Courtship Rite

by Donald Kingsbury

  Comfort sighed with faraway eyes. “I feel so lonely with you. I suppose that’s because I haven’t known you long enough. I’m not at the middle yet.”

  He pulled her to him, pleased with the warmth of her small body, feeling less lonely than he had for all the time he had been on Mnank. He caressed her. There was nothing he could say that was really appropriate. “A man should not talk to a Liethe of his wives.”

  “Nonsense,” she replied sadly. “I have to know everything.”

  Joesai wondered why, on the eve of every great event, the talk was so trivial — of gossip, of past events, of the shape of breasts, of how much whisky a man could hold before he fell over, of love and loneliness. She had lapsed into silence, words gone from her.

  “Hi there,” he said.

  “I don’t want you ever to forget me.” She took him then.

  It was still dark when fever woke him. He tried to move and couldn’t. He could hardly open his eyes. The pale face of Comfort was staring at him. She was fully dressed in her brown travelling robe.

  “You’re sick,” she said.

  He tried to move his tongue and it was like moving a mouthful of dough.

  “The paralysis isn’t part of the sickness. I’ve poisoned you with the juice of ei-cactus so that you won’t be able to kill me for having given all your judges the sickness.”

  He tried to lunge at her by sheer will and managed only to fall on his own arm and pin it. Ponderous grunting noises came from his mouth.

  She rolled him into a more comfortable position. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it. You were not wise to trust me. I arranged the escape of your friends with Nie’t’Fosal. So that you would not question me.” And she was gone.

  He could still think. Thoughts came with an unfamiliar despair. I’ve made the one mistake I’ve never been allowed to make. He was dead and the Advance Court was dead and Joesai maran-Kaiel was an idiot. Aesoe had won, as usual. Joesai had been a foil to bring out the most deadly counterthrust of the Mnankrei and now they had made it and Bendaein would know what he was up against and respond to that, Bendaein the Cautious. I’ve disgraced my family. He could still cry though he could not wipe the tears from his eyes.

  Hoemei had trusted him to wait, and he had grown impatient and gone to the city and brought back the pestilence as a lover. Noe had warned him. Teenae would have shot Comfort at a hundred man-lengths. Gaet would mourn him as he had Sanan — and then go find another husband. Fever began to take the coherence from his mind. Kathein’s child, bearing his genes, would give whatever kalothi he possessed one more risky chance but Kathein’s face faded into Joesai’s last image of Oelita — mad with her sudden belief in God. He had driven her to her death and now the Liethe were returning the favor.

  Joesai’s most horrible loss was that there could be no Funeral Feast. No one would share his flesh. He would be cremated, unclean.

  52

  Why should a government which is doing what it believes is right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons.

  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin from The Forge of War

  THE STORM GALE lashed in from the sea, driving the spume off the wave tops. Teenae’s spies ducked into the hut and told her that the Mnankrei vessels had arrived. There hadn’t been enough warning because of the fog. Cursing, she scampered to the observation station just in time to see the three ships breaking into the relative quiet of the bay. She shouted orders in her first moment of confusion and then relaxed. Tonpa would have to delay unloading until the storm had subsided. She had plenty of time. The surprise would be hers. She waited.

  A full day it took for the two smaller double-masted ships to dock and begin disgorging their wheat and casks of famous Mnankrei whisky. A flat barge shuttled loads of grain from the bigger three-masted vessel, Tonpa’s command. Curious boats surrounded the flagship. One of them was Teenae’s. Through a lens she watched the Stgal greet their saviors who would have the Stgal for snacks once their usefulness was done.

  She gave orders for her rifles to take up position. Each of Tonpa’s men was assigned a double tail — an inconspicuous heretic and a Kaiel rifleman. Poor Gaet was probably hiding somewhere. He would not touch a rifle and he was not fond of violence. She had three portable rayvoices in operation and a whole system of rooftop flag stations, except she was using people and coded costumes instead of flags.

  The first important message she received was that her bomb had been attached to the bottom of the flagship. It had two fuses, one a clock, already set and ticking, the other a sonically activated switch. The Mnankrei knew nothing of war.

