Courtship Rite

by Donald Kingsbury

  “Ah,” he said, reassured. The ovaet was a genetic trait possessed by four out of five Getan women that allowed a woman to self-abort if she did not wish a conception to take.

  “When I’m on the pillows with a gentle man like you, being ovaet makes it easier to keep my vow never to be a mother again. I would have difficulty being celibate.” She rubbed her cheek against his. “I can feel your concern. It’s nice.”

  “Aesoe never told me that they taught barbarians how to flatter a man.”

  “Barbarian! We call you people The Hill Barbarians,” she retaliated. “Do you want to hear a Kaiel joke?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “Why does a Kaiel take his sandals off before entering his house?”

  “You got me.”

  “So he won’t get them dirty!”

  He cuffed her. They were already lost in the pleasure of their lovemaking. She bet herself that Hoemei would go to sleep as soon as they peaked and he did while Oelita stared at his dark image, wide-eyed, smiling, with her head in her hands and her elbows embedded in the pillows. She decided that she liked to play at being married. She had two men now who loved each other and were bonded to her. Two men in a strange and hostile city were always better than one. Under the quilt next to her body, the hot warmth of him was safety. If he loves me, he’ll save my people.

  She dreamed that her body was illustrated with shifting tattoos and that great scholars came to study her both by sunlight and by candlelight and went away shaking their heads in wonderment. She took her message to the catacombs, to evil cities on the other side of Geta, and through the temples and into the hells of the desert. The desert was hot, boiling her in her skin while the tattoos shifted. Moaning, she worked her way out of the quilt and let the breeze evaporate the sweat from her, then dozed back to sleep, holding Hoemei.

  The dreams went on, mutating. Her body began to tell lighter stories, frivolous ones even, stories of casual love and humor. She snuggled up to her man. He was patting her buttocks affectionately, and she reached around to stop him, half awake now, and the hands were not Hoemei’s hands. They were big and hairy. She was screaming before she was half awake, trying to drag herself against the wall away from the huge monster.

  “Where did you get such a beautiful bum?” said the monster.

  “Oelita!” said a tiny Teenae in the doorway, round-eyed.

  Oelita didn’t stop screaming. Hoemei had her in his arms by now, comforting her. “It’s only Joesai.” He was stunned. Teenae was hugging him and squeezing him. “It’s me! Remember me! I came back! And I love you and am I glad to see you!” The screams brought Gaet and Noe flying out of their bed to collide with Teenae, who had heard them coming. Teenae clamped her arms on Gaet’s neck while her feet crawled up around his hips to grab him vicelike in their embrace. “My beloved lost lover!” she crooned. “Aw, Teenae!” he said happily. Hoemei was bawling in relief. Joesai and Noe just stood grinning in the middle of the chaos. Oelita, backed against the wall in shock, holding the quilt to her breast, tried to understand the revelation that these people comprised a single family. In avoiding Joesai her terror had taken her straight to his co-husbands and here she was thrown into this room with him and there was no more safety.

  31

  In an open game like chess a player hides his moves behind complexity. In a covert game like five-card hunter a player hides his moves by withholding the face of three cards. But how does one play a game which is itself hidden? The opponent never speaks, is never seen, and never gloats. During that single unexpected moment when the magnitude of your loss is revealed, who has won?

  The nas-Veda Who Sits on Bees, Judge of Judges

  HUMILITY WAS WRAPPED in the robes of the Miethi desert clan that inhabited the edge of the Swollen Tongue. Her face was veiled and her fingers clothed to the second joint. She poked in shops, wandering, sucking on flavored mountain ice. For a while she watched a street funeral. Women of the Tunni, red flowers in their hair and naked children underfoot, flirted with their black-robed men who manned a spit that roasted the skinned corpse of some deceased elder. A cart brought musicians and bowls of food.

  Nothing was as refreshing to Humility as these brief sun-heights of freedom from the men she obeyed, these moments away from the hive discipline, from purpose and thought. It was pleasant to amuse that secret person within herself, the Queen of Life-before-Death.

