Courtship Rite

by Donald Kingsbury

  Noe settled down on cushions beside Oelita. Their male courtesan had been joined by a woman of the temples with shaved stripes along both sides of her head and platinum rings in the flesh of her right arm. Her eyes never left Aesoe. One of the Liethe appeared silently with juice for Oelita and disappeared. Aesoe’s party watched. Of them all, Oelita knew only Kathein.

  Every move was received with attention. There were horrified comments when Oelita let her Child run free without protection of Black Queen or Horse. She ate both of Aesoe’s Priests and blocked him with a reach of her Smith. He counterplayed deftly. She had to hide her Child. It was the White God against the Black Queen. She was expecting to lose. Was this not the Prime Predictor who had the reputation for being able to see a hundred moves into the future? But she trapped him.

  “Check,” she said, speaking her first word to Aesoe.

  Aesoe laughed. It was checkmate. He waited for her to eat the White Child as was the custom — but she would not. That was her custom.

  “Come,” he said. “I would speak to you.”

  It was near dawn, and he insisted on taking her up to the Room of Ritual Suicide to watch the vast red circle of rising Getasun transform the ovoids of the Kaiel Palace into molten iron. Oelita waited. It was not right for her to speak first, but she was content to observe.

  “You will be dealing with Hoemei. That is my wish. Drive a hard bargain with him. Drive a ruthless bargain and I will back you.”

  “I want Scowlmoon, polished to a bronze sheen, for my morning mirror.”

  Aesoe laughed. “You will not get it.”

  “You only have a city with marvels of architecture, wealth, and land to give?”

  “And very little of that is mine. I can’t change the religion of my people, for instance.”

  “What if your wealth is not great enough to buy me?”

  “Then you must ask the Mnankrei for their wealth.”

  So much for that. She changed the subject. “It seems to me that you sent for me.”

  “No. You came.”

  “But you’ve been interested before I came.”

  “And chose the wrong vessel to contact you! May Joesai die with no one to honor his flesh!”

  “The first thing I will ask of you is that Joesai not be harmed.”

  “So it is true what they say about you, that you collect the wretches of the world!” He laughed. “I give you Joesai, in pieces or whole. That I can do. Joesai is not the moon. What next?”

  “You could start by telling me what it is that I am to negotiate with Hoemei?”

  “Why, the terms of the surrender of Sorrow to the rule of the Kaiel.”

  “That is not mine to give.” This man was mad!

  “Tell me then, to whom should I speak?”

  The Stgal are the priests of Sorrow.”

  “Ah, the Stgal. I have made a study of whom they represent. They represent themselves. And who represents the people of Sorrow? There is only you, and while it is true that you are not a priest, little details like that have never bothered me overmuch. I’ll make an honorary priest of you. Marry into one of my families and I’ll make a genuine priest of you! You are Kaiel in your soul and don’t know it.” He smiled gently.

  “What makes me Kaiel?”

  “You doubt my word?”

  “Yes!”

  “Ho! So it is true that I can see some of what you fail to see? After our chess game I was despairing for my vision!”

  “You taunt me! Which of my ways are Kaiel-like?”

  “Perhaps your need for flattery?” he teased.

  “I would know how I am Kaiel-like so that I might cleanse my soul,” she retorted instantly.

  “Then you must abandon the self-aspect that makes you a political force,” he chuckled. “The very first thing about a Kaiel is that he is not a hereditary ruler, he is a hereditary representative. Who knows how this came about? It did. Tae ran-Kaiel understood it and formalized our custom so that now we all understand why the Kaiel have had victory where all others have failed. Tell me, if one of your people had a problem, would you know?”

  “I make that my business.”

  “So my spies noticed. In Sorrow such behavior is unheard of. It is your mission to work toward a mutual solution to the collective problems of those people who have sworn their loyalty to you. Who but a Kaiel thinks that way? A Kaiel is nothing in our councils until he represents somebody. It matters not where his genes come from, nor who his father was, nor who his mother was, nor the lineage of his teachers. You have a following. That is Kaiel. Why should I talk to a Stgal who rules because his father built a house on some hill? If the Stgal made a deal with me, would I have the loyalty of the people of Sorrow? No. If I make a deal with you, will I have the loyalty of your people? I believe that would be so.”