  The second important message she received was that the fire bombs for the smaller docked ships were in place. The Mnankrei knew nothing about the fate of the Spanish Armada.

  The third important message she received, from a horrified runner, was that Gaet had taken it upon himself to negotiate with the Mnankrei and had been forcibly removed to the Temple and was now a prisoner of the sea priests and the Stgal.

  She left her command post in a towering rage with four Kaiel riflemen who had to listen to the brunt of her cursing. “That husband of mine! A smile! A caress! A little flattery! A little haggling! He thinks himself able to trade with any man! What did I do to deserve a husband like that! I’ll have his hide for a duffel bag! He eats with his anus and pisses with his mouth! God! God above!”

  Her rifle was swinging in the fierce grip of her hand, her black hair flowing and flapping about the bald streak down the center of her head that needed a shave, her breasts bobbing inside her light blouse with every angry pace that took her closer to the Temple.

  She met the slyly smiling Stgal who presented her with their demand that the Kaiel return whence they had come. Her mind was a winter’s storm. She had to think quickly or Gaet would die. She wasn’t ready yet. They had captured Gaet too soon. The ships weren’t fully unloaded and the people of Sorrow needed that wheat. She pretended to pace, to consider the Stgal’s demand. Instead she passed to high ground and gave the signal.

  A ripple of gaily colored gowns paraded upon the rooftops of Sorrow.

  Distant whoomps broke the silence. There was a pause while the expression on the face of the Stgal changed. Then two great shafts of fire rose into the sky. “I shall write you a reply,” she said, turning to the Stgal. She could hear rifle cracks. There would be feasting tonight but her mind could only think of her beloved Gaet who had bought her in the child market. She fought back the tears, at a loss for words. Somehow the words that came to the paper she was preparing were Leninesque in their heartlessness.

  “Your message received. It is necessary that Gaet maran-Kaiel be released immediately.” Immediately was Lenin’s favorite word. “All Stgal who do not comply will be pebbled without mercy by sunfall.” She paused to cross out “pebbled” — they would not know what that meant. She substituted instead a Leninist word they would understand, “liquefied”, and continued. “The Mnankrei fleet no longer exists. The sea priests occupying the town have been eliminated. Conduct yourselves accordingly.”

  She triggered her rifle to fire into the air under the nose of the young priest, shattering his nerves, and sent him to deliver her demand.

  Stgal lookouts in the Temple tower saw the destruction of the Mnankrei fleet before the sea priest guests were aware of the disaster. There was whispering. Then Teenae’s message arrived, stated in a language so blunt, and promising consequences so bizarre, that they immediately switched sides without telling the Mnankrei until they were in irons and Gaet freed.

  “You are emotional and not logical,” she raged when she was escorted into Gaet’s presence. The sight of him whole, with his skin still on, quieted her trembling. “Oh Gaet!”

  “I’ve been signing up my captors for my constituency,” said Gaet, smiling.

  “You machine! I don’t think you were a bit worried while I was out there scared to death for your life!”

  “You’ve created problems for
us!”

  “I captured the whole town!”

  “I was in the middle of negotiating with the Storm Master for a pair of boots when we were so rudely interrupted.”

  “You have him?” Teenae questioned, a glint of hatred in her eyes.

  “He’s in the tower.”

  “I get him! Tonpa is mine! I want to conduct the Last Rites! I’m a priest. You made me a Kaiel when you married me.”

  “There is no pleasure in revenge,” said Gaet sadly.

  “There is! I want my boots! Nobody else has boots with such a pretty storm-wave design!”

  Later that evening, Kaiel priest Teenae, Symbol Master, sat in a carved chair in an opulent room of the Temple that had yesterday belonged to the House of Stgal. Her long black hair was washed and curled, the strip along the top of her head freshly shaved, her face flushed with its furrows that emphasized her cheekbones and the sensual turn of a mouth practiced at smiling. She wore the formal black robe of the Kaiel, stiffly, unused to its folds.