  At the shop of a coppersmith she picked up some pieces she had ordered and, farther on, a thumb-sized jar of chemicals. She found a man-height of lace fabric she needed at a weaver’s stall but did not buy it — tomorrow perhaps; today it was enough merely to imagine the lacy costume. Subvocally she hummed the piped tune of a dance and her ghost feet jigged while her real feet plodded an idle path down the street of Early Wings, now deserted as if she had planned to be alone. Such a street was seldom empty.

  As she had been instructed, the jeweler-merchant was there, cooped in his narrow room that was hardly wider than his heavy door. Yes, the pale man was of the Weigeni, a merchant clan spread over half of Geta though rare in Kaiel-hontokae. He had the rectangular carvings in his skin and the nose ring. She was his only customer. He stared at her, not speaking, not thinking much of her, for the Miethi bought little except beads to weave into their robes.

  She asked him shyly for beads, some rich green ones, and smiled at the man with her eyes, then readjusted her veil so he could see less of her. He brought the beads from a drawer. While he was stooping and she had her eyes cast demurely toward the door, she yanked a wire loop around his neck so quickly that he died without even surprise on his face. The body dropped behind the counter.

  Why did the old crone want this particular Weiseni dead? She did not know. The old crones were too old for men so they played politics on a grand scale. A leisurely moment later Humility had closed and barred the door and drawn the shutters as if her victim were gone on some errand as jewelers were wont to do.

  She listened. Then she returned and quickly cut the dead man’s throat. For artistic completeness she slashed his arms as if he had defended himself from a clumsy knifing. She stabbed him viciously, as one would who knew no anatomy and bore the strength of a large man. After a careful review of the imaginary fight, she tumbled a counter to imitate a recoil against a stagger heavier than the counter could bear. For a moment she glanced at the jewelry. The emeralds pleased her, but she did not take them. She took the larger, flashier stones that were nearly worthless, and some gold. Even a fool would recognize gold.

  Dusk was a pleasant time of day. She disposed of the jewelry while walking and sat washing her knife at the pool in the Bok of the Fountain of Two Women. Dead insects floated on the surface of the water. A hawker was selling hot spiced soybean curd to passers-by for copper coin. She felt delight that others were enjoying the dusk, too. A small o’Tghalie woman was strolling with two of her men, holding them one on each arm, smiling to her left and teasing with her hip to the right. Magicians, those o’Tghalie. They could tell you how the electron demons would fly along the shapes of metal that the coppersmith had made for her.

  Humility’s time to herself was over. She wandered back to the hive, gradually changing the appearance of her robe so that she would no longer be mistaken for a Miethi. The se-Tufi Who Possessed Honor met her in the hive briefing room where they tranced. Honor memorized Honey’s latest exploits, donned Humility’s clothes and left for the Palace. Humility spent a sun-height resting nude on the stone floor of her cell to drain from her mind the luxury of the Palace, and the feel of the hands of men, and the thoughts of pleasing. Then she took the copper pieces, the last pieces, and finished assembling the toy rayvoice that Hoemei had shown her how to build. She had seemed stupid but only because she was checking three ways everything that Hoemei said.

  The only part she had been unable to make herself was the electron jar which she had had crafted for her at great expense in one of the market factories and seduced Hoemei into testing. The test she u
nderstood, but it was incredibly frustrating that she did not know how to make the testing instruments. Magic always had its loose ends which made it hard to steal.

  None of the Liethe knew what she was doing; even Honor had not been able to duplicate Humility’s rayvoice experiences, and would need special training if she were to continue Honey’s escapade as Hoemei’s mistress. Humility needed to be able to give the hive a show. First she took Cocked Ear into her confidence, promising nothing, but sending her to a distant room with the voice box, while Humility retained the machine’s ear. Sarcastically, she mimicked Aesoe’s sweet talk into the ear, wondering if anything would happen.

  The universe, according to Hoemei, was like a tuning fork. If you sang the right note at a tuning fork it vibrated. The whole world was many such tuning forks, conjoined, and if you calculated the linkages and built real ones to match the calculations, then you could have a musical instrument that would respond to your voice a hundred days journey away. Humility didn’t really expect her box to work even though she had been very careful with the calculations, checking them by hand as well as by o’Tghalie, but she hoped it would.