  “I hardly speak for the most powerful of Sorrow. My people are mostly lowly in kalothi.”

  “You speak with a misordered appreciation of kalothi. Does not a man who can bond himself to another for a mutual goal have greater kalothi than the fool who tries to carry a house upon his own back?”

  “You’re made of brass. I’m to sell you our land and our heritage and all the people in it, and with that piece of paper from me, you will march in and take everything!”

  Aesoe roared amusement. “Your attention span is short! How many heartbeats ago was I telling you to drive a hard bargain with Hoemei? I meant a bargain you will be satisfied with — now, tomorrow. I can deal with you because you represent more than yourself. I don’t know your people. How would I know what they want? How should I know what they need? You do. And Hoemei knows what we can give.”

  “The coast is not for sale.”

  “Vomit of God! Once there was a fool who found a bar of gold in the desert that was too heavy for him to carry so he guarded it and left his bones guarding it! Is that your thought?”

  “In Getan mythology wherever there is a fool, there is also a wise man.” She was asking him to continue his story.

  “The wiser man found the bar and could not carry it, either. He selected a friend he could trust and offered him half the gold to help him carry it to the city. Is not the moral self-evident? For a whole bar of gold you can buy nothing. For half a bar you can buy even immortality for your genes! Is help so bad? Is a man who offers you help, because you can help him, to be viewed as an enemy who will cheat you? Make a deal with me!”

  “I’m cynical about deals. I’ve made contracts before.”

  “Build all the guarantees you want into it! Of course some of the deal will fall through. A contract is a piece of paper made now. It has flaws. We can’t foresee the future. Look into the Archives and see how often I’ve been wrong. But when the deal deviates from its stated purpose, you don’t cry and feel cheated and rave about the dishonesty of your partner, you sit down and deal again until you are satisfied. You change the conditions to meet whatever happened up there in the future. What would I gain from cheating you? Position? A few pieces off the board in the early game? What is that worth to me if your children feel the necessity to cheat my children because you were cheated? Then the Kaiel would die! Then I would die! My sperm is on ice until the day when my dealings make their long-term payoff. How many priest clans are extinct because they didn’t learn to live beyond immediate gain? The Stgal are surviving now by covert dealings — a smile to your face, and poison in your cup. How long will they last? How many drops of kalothi is there in the most flawless dishonesty? All I ask — make a deal with me that satisfies you.”

  “It will have to satisfy you, too.” She was struggling with the force of his attack.

  “Of course!”

  “I think I understand you. You will outdo yourself to take half of my gold.”

  “God’s Eyeballs! Have I been raving in vain? You do not understand me. I want the privilege of being with a lovely woman while I get a hernia hassling her gold to market. I like the joy of planning how we’re going to spend it. Now do you underst
and me!”

  “Yes. You’re a lecher.”

  34

  On the foothills of the Wailing Mountains above d’go-Vanieta Mi’Holoie spoke to the forepriests of the Gathering of Ache. “Is it enough to be sharp? A merciful man may be sharp. Will the point of a needle that penetrates flesh pass through steel? Flesh is mastered by Metal and Metal is mastered by Cruelty. Our Love of God’s Flesh has smelted us, the journey here has purified our Metal, and the Tourney of Extreme Trial has hardened our hearts to Cruel Temper. At dawn we pierce the metal of this heresy to its Arant flesh. Cruelty is not deflected. The Arant shall willingly offer us Feast by sunset.”

  The Clei scribe Saneef in Memories of a Gathering

  BENDAEIN HOSA-KAIEL was old enough to be wise yet young enough to be willing to partake in an arduous crusade. He had long been known as a man of action whose cautious strategy had extended Kaiel influence eastward around the Itraiel almost to the Sea of Tears. He was a scholar and a prime voice of the Expansionists. The full ten fingermen of his Hand Council argued with him in the den of his mansion, only Joesai remaining stoically silent.

