Commitment Hour

by James Alan Gardner

  The thought of tangling with a criminal so soon after the last fight turned my stomach. On the other hand, Cappie would have reached the village already and given her version of our battle. She’d likely paint me in a bad light…and people in the cove envied my success so much, they’d love an excuse to look down on me. I could use something to counteract Cappie’s spite, to explain why I was late getting home. Reporting the whereabouts of a big-bounty outlaw was perfect for redeeming myself.

  As quietly as I could, I laid the violin under a bush and stole through the forest toward the fire. Soon I heard the sound of wood burning, popping and snapping loud enough to cover any noise I made. I managed to get very close, down on my stomach behind a fallen spruce where I could peer through the cover of dead branches toward the lighted clearing.

  The fire burned high and bright, set on the edge of one of the many limestone shelves layered throughout our woods. By its light I could see old Leeta, the Mocking Priestess, huddled on a rusty wrought-iron bench. (The woods are full of such things—the whole area was once an OldTech nature park, but the OldTechs liked to see nature made presentable with benches and signs.)

  Leeta was dressed in green, with daisies threaded through her loose gray hair and crusty-dry milkweed pods dangling from a fringed band at her waist. Her face was hidden in her hands; I couldn’t hear over the crackling of the fire, but from the way her shoulders shook, I knew she was crying.

  No man in the world likes to ask a tearful woman, “What’s wrong?” You tell yourself, “She hasn’t seen me yet; I can get away before she notices.” But a true man, a gentleman, shows compassion no matter how hard it is to pretend you care. Taking a deep breath to nerve myself, I stood and said, “Hi Leeta, how’s it going?”

  She screamed. Not much, just a little shriek, and she cut it off so quickly I couldn’t have startled her badly. Still, she made a big show of it, putting her hand to her heart and sagging as if she were going to faint. “It’s only me,” I said, not hiding my annoyance at her histrionics.

  “Fullin,” she groaned. “You scared me half to death.”

  “You’re fine,” I said. To calm her down, I added, “That’s a nice dress.”

  She looked like she was going to snap at me; but then she put on a dithery smile and said, “It’s my solstice robe. Do you like it?”

  “The milkweed is a good touch,” I told her. “Very earthy.” I nodded sagely, trying to think of something else to say. There was no way I’d ask why she was crying; I didn’t have the patience to listen to some tale of woe. “Nice night, isn’t it?” I said. “Not as crushing hot as last week.”

  “There’s a chance it could get hotter,” Leeta said.

  “You think so?”

  “This is the solstice,” she said, falling into the tone of voice she always used for storytelling. “The height of summer, when Master Day is at his strongest and Mistress Night is languishing. Do you know what that means?”

  “Mistress Night has time to catch up on her lapidary?” (During the day, Mistress Night searches the earth for precious stones, which she then polishes and puts on display as stars.)

  “It’s time to enact the solstice ceremony,” Leeta said. “To dance the dance that tips the balance back in Mistress Night’s favor. Otherwise, the days will keep growing longer and hotter until there comes a time when the sun doesn’t set and the earth catches fire.”

  “That would be bad,” I nodded. Cappie’s father had taught me about planetary rotations, revolutions, axial tilts and all, but now was not the time to discuss celestial mechanics, especially since Leeta had stopped crying. Now was the time to pat her on the shoulder and leave, before she remembered whatever brought on the tears in the first place. Duly, I patted. “Enjoy the ceremony. I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Wait, Fullin,” she said. “I need a man.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she grimaced, giving my arm a mock-slap. “The solstice dance has to be performed by a woman and a man. The sacred duality—I taught you that, I know I did.”

  If she taught me that, she must have done it when I was female. There were a lot of things about my female years I couldn’t remember when I was male…or rather, there were a lot of things I couldn’t be bothered to remember. In the years I was female, my male soul slept soundly in Birds Home; trying to fish up my female self’s memories could be like trying to pin down a dream. Nevertheless, I had to humor Leeta. “Oh yes, the sacred duality,” I said. “Man and woman.”

