Courtship Rite

by Donald Kingsbury

  Between the local/central extremes Hoemei saw many balanced worlds. Slowly he began to formulate his “short-path” theory of government that forever changed Getan history. There was a way to construct the decision nodes of a network so that the most optimal decision path tended to cause the atrophy of less economical ones. Nodes had to be connected in such a way that there were no unique paths to the top of the hierarchy. A man maintained his power within the system only by being on the most effective decision route through the multiple pathways leading to a solution.

  Hoemei had much help from his o’Tghalie staff in formulating his notion of an ideal government. His basic model derived from the information flow theory which described an evolving biological ecology.

  Not all of Hoemei’s efforts were serious. One evening he had a free-wheeling discussion with Noe about a world run by manifold governments, each layer’s fate being subject to kalothi ratings and Ritual Suicide obligations. Noe brought out a bottle of whisky. Before the bottle was finished, their imaginations were buying choice cuts of their least-liked agencies at the local butcher shop and concocting recipes to disguise the foul taste.

  The amount of work Hoemei was learning to handle in one day was extraordinary. He was researching the consequences of different styles of governing, managing the rayvoice project, planning a famine relief program for the coast, monitoring the production of skrei-wheels, and designing a strategy to foil the Mnankrei, plus responsibilities on the new aqueduct design, and a small genetics hypothesis he was pursuing. However, he had his limits. He could falter and he did.

  A clerk of the Clei, that indispensable underclan, entered the inner sanctum of Hoemei’s office where he was never to be disturbed and bowed deeper than usual because of the gravity of the interruption. “Yes?” Hoemei was curt, even though he knew that no one would enter here without having considered the urgency of his cause.

  “We have just received a rayvoice message concerning Joesai.”

  “Is he all right? And news of Teenae?”

  “The information was relayed by our Soebo station, maran.” He spoke that half-formal form of address with another bow, reluctant to go on. ‘The message lacks completeness,“ he said trying to soften the blow, ”but it is unpleasant. Here is the transcript.”

  Hoemei scanned the paper in great leaps. A Kaiel ship had been captured by the Mnankrei and brought to the port at Soebo. The identity of those manning the ship was not available but it was a number consistent with the party Joesai had taken to Sorrow.

  “What in the Firestream of Getasun is he doing there!” Hoemei’s fear exploded as anger. “He’s supposed to be in Sorrow playing dandiman!”

  “Joesai is an unusual priest, maran. He may have disliked the role of dandiman and taken it upon himself to investigate odors drifting from the north.”

  Hoemei slumped. “That’s my brother.” Oh my God, and they will have Teenae, too. The report did not say they were dead, but a clan willing to starve thousands for political advantage would not be a kind captor. With a will he quenched himself — hot iron to steel. Death. Life had always been thus. A Getan protected himself with a large family so the loss would never be as great. But two at once!

  He remembered the naked child, Joesai, saving him in his first Trial of Strength at the creche when he had been too young to really understand the danger. He had always been of small stature and unable to repay Joesai in kind, but many were the times he had anticipated Joesai’s troubles and thus prevented them — Joesai whose flashes of energy were too quick for sound judgment. Everyone had always said that this brother of theirs courted death, that his rashness lacked kalothi. Hoemei had expected him to die and had long ago prepared his stomach for that event, but not, it seems, prepared it well.

  My brother! screamed his grief. Hoemei remembered Gaet laughing in the creche after the particularly harrowing Trial of the Knife and Puzzle. “When Joesai falls into the soup he makes a boat with the noodles.” How they laughed together as Death shaved their eyebrows!

  While the man of Clei stood watch over the increasing shock of his respected priest, reluctant to leave until his maran seemed less shaken, a remembrance came to Hoemei of Teenae in the early morning of their wedding feast, he frozen by the door, his mind anxious for his child bride so vigorously taken by three young husbands who, affectionate as they might feel, had shown no real control over their lust. For a long time he stared at her, his guilt imagining her dead, desperate for signs of life in the wan predawn moonlight.