  Bendaein’s face design was asymmetrical, built around knife wounds he had received during the gruesome subjugation of the lower Itraiel as a precocious youth. The marred face, layered with experience, gave this Event Mover authority in the eyes of his fellows but to Joesai it looked like the slashed face of a loser. The younger man had heard over mead that Bendaein had been skinned during the opening play of the Itraiel campaign and had been forced to borrow a coat to survive.

  Joesai broke a toothpick with casual force. Bendaein did have a reputation as a fast learner. However, from his pedantic words, Joesai suspected that he was not so much of a fast learner as he was a fast reader. He had even minted a name for their foolhardy venture: the Gathering of Outrage — useful if they should survive long enough to be written into history.

  Bendaein planned to execute his Gathering with a meticulous respect for the formalities established by previous Gatherings. Such was Geta’s meager transworld law. Joesai found himself displeased with this sensible approach. A Gathering was by its nature an aberration, a response to something the Chants could not anticipate. Who would have predicted human genes in profane bugs? What could any past Gathering say about that crime?

  Joesai grunted objections, mainly to himself, while others talked. Tradition was for the everyday: marriage and food and love and death. He felt in his ribcage the danger in patterning actions upon the rituals of past Gatherings. What did any of them have in common? If you really studied them you found that Gatherings had a predisposition to disperse in the desert from hunger and thirst. The underclans had a name for the phenomenon — a Gathering of Bones.

  Joesai had contempt for the self-righteous indignation he was hearing. The Kaiel must know what a Gathering could become! They were a Gathering’s wardens who had stayed to feel its consequences! When the whisky was flowing did not Kaiel jokes hint that Mi’Holoie’s crusaders had sacked wealthy d’go-Vanieta — from whose ashes Kaiel-hontokae was to rise — more from the hunger of the trek than from piety?

  His mind wandered to thoughts of Kathein as his eyes wandered from Bendaein to the wall tapestries. The weaving was of Orthei craftsmanship, a rich scene of mass Ritual Suicide, common enough as a theme, save that Joesai could not locate its source. The rite was not as it was in these parts of the world. The man and the woman making their Contribution had slit their throats rather than their wrists and blood ran down their bodies in crimson dye, their eyes vacant. Temple courtesans and luxury abounded, the excuse for the tapestry. A particularly voluptuous courtesan, life-size, caught him with the enticing look of her threads.

  She had forgotten the one she had just brought to the Last Pleasure and seemed to stare at Joesai intently, hoping for more. The woven carvings of her body were tight geometrical designs that flowed along her curves. She reminded him of Kathein and he smelled Kathein’s perfume, his loins stirring while he half returned the courtesan’s glance and would have faded into the tapestry to that couch and his dreams of Kathein had his startled ears not caught talk of a great land march.

  Getans were a land-oriented people on a world of eleven disjoint seas. They tended to think in terms of mountain and plain, since every sea could be bypassed if necessary. No Gathering had ever had to challenge an island rule and that in itself made tradition worthless in the present case.

  “Taking Soebo by land we’re more liable to drown than set table for Judgment Feast,” Joesai lashed dryly, speaking for the first time.

  Bendaein was not troubled by sarcasm. “There is also land between here and Soebo. Would you have us row it or sail?”

  Joesai grunted noncommittally. He was soured by the role he had been awarded. His mission was to set up an undefended Advance Inquest in the Plaza at Soebo. Such effrontery in Mnankrei territory would be Ritual Suicide without the trappings of temple decor. Prime Predictor Aesoe, acting through Bendaein, was brazenly asking him to make his Contribution to the Race, a sacrifice move in some larger strategy.

  Of course there were advantages to heading the advance suicide party. He would be beyond Bendaein’s communication lines. Then he could create his own campaign. What infuriated Joesai was knowing Aesoe knew he would disobey orders. Thus the master plan must call for a man to kill himself flouting clan discipline.

  Aesoe can see my death and why such a death will be useful to him — may those who love him vomit at his funeral!

