Other than this scant information, the letter had left detailed directions to Droon, with the day and time his first assignation with Hirryai had been set, and reminded him that it was customary for a first-meshed couple to exchange gifts.
On Sharrar’s advice, Shursta had taken pains. He had strung for Hyrryai a long necklace of ammonite, shark teeth, and dark pearls the color of thunderclouds. Ammonite for antiquity, teeth for ferocity, and pearls for sorrow. A fearsome gift and perhaps presumptuous, but Sharrar had approved.
“Girls like sharp things,” she’d said, “so the teeth are just right. As for the pearls, they’re practically a poem.”
“I should have stuck with white ones,” he’d said ruefully. “The regular round kind.”
“Bah!” said Sharrar, her pointy face with its incongruously long, strong jaw set stubbornly. “If she doesn’t see you’re a prize, I’ll descend upon Droon and roast her organs on the tines of my trident, just see if I don’t!”
Whereupon Shursta had flicked his strand of stone, teeth and pearl at her. She’d caught it with a giggle, wrapping it with great care in the fine lace purse she’d made.
Hyrryai Blodestone awaited him. More tide pool than beach, the small assignation spot had been used for this purpose before. Boulders had been carved into steps leading from sea road to cove, but these were ancient and crumbling into marram grass.
In this sheltered spot, a natural rock formation had been worked gently into the double curve of a lovers’ bench. His intended bride sat at the far end. Any farther and she would topple off.
From the smudges beneath her eyes and the harried filaments flying out from her wing-black braid, she looked as if she had been sitting there all night. Her head turned as he approached. Perhaps it was the heaviness of his breath she heard. It labored after the ten miles he’d trudged that morning, from the steepness of the steps, at his astonishment at the color of her hair. The breezy sweetness of dawn had long since burned away. It was noon.
Probably, Shursta thought, falling back a step back as her gaze met his, she could smell him where she sat.
“Shursta Sarth,” she greeted him.
“Damisel Blodestone.”
Shursta had wanted to say her name. Had wanted to say it casually, as she spoke his, with a cordial nod of the head. Instead his chin jutted up and awry, as if a stray hook had caught it. Her name stopped in his throat and changed places at the last second with the formal honorific. He recalled Sharrar’s nonsense about names having meaning. It no longer seemed absurd.
Hyrryai, the Gleaming One. Had she been so called for the long, shining lines in her hair? The fire at the bottom of her eyes, like lava trapped in obsidian? Was it the clear, bold glow of her skin, just browner than blushing coral, just more golden than sand?
Since his tongue would not work, as it rarely did for strangers, Shursta shrugged off his rucksack. The shoulder straps were damp in his grip. He fished out the lace purse with its mesh-gift and held it out to her, stretching his arm to the limit so that he would not have to step nearer.
She glanced from his flushed face to the purse. With a short sigh, as if to brace herself, she stood abruptly, plucked the purse from his hand, and dumped the contents into her palm.
Shursta’s arm dropped.
Hyrryai Blodestone examined the necklace closely. Every tooth, every pearl, every fossilized ridge of ammonite. Then, with another breath, this one quick and indrawn as the other had been exhaled, she poured the contents back and thrust the purse at him.
“Go home, man of Sif,” she said. “I was mistaken. I apologize that you came all this way.”
Not knowing whether he were about to protest or cozen or merely ask why, Shursta opened his mouth. Felt that click in the back of his throat where too many words welled in too narrow a funnel. Swallowed them all.
His hand closed over the purse Sharrar had made.
After all, it was no worse than he had expected. Better, for she had not laughed at him. Her face, though cold, expressed genuine sorrow. He suspected the sorrow was with her always. He would not stay to exacerbate it.
This time, he managed a creditable bow, arms crossed over his chest in a gesture of deepest respect. Again he took up his rucksack, though it seemed a hundred times heavier now. He turned away from her, letting his rough hair swing into his face.
“Wait.”
Her hand was on his arm. He wondered if they had named her Hyrryai because she left streaks of light upon whatever she touched.
“Wait. Please. Come and sit. I think I must explain. If it pleases you to hear me, I will talk awhile. After that, you may tell me what you think. What you want. From this.” She spread her hands.
Shursta did not remove his rucksack again, but he sat with her. Not on the bench, but on the sand, with their backs against the stone seat. He drew in the sand with a broken shell and did not look at her except indirectly, for fear he would stare. For a while, only the waves spoke.
When Hyrryai Blodestone began, her tones were polite but informal, like a lecturer of small children. Like Sharrar with her grayheads. As if she did not expect Shursta to hear her, or hearing, listen.
“The crones of the Astrion Council know the names of all the Glennemgarra youth yet unmeshed. All their stories. Who tumbled which merry widow in which sea cave. Who broke his drunken head on which barman’s club. Who comes from the largest family of mesh-kin, and what her portions are. You must understand”—the tone of her voice changed, and Shursta glanced up in time to see the fleetingest quirk of a corner smile—“the secrets of the council do not stay in the council. In my home, at least, it is the salt of every feast, the gossip over tealeaves and coffee grounds, the center of our politics and our hearths. With a mother, grandmother, several aunts and great aunts and three cousins on the council, I cannot escape it. When we were young, we did not want to. We thought of little else than which dashing, handsome man we would…”
She stopped. Averted her face. Then she asked lightly, “Shall I tell you your story as the Blodestones know it?”
When he answered, after clearing his throat, it was in the slow, measured sentences that made most people suck their teeth and stamp the ground with impatience. Hyrryai Blodestone merely watched with her flickering eyes.
“Shursta Sarth is not yet twenty-five. He has one sibling, born lame. A fisherman by trade. Not a very successful one. Big as a whale. Stupid as a jellyfish. Known to his friends, if you can call them that, as ‘Sharkbait.’”
Hyrryai was nodding, slowly. Shursta’s heart sank like a severed anchor. He had hoped, of course, that the story told of Shursta Sarth in the Astrion Council might be different. That somehow they had known more of him, even, than he knew of himself. Seeing his crestfallen expression, Hyrryai took up the tale.
“Shursta Sarth is expected either to win a one-year bride at games, do his duty by her, and watch her leave the moment her contract ends, or to take under his wing a past-primer lately put aside for a younger womb. However, as his sister will likely be his dependent for life, this will deter many of the latter, who might have taken him on for the sake of holding their own household. It is judged improbable that Shursta Sarth will follow the common practice of having his sister removed to the Beggars’ Quarter and thus improve his own lot.”
Shursta must have made an abrupt noise or movement, for she glanced at him curiously. He realized his hands had clenched. Again, she almost smiled.
“Your sister made the purse?”