  “And I need you to be the man.” She put her hand on my arm and said, “Please.”

  Our Mocking Priestess was a short woman with misty green eyes, and she had been wheedling her way around men for forty years before I was born. I don’t consider myself weak for giving in to her. Besides, I could tell the Council of Elders that I tried to rush home with news of the strangers but had to stop to help the priestess with a life-and-death ceremony.

  And Leeta looked like she might start crying again if I said no. “What do I do?” I sighed.

  “You dance,” she said. “It’s easy. Find some leaves and put them in your hair.”

  I looked at the ground, then up at the spruces and pines surrounding us. “Will needles do?”

  “They’re leaves too.”

  I scooped up a handful of red, rotting needles and sighed again—it would take weeks to wash them completely out of my hair. Trying not to wince, I sprinkled the debris on my head and patted it down. “Will this dance take long? I have to get back to town.”

  “I thought you were on vigil,” Leeta said. “Aren’t you Committing tomorrow?”

  “Something came up.”

  “Something involving Cappie too?”

  I looked at her warily. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I wanted Cappie to play the man for this ceremony,” Leeta answered. “She was quite enthusiastic. I know she borrowed her father’s clothing to look the part.”

  One mystery solved. And as soon as Cappie had put on men’s clothing, she’d have been ripe for possession by devils. I dimly recalled dressing up as a man when I was a teenaged girl: I hid behind closed doors and jumped at every creak of wind, but I put on a complete outfit, pants, shirt, jacket, sheath. When I finally stood in front of the mirror, fully dressed, both man and woman . . . yes, I was excited by the sight, by the weight of the jacket against my breasts. Easy to see how a woman dressed as a man was ripe for possession; I had been strong enough to resist, but Cappie was not.

  I felt myself growing aroused at my memories of secret sin and quickly cast about for a distraction. “If the duality is so sacred,” I said, “isn’t it wrong to use Cappie as a fake man? I mean, when the fate of the planet depends on the ceremony.”

  “In any ceremony, appearance is more important than reality,” Leeta replied. “And Cappie wanted to take part. She really did.”

  “Instead of vigil?”

  “In addition to vigil,” Leeta corrected. “Just for an hour or so.” She gave me a glance, as if she was weighing whether to say more. “The thing is,” she finally murmured, “a girl who wants to become the next priestess is required to break a few rules. Especially the Patriarch’s ridiculous rules about vigil.”

  “Cappie?” I said in disbelief. “The next Mocking Priestess?”

  “Why not Cappie?”

  “Because…because…”

  I couldn’t say it to her face, but the female religion was nothing but a hodgepodge of silly rituals—the Patriarch had only tolerated it to avoid a backlash among the women of his day. He often said the female religion amused him; he sanctioned the office of Mocking Priestess with the same joviality he showed when he appointed a Town Drunk and an Official Fool. The cove had been fond of its priestesses over the years, but the fondness stopped short of respect.

  Cappie couldn’t take on such a ludicrous calling. It would reflect badly on me. True, I didn’t intend to stay with her after Commitment, but the other men would
still talk. They always do. “Cappie’s not right for the job,” I said. “Isn’t there someone else?”

  “I’ve left it too long,” Leeta answered. “Doctor Gorallin…” She cleared her throat. “Gorallin has suggested I put my affairs in order. And it’s traditional to choose the next Mocking Priestess from the current candidates for Commitment. I can only pick Cappie. Or you.”

  “So why pick her over me?” I asked, affronted.

  “Would you do it?”

  “Not a chance!”

  “There’s your answer.” Leeta bent over a burlap bag lying on the ground and pulled out a red sash decorated with animal claws. The claws ranged from a huge yellowed bear talon with a raggedly broken tip, to a gray fleck that might have come from a mouse or chickadee. “Hold still,” she said, and put the sash over my shoulder.

  She fussed for a while trying to get the claws sitting straight. I held my breath, uncomfortable that she was so close but treating me like a sewing dummy. I didn’t like women concentrating so intently on my clothes—it was as if the clothes were real and I wasn’t. To pull her attention back to me, I said, “If you had to choose a successor, why did you wait so long?”