  Joesai broke another toothpick and cleaned his nails. He was not listening to the Grand Strategy. I’ll need Noe, he thought. One-wife was related to the sea-going peoples of the northern Njarae who were not pleased with Mnankrei rule. She will have access to ships. He thanked God for his family. They were loyal, come gain or sorrow.

  A conference with brother-husbands Gaet and Hoemei was in order. He felt the old wild pressure in him, the need to strike without thinking — which was his asset in an emergency but which he had learned was deadly if there was time for thought. The creche was closing in again. Gaet and Hoemei could calm him. There was a way out. There had always been a way out. Hoemei could think through any trap.

  I wonder if Aesoe will ever turn on my shortest brother? I must be here if that happens. They need me. Now he needed them.

  Joesai’s fierce longing for action pulled at him. Dreaming about Kathein, he sneaked away from the lifeless meeting. It was because of her that he had been marked for death. The sweet mystery of that woman had driven him to oppose Aesoe’s will with relentless abandon, until his persistent violation of official Kaiel strategy brought the final disfavor from a Council dominated by Aesoe’s ambition. In opposing Aesoe’s seduction of Kathein, he had opposed Aesoe’s drive upon distant Sorrow. Now he was expendable. He would be used to blunt the Mnankrei who also had designs upon the coast.

  He remembered a happy Kathein splashing nude in the pool of their central courtyard, wearing a crown of love vine, pink with the first buds of flower. Gaet had failed to herd her with the rest of his family to the Founding Day clan dinner with its mock Arant pudding made of beans. Kathein slipped away, not wanting to go, and he had slipped out of Gael’s clutches, unwilling to leave her. Love vine was not flowering now, but he bought some anyway in the half hope it would touch her memory. How could a Six-love of such intensity ever have failed at the bonds?

  Beside her door he debated whether to whack the knocker or throw the arm of the silly electron bell she maintained to elevate herself above the rest of humanity. Either way he would risk having the door shut in his face. It was easier to pick the lock and just enter.

  “Joesai!” She found him on the second floor, staring at his baby.

  “Ho! He’s a big one!” Casually he handed her the green love vine. “Remember when we made him?”

  She threw the vine away. “I do not! You carry your arse between your eyes! Aesoe will kill you when he finds you’ve been here!”

  Joesai grinned at her and she
trembled between reach and withdrawal.

  “I made something for you,” she said as if she’d just cooked up a special batch of poison. “Not because I like you, but because you’ll need it, you fool. I have better things to do with my time!”

  She tricked him into a room with four of her people. That was a disappointment; he’d wanted them to be alone. “What is it?” he asked, looking at a box built into a packsack, cluttered with black knobs and a reel of wire.

  “It’s a portable rayvoice. It doesn’t speak but it gives off powerful pulses that can be detected here in Kaiel-hontokae even if you are as far away as Soebo. Teenae helped me with the coding. It is slow but it is redundant. That means, stupid, that your message will have so much repetition in it that it can smash through heavy noise and still be decoded. Hoemei will have the code. You’ll have to learn it.”

  “What use would I have for such a cumbersome contraption?” He was really quite pleased. Hoemei’s ability to locate his men in Soebo had made an immense impression. Better yet, Bendaein wouldn’t know what to make of it and the Mnankrei might never suspect worse than a soup pot.

  “You’re a dunderhead. I don’t even like you. Am I to receive no thanks?”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Anytime. All you want.”

  She stiffened under his arm. “Not that kind!”

  He held onto her body, refusing to be rejected. “Kathein. We love you.”

  She sneered. “That’s over. I have my own life and my own family, and my own lovers, if you please!”

  Joesai was bewildered by her hostility. Few women had ever loved him. The ones who had still held him. He clenched his mind until the pain went away, then searched for some common ground. “Teenae spoke of the wonders of the new Voice of God.”

  “… that you nearly lost for us!”

  He grinned contritely.

  “More of God’s words have appeared this high morning.” She sighed. “Joesai, I’m truly sorry if I’m irascible. I’m terrified. God is speaking to us; He has broken His Silence, and it’s not what I expected. I need your opinion. You. Your opinion. You’re the only person I know who cares enough about the heavens to understand what it might mean. I’ll show you the latest silvergraphs.”