  Cocked Eat burst into her cell, astonished. “What is it? I heard Aesoe speaking! Was that really him?”

  “Silly. That was me! You heard me?”

  “I should have known,” Cocked Ear giggled. “Aesoe is never that obscene!”

  “I want to try it on the crone mother! Set her up for the game. As soon as she has the voice to her ear, wave a flag in the corridor.”

  When the signal came, Humility said into her box, “Your enemy sleeps!”

  The crone mother was at her door almost immediately, huffing and trembling. “What is this thing!” She held out the talking shell as one might the giant mutated head of a fei flower.

  “It’s a magic ear!”

  “Did you steal it from the Palace?” the old crone asked almost in panic.

  “I made it! Hoemei showed me how.”

  Humility was received with disbelief. The ancient woman could not imagine herself learning how to build such a device. The se-Tufi had an illustrious place in the chronicles, but they were not magicians!

  Humility smiled with engaging innocence. “You never had Hoemei for a lover! He’s adept at stuffing the best of himself into my head.”

  But the old mind had retreated and was already testing the possibilities. “How far can it reach?”

  “Not far. This one is only a toy.”

  “You’ve seen the fuller magic?”

  “The magician’s workshop in the Palace, yes.”

  “How far does their magic reach?”

  “You’ve heard the gossip. Anywhere on Geta. Sometimes noise demons cast counter magic.” Humility’s eyes lit up proudly. “I’ve talked to our Liethe sisters in Soebo.”

  The crone’s cane rose and jabbed the air. “When!”

  “A mere few sunsets ago.”

  “You chatted about the size of Mnankrei dongs?” the crone asked sarcastically.

  Humility bowed. “No, honored one. I have brought a special message for you. I knew you wished this information so I asked if it were obtainable. It is Winterstorm Master Nie’t’Fosal who does genetic probings upon the lowly underjaw.”

  “Ah, so it is true. Aesoe has made such speculations.”

  “You didn’t think you’d get an answer to that one for eons, did you?”

  “You are immodestly aware of your abilities.”

  “I have Hoemei tied to my hairs.” The slight flick of her hip was arrogant.

  “Four rounds of penance tonight before you sleep!” the crone commanded, whacking her with the cane for her pride.

  Humility knelt to the floor and bowed her head, wiping the ground with it. “I shall seek true humility in my penance, wise crone.”

  The hive mother dismissed Cocked Ear. She waited until they were well alone. “How went your afternoon?”

  “I truly enjoyed it. I walked as far as the Bok of the Fountain of Two Women.”

  “Frivolous.”

  “To clean my knife.”

  “Ah. The jeweler. Did he suffer pains?” Hag eyes glowed like bone heaps in the cremation fire of a poisoned man.

  “I do not dally to allow my opponent the choice of a response. He never knew.”

  “Yes. I suppose,” she grumbled. “Perhaps it is better that way.” The harridan did not sound convinced.

  32

  When a dobu of the kembri attacks a man, he uses the forces inherent in his opponent’s defense to exact defeat. If a push is expected, the dobu pulls. If a pull is expected, the dobu pushes. In like manner we attack a man’s mind. Do not use truth and reason to sway your enemy. Strike him down with cunning application of his own logic.

  Dobu of the kembri, Arimasie ban-Itraiel in Combat

  IN THE YEAR of the Moth, the week of the Horse began with a celebration dedicated to that mythical sidestepping insect, the Horse piece of chess who was commonly known as the Protector of Infants. Naked children wearing elaborate Horse heads had been prancing about the streets the moment Getasun was fully risen, begging favors and gifts from every passing adult. It was quite evident that none agreed either on the color or shape a Horse’s head should take.

  “Watch out!” said Teenae, cautioning Oelita. “There are more hiding in ambush in that alley.” A purple snout with bulbous hoiela eyes sprang upon them, holding the hand of a smaller grinning beast who was hideously hairy to her shoulders. They cajoled two glass marbles from Teenae and Oelita who carried shoulder bags of goodies on this morning.