  Her head lay against the pillow where they had left her, her nose in sharp profile, like sculptor’s wax, her body sprawled, one leg up, hand clutching his gift of lace nightdress above her hips so that her navel was shadowed. She was too young for a woman’s hips and showed but the barest signs of the high breasts she was later to carry. And she was so still Hoemei had hated Joesai for those overwhelming thrusts while they took her virginity; she was as still as death, her kalothi leached by pale Scowlmoon.

  Then, it seemed, she breathed. Such relief. He went closer to watch her, to hold his fingers below her nose to feel the truth of her breath. Her head turned and her eyes opened serenely. “Um,” she said, remembering. “What was that all about? Am I really married now?” She pulled Hoemei to the pillows with her, curling around him, already asleep again. He left his hand cupped to her child’s breast, feeling the breathing, happy.

  I need her, he thought now, unable to weep.

  Dismissing the worried clerk, he paced about his office, the careful draft of his speculations about different governmental structures left in mid-sentence. Then he walked up through the ovoid levels of the Palace to the communications room and took command of the rayvoice and tried to reach Gaet who was in the hills supervising the laying of the new skrei-wheel road to Sorrow. Gaet could not be found. He left an anguished message to be relayed on foot by some Ivieth runner.

  On the way home, he slogged for centuries through a berserkly giant kolgame in the city streets of Kaiel-hontokae laid out by cruel players, a wooden piece moved for some obscure strategic advantage. Noe knew when she saw his face. He never told her; he just cried. She refused to believe that Joesai and Teenae were dead; she questioned him and held out hope, barring her own shock, but Hoemei was sure and he bawled.

  Noe would not cry. She did have a beloved co-wife with whom she could share her men, and little Teenae was not dead and Noe would not cry for nothing as long as she could force all her emotion into comforting Hoemei. Yet when her man slept, the tears burst forth, silently, rolling down the cicatrice designs of her cheeks like a flood upon plowed ground.

  28

  During the time of Arant glory it was the Arant who said that suffering leads to greatness of spirit. The Kaiel think otherwise. It is greatness that leads to suffering — for who can understand a great man? and does not the lonepriest live the agony of holding worlds which cannot be shared?

  Tae ran-Kaiel at the funeral of Rimi-rasi

  THE MOUNTAIN INN was tucked into the branch of a gorge high among peaks that had taken an unseasonable snow cover. Like all inns of the Long Road, it was run by the Ivieth. Old porters, who could no longer bear the burdens of the road, brought wood for the fire and kept the soup hot and cared for travellers who might seek shelter, as well as tending the healthy Ivieth who passed through with pack and wagon.

  Young children abounded, bigger and broader-shouldered than they should have been, unruly with each other, racing through the halls of the inn, but unreservedly polite with the inn’s clientele. Their half-grown siblings were already out on the roads to carry the burden that clan kalothi demanded. Before puberty an Ivieth hauled his load or was walked to death and eaten.

  Oelita sat in a corner alone but as close to the fire as she could get and still be inconspicuous. She was subdued. Ordinarily she would be sitting at a table with the Ivieth or would have intruded upon travellers to make new friends and joke away the tiredness of feet. But this was already Kaiel territory. The fear had
grown as the rolling hills had given way to rocky slope and twisting trail and heights that awed her while chilling winds played with her body like the bush she had seen caught and tossed into a ravine.

  She had sent the crystal ahead by trusted messenger and it would be safe — but still she was afraid.

  One of the little Ivieth boys rushed up with a cloth and over-eagerly wiped her table. Then he noticed her bowl and sniffed at the broth that was no longer steaming. “I’ll get you some more,” he said before whisking it away, tiptoeing with a careful eye on the bowl’s rim, remembering that he had already slopped some on the floor and had had to mop it up.

  He was the same age as her boys had been when they were taken to the Temple of Sorrow.

  Presently a white-haired woman, who was stooped and old but still far taller than Oelita, brought in a new bowl of hot soup followed by her angry grandson who was displeased that his grandmother did not see fit to trust him to carry it. “He’s being such a help, busy as we are with all the road building. I’ve scarce seen such a crowd!”

