting with sleeves slit from the back of the shoulder to the wrist and held at the elbow with silver chains. The valleys of her facial cicatrice were dyed black. Her pantaloons were black and flaring around her hips. They, too, were split at the back, from waist to ankle, to emphasize her feminine walk. Silver chains held the pantaloons together. The valleys of the designs on her buttocks and legs were painted in white.

“That giant with her must be Joesai,” said the older Kaiel to his youthful friend. “He looks like he had an Ivieth for a mother and a fei flower for a father!”

Joesai was dressed in what he thought was the court finery of an Imperial Chinese Warrior of the Han Dynasty. It was immaterial that the colored insects embroidered into his blue coat were Getan and not Riethe.

Noe’s hair was wound into a silver cage like a nest for the insect that sat there with lustrous blue-green wings and eight silver legs and four green eyes. The silver motif was repeated in the filigree of the wings. They reached down to rest on her shoulders and rebounded to stretch a hand’s length beyond them, acting as the perch for two more grinning insects. A bolt of the finest white silk hung from the wing’s framework and down between her legs and up along her back to leave her sides bare to show off the exquisite skin carvings along her ribs and hips. Metallic insects, holding hands across her waist and clinging to her legs, held the garment together. She gripped Gaet by the arm.

He wore top hat and tails, a costume he had copied from a picture of Abraham Lincoln. To enliven the effect he had added tassels to the top hat and wore a rubied platinum nose ring and platinum wire, set with tiny rubies, in the valleys of his facial scars. On the ridges of his cicatrice he had let the beard grow to fingernail length and dyed it green. He thought he made an elegant Amerikan groom, a Mormon perhaps.

Behind them came two male Ivieth in their finery, carrying a colored palanquin with Jokain, who watched the crowds with every awareness of his destiny. Teenae’s Gatee clutched the railing of another gaudy palanquin, wide-eyed at the pageantry. Another transported the twins. A tall female Ivieth, bare-breasted and in elaborate skirt, carried Teenae’s new baby who ignored everything in her contentment with the milk of the bosom at which she suckled.

When the procession had passed, the young creche-Kaiel affectionately took the arm of her male companion. “Let’s get married so we’ll have a broader range of topics to fight about!”

He gave her a hug. “I think bachelor Aesoe had the right idea! Once you start this wedding business, where does it end?”

“Seven!” snorted the old man.