  When the women reached the alley, they found more children.

  One was wearing a wooden mask with vaguely maelot mandibles and improbable floppy ears. Another youngster wore a long head with stripes while her companion appeared behind a huge checkered nose. The boy wanted candy. The girls wanted trinkets but fought over a tiny bean shooter.

  Teenae had attached herself to Oelita since her return. She felt a fierce loyalty to this woman who had saved her nose, perhaps her life. They were bonded by that encounter and by the code which made the lover of more than one husband her personal charge. Nor could she forget her already once-failed vow to protect Oelita from Joesai. Gaet and Hoemei she trusted to behave circumspectly; Joesai she did not.

  “Do you know this Kathein pnota-Kaiel?” asked Oelita.

  “Very well.” Teenae was apprehensive about the meeting she had set up.

  “I’m not sure I understand why she would be interested in my crystal. Is she a mystic?”

  “Your crystal is a Frozen Voice of God.”

  “That’s why I thought she must be a mystic. She looks at it and hears things?”

  Their chariot had arrived and they climbed in while Teenae gave instructions to the Ivieth porters. Now the two women were squeezed beside each other. “It would be hard to explain to someone who has lived her life under Stgal rule just what Kathein does. She’s a dobu. Think of how a dobu of kembri handles himself in a fight. The force in his opponent’s body does his work for him. Kathein is a dobu of matter. There are forces within all-that-is-inert around us. It resists us with its passivity. If we wish a husband to go to market with us, he comes at the merest asking. If we wish a wagon to come to market with us, we must swear and push and sweat. Kathein is a dobu. She uses the lifeless forces against themselves to work her will. When she commands a wagon, it follows her. When she holds a crystal, it remembers God.”

  Oelita shook her head at such quaint hill madness.

  The chariot was stopped once by a hideous-headed child with clicking mandibles and a beard who demanded his tribute to the Horse. The Ivieth neglected his charges until he found something, Oelita and Teenae contributed a candy and a marble, and they were on their way again.

  The old stone building by the Moietra aqueduct was Kathein’s retreat. Oelita laughed, and lifted her skirts to avoid a patch of mud that leaked through the cobblestones. “So this is the abode of the magician to whom wagons heel an
d stones talk? The sight of such dark mansion so close at hand instills precaution. How will I greet her?”

  “As one who has done her a Great Favor.”

  “I will not reveal the location of my crystal until the deal is complete and widely known.”

  Teenae felt a stab of pity. She did not comment. To negotiate with the Kaiel, the Gentle Heretic should not have come alone. Then she forgot Oelita as her curiosity surfaced. What had Kathein become?

  A young bonded Kaiel from the creches greeted them and brought them to Kathein’s presence in a tapestry-covered room of high ceiling. Kathein was standing. Her expression did not change. She wore trousers and a bodice that held her breasts but exposed them as was the tradition with a nursing woman.

  “Kathein.”

  “My Teenae.” The voice was warm, unlike the face. “How happy I am that you are back with us. I had my fears.”

  “We’ve heard little from you.”

  “It is distracting, forging a new clan. Your wounds have healed?”

  “You can’t divide an o’Tghalie by zero,” said Teenae, trying for levity and finding none.

  “Oelita,” said Kathein, taking up her duties as hostess, “my house is yours. I am astonished at your possession of the crystal and grateful that you have brought it here to me.”

  “I have not brought it as a gift.”

  “You are refreshingly blunt.” The first wispy smile crossed Kathein’s face. “Soepei,” she spoke loudly to another room, “bring the box.” She returned her eyes to Oelita. “Teenae has told you of our fairness in dealings. I repeat that this is so.” She settled her guests on pillows and offered them hot spiced tea which had been warming on a low table. The box was brought to Kathein and she opened it to reveal a rectangular crystal on velvet, waiting silently for Oelita’s response.

  “Your Frozen Voice of God has the same pale blueness as mine.” Oelita used the name with only a hint of sarcasm. “Teenae has told me how much you cherish it.”