  As she spoke three other men entered the door and pulled it closed behind them against the tugging wind. One Oelita recognized as clan Mueth from the brilliant headdress of fibers woven into his hair. One was of a far clan she did not know. The third stood shorter but carried himself with such authority that she knew him to be of the formidable Kaiel.

  “Gaet!” said a man at the far end of the room, raising his mug. The Kaiel returned the gesture but went to another table and was lost in animated talk. Three Ivieth children, obviously well known to him, rushed forward and began to climb all over his back to remove his outer garments. For a moment Oelita glanced up and saw the grandmother standing transfixed, smiling in the Kaiel’s direction, waiting, as if she expected to be noticed shortly. He ignored her, making his rounds, a joke here, a backslap there, a fistclasp at another table, a hair ruffling for a child.

  “Gaet!” said the old woman impatiently.

  Finally, he turned to her, warmly. “You think I’m hungry, eh? You know I’m hungry. I could eat the bark off a tree! What’s in the soup?”

  “Gaet, you sit yourself with this young traveller who’s braving the mountains without escort — it’s the only table we have free — and I’ll work up something to fill you.”

  The man sat down. His shirt was open and Oelita could see the hontokae carved into his chest. She wanted to run, she wanted to be among her friends on the coast, yet he was smiling at her easily enough. She faced him with her back to the wall and smiled the soft smile she used to seduce men.

  “How’s the broth this low day?” he asked to make conversation.

  “Very good.”

  “You’re far from the coast.”

  “How else am I to reach Kaiel-hontokae?” she asked gently.

  “It is a long journey. You must have deep purpose to send you such a distance.”

  “I do. I hope to plead for the lives of my people. Perhaps in doing so I shall speak against your beliefs. You must have equally deep purpose. We are as far from Kaiel-hontokae as we are from the coast.”

  “The improvement of the road through the mountains has been a recent concern of mine. But truly I am this far west for one reason only.” He grinned. “I’ve come at breakneck pace since I heard a rumor that a certain beautiful woman passes through the mountains unescorted. It seems to me that she courts unnecessary danger.”

  Oelita started. He knew her then! He had been sent. He was here for the crystal. He was one of Joesai’s men. No, I cannot use him. I shall fly from him! “Would a Kaiel escort give me safety?” she asked ironically.

  “Ah, then you have met Joesai!” he exclaimed, slapping the table. Her heart began to pound at the mention of this name. Here was a game she did not understand. “I want no Kaiel escort. I value my life.”

  “There are disparate factions among the Kaiel. Is that not the case among all priest clans? I represent the faction of the Prime Predictor who very much wishes you alive.”

  “Who is Joesai?”

  The man called Gaet laughed at her intensity. “Joesai might perhaps be called a lonepriest. He has strong loves and his own ideas of the way things should be. He survives best when he is a long way from the reach of orders generated by men he disagrees with.” He sobered. “I don’t believe you have anything to fear from Joesai. We have reason to believe that his group was captured near Soebo.”

  “The Mnankrei have him?” Oelita was incredulous.

  “We know only that the Mnankrei took his ship and fifteen of his band. He may have been killed.”

  “You lie!” she said hotly. “He and two of his men were with me in Sorrow too short a while ago. I’ve travelled at night afraid that he was at my back.” She watched a profound look of reaction cross Gaet’s face. What was it? Astonishment? Hope? Relief? Such a response made her afraid again. This stranger was no enemy of Joesai.

  “Was he with a woman when you saw him last?”

  Ah, I cannot trust this man. He loves Teenae. “She was stabbed. They took her up the coast somewhere to recover. Wherever Joesai might be, she is not in Soebo.”

  “Thank our God.”

  “Joesai sent you?”

  “Hardly. We’ve had no word from him. Hoemei of Aesoe’s staff bid me escort you safely into Kaiel-hontokae. Hoemei is purveyor of the relief program to the coast. We have sketchy information that a famine approaches. What say you?”

  “The underjaw ravages the land. The Mnankrei burn our stores. We need help.”