  She looked up with those watery green eyes. I couldn’t read her expression. “I chose a successor once before,” she said. “It didn’t work out.”

  “Why not?”

  “She wanted to use the position as a weapon, to pressure for change. I tried to convince her that being priestess was a spiritual office, not a political one; but Steck wouldn’t listen.”

  Steck? Uh-oh.

  “The office could be political in the right hands,” a voice said behind my back. “You’re too afraid of rocking the boat, Leeta.”

  The voice was neither male nor female. I cringed as I turned around.

  “Thanks for taking care of my instrument,” the Neut said, holding up the violin I’d left back in the bush.

  The knight was there too, both of them standing behind the spruce tree where I’d hidden earlier. “ ‘Once more well met at Cypress,’ ” the knight said. “Othello, Act Two, Scene One. That’s a bon mot actually, because Shakespeare meant Cyprus the island, as opposed to Cypress, the swamp. You see? It’s a pun. Clever, if I say so myself.”

  We stared at him. Blankly. For a painfully long silence.

  “Oh sure,” he finally muttered. “You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first.”

  FOUR

  A Dance for Mistress Night

  Leeta said, “You shouldn’t be here, Steck.”

  The Neut, Steck, shrugged. “I’m here anyway.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” Leeta took a few shuffling steps forward, the milkweed pods on her belt clacking against each other. I looked away, embarrassed. A dress decorated with weeds was all very well when Leeta and I were alone in the forest; as soon as outsiders arrived, she looked pathetically shabby. It didn’t matter that the outsiders were a Neut and Master Disease. Visitors like that must have seen city women dressed in finery, with their hair just so, and their bodies tall and elegant. Now to have these outsiders see me in the company of dumpy little Leeta, all milkweed and daisies hanging haphazardly around her ears…I was mortified.

  Leeta showed none of the shame I felt. She pointed a pudgy finger at the Neut and said, “Don’t you remember what I taught you, Steck? I taught you to ask questions, I know I did. What good will this do? That’s the first question, that’s always the first question. And What harm will it do? That’s the second. Did you ask those questions, Steck? You didn’t, I know you didn’t. Because if you asked those questions, you’d see why you should have stayed away.”

  “Steck is here as my assistant,” the knight said, stepping more clearly into the light of the campfire. With a flick of his hand, he twisted off his helmet and shook out his hair—thick coal-black hair, as long as a woman’s. He had a droopy pencil mustache and heavy-lidded eyes: a foreign face but human, not crawling with maggots and sores like Master Disease’s should be. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t Master Disease after all; but a scientist was almost as bad, and he’d admitted to that.

  For a moment, the knight waited in the firelight, as if he thought we might recognize him now that the helmet was off. Then he shrugged and spoke again. “My name is Rashid and Steck is my Bozzle. Do you know that word?”

  “Of course,” I answered. Even children knew a “Bozzle” was the aide of someone important: a mayor or a noble, maybe even a Grandee like a Governor or a Spark Lord. Did Rashid think we were bumpkins, not to know such a thing? Or maybe he was hinting he was special enough to rate a Bozzle; I guessed he might be an Earl or a Duke from Feliss Province. He should have known that didn’t matter up here—Tober Cove held a charter of independence from the Sparks themselves, and within our boundaries, even a day-old Tober baby was worth more than a thousand Dukes.

  “We all know what a Bozzle is,” Leeta replied. “Do you think that makes a difference?” She didn’t spare a glance in Rashid’s direction; she kept her gaze glued on the Neut, not in a stern way, but soft and pleading. “Coming here will just stir up trouble, Steck…you know that. What good can you do after all these years? Leave before it’s too late.”

  The Neut stared back, saying nothing. It was one of those moments when you know unspoken undercurrents are flowing all around and you don’t understand a turd of what’s really going on. You want to shout, “I deserve an explanation!” But sometimes, when you see faces like Leeta begging and Steck gazing back as dark as lake water at midnight…sometimes you decide you don’t care about their stupid problems anyway.