  Tonpa was brought in naked, wrists manacled in brass chain, holding his head high, long hair braided into his beard, his emotions hidden behind its flying-storm-wave cicatrice. He was guarded by two erect children of the creche.

  She felt a cold hatred. She was going to put him through the terror she had never forgotten. Instead she laughed. The words of Oelita were speaking to her of mercy but she felt no mercy.

  “We arrive here,” she mocked his long-remembered speech, “after building a road to bring in relief supplies for a Mnankrei-induced famine. This village lies across difficult mountains, but we think it is our sacred obligation to alleviate the famine of these valued members of the Race. And what do we find? A scheme of conquest based on the rule of misery. You ally yourself to those who create abominable life forms wickedly designed to destroy sacred food. You burn silos.”

  She waited for his reply. Tonpa remained rigid.

  “You do not reply? Tonpa, you have overestimated our gullibility and now we have set a Gathering upon your clan. Speak! Defend yourself!”

  “Your mind is made up. I offer no defense.”

  “Because you cannot defend yourself!” And the hatred was there again. “I am not in a merciful mood!”

  “I granted you mercy.”

  “That was not mercy! That was part of your plan to spread lies about the Kaiel among the people of Sorrow. You were fatally stupid to construct a lie that would not convince us also. I would be noseless or dead had I needed your mercy.”

  “I will work for you.”

  She laughed. “Indeed you will! As my boots! I offer you an honorable death. You have violated the Code of Survival. The Race must work as one, not against itself. To atone, you will make your Contribution to the Race so that it may be rid of the elements of the gene pattern that came together as such a vile individual.”

  He seemed to study her, testing her implacable feelings for an opening, but finding none, he accepted his fate stoically. He might resist, even try an escape. Then he would die by a stab in the back, a dishonorable death.

  Teenae rose. “I have been reading the Gentle Heretic. She is a woman of mercy and very convincing.” She let her expression flow to softness; she touched his arm — to torture him with hope. She wanted to torture him. But when she escorted him to the great tower room, he knew there was no hope.

  The high Stgal were there in crimson, stripped of their priestly insignia, watching with terrified unease to see black-clad foreign priests so casually asking for the life of another foreign priest. Gaet stood by, inscrutable. A choir of young Kaiel were there to Chant… and to guard. A young temple courtesan smiled lazily in her gaudy half-nakedness, ready to administer the last pleasures. The tower’s view was awesome: sprawling village blending into sea that reflected a giant moon, and in the other direction, the purple mountains.

  Teenae erased her hatred. Gaet said she could not conduct the Last Rite unless she had prepared a clear soul. She was willing to make that sacrifice. Storm Master Tonpa remained pale. He stumbled. Had he ever been fearsome? Had he ever hung her cruelly from the yardarm of his topsail? Had he ever played with her, half drowning her? She seated the large man of the sea before the blood bowl, shackling him there, and began her Rite.

  “We did not have kalothi. We died of the Unknown Danger. And God in His mercy took pity and carried us from the Unknown Place across His Sky so that we might find kalothi. We wept when He gave us Geta. We moaned when He cast us out. But God’s Heart was stone to our tears…”

  Teenae was barely listening to the monotony of the memorized words. She had a recipe in mind for roast with potatoes and sauce that she would serve to Gaet back in the hills where they could be alone. She knew a tanner and a wonderful cobbler here in town. The boots would be thigh high and flaring at the calf. There would be enough leather left over for a new vest. Perhaps she could wear it with her green blouse and fawn trousers.

  She stretched out her arms in salutation, holding the priest’s wooden talismans, the Black Hand and the White Hand. “Two Hands build kalothi. Life is the Test. Death is the Change. Life gives us the Strength. Death takes from us the Weakness. For the Race to find kalothi the Foot of Life takes the Road of Death.”

  She forgot her unfamiliar lines for a moment and smiled at Tonpa, then glanced shyly at Gaet. Something giggled inside her at the dour expressions of the Stgal. “All of us contribute to God’s Purpose…”

  She was eager to reach the Giving of the Last Delights. The temple woman was beautiful. There would be Chanting and moonlight. Would Tonpa’s fear, visible now, seeping through his pores, be enough to make him impotent?