  “It is fortunate that we have met.”

  “The price you will ask for your help is too high.”

  Gaet laughed a short burst and trailed off into silence. He began to turn his soupbowl with extended fingers, staring at it. She noticed that he only had nine digits. A little finger had been amputated. Over the soup, the aromatic vapors rose and dissipated like thoughts forming and unforming. “This pottery — pleasant design, eh?” he began. “I like the mix of cavorting moon-children who chase each other as if the chase was all. Do you like it?”

  “I’ve never seen such shape before or such pure subdued color.”

  “A fine glaze. The pieces chip easily. It’s not stoneware. These pots are common in Kaiel-hontokae, perhaps not so common on the coast. They are fired in a small mountain village and I mention it only because of a Kaiel bargain made long ago that created the markets. Did we ever need the pottery? Hardly. The village was suffering and this was the way out. Did we strike a hard bargain? No. We could have. We had and have the power. But we Kaiel see the future with almost the clarity of dreams. A hard bargain struck while we have advantage leads always to strife in the future, always, always, always. We make bargains in hard times, yes, for that is our skill, to mute misfortune, to merge leg and arm and head and heart and liver and anus into harmonious marriage, but we do not consciously forge bargains that have no use when times are better.”

  “You will offer us food for rule — just like the Mnankrei,” she said bitterly.

  He shook his head. “We cannot even offer you food in the weight that can be shipped from the Mnankrei islands. The mountains and the distance are great obstacles, but we offer you sounder rule. It is not the Kaiel who blended human gene with underjaw body so that children will not have the wheat that has been nourished by the sweat of their parents.”

  “They did that? That, too?”

  “Someone did.”

  “You found human genes in the underjaws Nonoep sent to Kaiel-hontokae?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s criminal! That’s horrible!”

  “It is power gone awry as power will. When a priest needs power more than he needs to be a craftsman of human destiny, such things happen.”

  She saw the burning silo at Sorrow, saw the arrogant sea priest Tonpa clearly by its light. Yet were the Kaiel more honest?

  Annoyingly, he went on to disparage others in the hope of making his own kind look good. “The Stgal have failed you. You should
be rich and you are poor. You have more wealth in your land than Kaiel-hontokae. Sorrow should have fleets of ships to match the Mnankrei but it is a minor maritime center. Does Soebo have a better harbor than Sorrow?”

  She had had enough of his sly boasting. “And you will bring your creches with you and fill our meat markets!”

  His answer was easy, glib, as if he had spoken it a thousand times before. “Only the Kaiel have creches. It is the way we breed for leadership. We do not interfere with the breeding rules of any other clan. In times of famine the clan groups who have sworn us allegiance accept our will. They are free to move and swear their blood to a better priest clan.”

  “When I see the blood in the temples, I think we might do without the priest clans!”

  Gaet shrugged. “It has been tried. And those who tried it did not survive their famines.”

  She had a moment’s memory of her children, carrying them to the sea in her packsack because their legs were useless. Bright eyes they had, watching a nest of sand beetles. She felt tears. Her hand took Gaet’s. “Do not quarrel with me.”

  “Your interests are mine,” he said comfortingly, reading her thoughts.

  “How will you possibly get wheat through these mountains? I was not awed by them when they were only words to me and a hazy jag along the horizon — but here I am and I’m awed.”

  “Come.” He kept her hand and led her outside into the wind that howled along the gorge. Her skirts flapped. He endured the cold, shivering. The world seemed dreadful and dark with Scowl-moon eclipsed by the mountain peaks.

  “We’ll freeze out here!”

  Gaet brought her body closer to his own, maneuvering her around to the back where the wind clawed less, sheltered as the spot was by a craggy wall of rock. They came to a filigree machine with three fine wheels partly buried in the drifting snow. “A new device. It looks fragile but it amplifies the power of an Ivieth enormously. It can’t carry more than a one-man wagon but it moves much faster. We’re rebuilding the roads to take them. Wheat can move west in such vehicles which can then return people eastward to famine camps in the foothills above Kaiel-hontokae.”