  Rashid, however, wasn’t the kind who stayed out of other people’s staring matches. “Look,” he butted in, “there’s no reason for Steck to leave, because nothing is going to happen. I’m a scientist and I’ve come to observe your Commitment Day ceremonies. That’s all. Nothing sinister, nothing intrusive—I just want to watch. Steck is here, first as my Bozzle, and second because she can help explain your customs.”

  “Don’t call a Neut ‘she,’ ” I muttered. “A Neut is an ‘It.’ And if Steck is supposed to explain Tober customs, why not start with our custom of killing Neuts on sight?”

  “ ‘A custom more honor’d in the breach than the observance,’ ” Rashid replied. He looked around at us expectantly, then exploded, “Oh come on, that was from Hamlet! Everyone knows Hamlet!”

  “What I know,” I said, “is that every man in the cove will try to kill your Neut if It comes to our village. A few women may try too,” I added, thinking of Cappie.

  “Barbaric,” he muttered. “Just because someone is different—”

  “Neuts choose to be different,” I interrupted. “They know Tober law, but they Commit as Neut anyway. The Patriarch said that choosing Neut is no different than choosing to be a thief or a killer. But Neuts get off easy compared to other criminals. No whippings, no chains, no execution…they just get sent away and told not to come back.”

  “How generous!” Steck hissed. “Driven down-peninsula to cities we don’t understand, where we’re despised as freaks. Shunned by friends, separated from my lover and child—”

  “Steck, shush!” I’d never heard Leeta raise her voice so sharply. Mostly I thought of our priestess as a mumbly, self-effacing woman; but now she rounded on Rashid and poked a finger into his green plastic chest-plate. “You say you don’t want to interfere, Mister Rashid, Lord Rashid, whoever you are…but you’re interfering right now. At this very moment, I’m supposed to be dancing a dance for the solstice. I’m supposed to be doing some good for the world instead of wasting time with outsiders who are only going to upset everybody!”

  “A solstice dance!” Rashid said, wrapping his gauntleted hands eagerly around hers. “Wonderful! Steck, step back, give them room. Yes, I should have noticed—the milkweed, the daisies, whatever that young man has in his hair…very nice, very vegetal. A ‘romping through the groves’ motif. Neo-paganism can be so charming, don’t you think, Steck? Such a homespun, ag
rarian feel to it. I assume this dance celebrates your instinctual attunement to the ebb and flow of the seasons? Or is there some other purpose?”

  I said, “No,” at the same time Leeta and Steck said, “Yes.”

  “Really,” I insisted, “we shouldn’t talk about this, should we, Leeta? The women’s religion must have some prohibition against sharing secrets with outsiders.”

  “No,” Leeta replied. “Secret handshakes only appeal to men.”

  And she proceeded to tell Rashid the complete story of Mistress Night and Master Day, and how Earth would burn up if she didn’t dance to shift the balance from light back to dark. Rashid produced a notebook from a compartment on the belt of his armor and scribbled excitedly; now and then he would murmur “Charming!” or “Delightful!” in a voice that was far too amused. Steck just made it worse by offering background commentary, speaking with condescension about Master Wind’s dalliance with each year’s Mistress Leaf, or Mistress Night’s continuing misadventures that always begin with someone saying, “If you want that pretty stone, you’ll have to do me a favor…”

  I wanted to crawl into the campfire and burn to ash. It’s bad enough to hear your priestess claim she’s personally responsible for the solstice. Then to have a mealy-mouthed Neut give such sneering versions of the good old stories…

  Listen: everyone knows it’s not hard to make the gods sound ridiculous. It just takes sarcasm, exaggeration, and a determination to be vulgar. Instead of saying, ‘Mistress Leaf donned her brightest finery in a vain attempt to rekindle Master Wind’s passion,” you say, “Mistress Leaf tarted herself up like a red-powdered whore and still Master Wind stayed as limp as lettuce.”