  “… the greatest honor is to contribute Death for we all love Life.” God, the view up here was staggering! “It is with awe that I accept the offering of your defective genes…”

  Tonpa was staring at her with rancor. He could not resist a parting snarl. “All of you will die a death of horror!”

  53

  When masters play, treachery is their least valued tactic, not because the ways of deceit are ineffective but because of long-term consequences. Is not the treacherous player isolated by mistrust during the end game?

  Tae ran-Kaiel at the Funeral Feast for Seir on-Biel

  HER KILLING MOOD as invisible as her secret name, the Queen of Life-before-Death stalked slowly through the Swift Wind’s victory party in the se-Tufi persona of Sugarpie, a woman who wore gaudy clothes of her own design, flirted without much interest in sex, and was an avid gourmet of gossip. Sugarpie’s smile was quick to say hello and as quick as her eyes to wander in search of people more worthy of her smile. This evening she was spreading colorful rumors of the violent end of Radiance who had turned traitor for the sake of the hairy Kaiel.

  There were no Mnankrei wives present. This was Nie’t’Fosal’s victory party, a celebration of male prowess. Everywhere the talk gave the greatest Winterstorm Master of the Mnankrei credit for destroying the Gathering of Outrage as easily as the Red Death tree poisons the swarming gei. The tales were of Fosal’s invincibility. No enemy stood against him! no friend dared betray him! no woman dominated him! He had promised his followers that in time he would snuff out the Gathering as if it had never been. And he had been right! The final fevered agonies of the Advance Court embellished the tales like decoration upon cake.

  Humility finally targeted the ideal carrier of her lie. From a distance she saw’t’Fosal at the gaming tables being served by a naked courtesan whose scarifications had been outlined with blue and red paint. This garish beauty left her master for a moment to fetch him a drink and Humility caught her just long enough to tell her of the grim death of her Liethe rival, knowing that the story would go directly to the ears of the Winterstorm Master.

  The antidote ’t’Fosal had treacherously instructed Radiance to take after she had infected the food of the Kaiel was no antidote, but a poison violent enough to rip the muscles from her bone. He was not a grateful man. Tonight he would be keyed to hear about
that death. Let him feel the elation of total success. An enemy with his belly full was a dead enemy.

  As she drifted back through the party, Humility wondered at this madman’s perception of people. He despised women and so he perceived the Liethe as incompetent to perform a simple chemical analysis. Humility herself had done the preliminary toxicity study of his “antidote” as a normal precaution and had been appalled by the crudity of his chemicals as well as his tactics. Only a man who longed to be vastly superior to others needed to see his enemy as a fool who might be persuaded to eat strychnine like candy. Nie was a brilliant biologist lacking understanding of people. He did not even know that to murder a Liethe and leave the slightest trail was an act of suicide.

  Moments later Humility was inside the cabin of a small canal boat with an adolescent se-Tufi, changing from the guise of Sugar-pie to the black robes of the night assassin. They chatted about romantic love. The young girl was disdainful and sure that it would never catch her. She was trying to say that she was in love with her brave older sister.

  Humility thought only of Hoemei. Scowlmoon, trailing a ruddy scarf upon the canal, was all she had to remember him by. His room in the round ovoids of the Kaiel Palace had looked upon Scowlmoon, night and day, and all the changing moods of that moon had watched the loving of their bodies. Why should she still feel the touch of his hand above all others?

  The two identical women, one smaller and less breasted than the other, poled the boat to the buildings of Nie’t’Fosal’s residence where Radiance had been but once. Humility kissed her young sister and disappeared into the shadows, and, from the cover of a silent alley, climbed the walls until she gained one of the slate rooftops that led to the tower lair of her prey. A rope trick and a swift flying fall took her to a parapet of the tower. Another climb found the hexagonal window. Nie had never noticed how Radiance had spent one pensive interlude beside the window. Now the lock broke easily and she entered this place where the leader of the Swift Wind did most of his lonely thinking and some of his chemical trickery. Once inside she reclosed the hexagon.