Then she brought herself to Joesai’s room where she smashed her toe on one of Jokain’s wooden toys and, biting her tongue, found a place above the messy desk to hang the globe. She read some paragraphs of what Joesai had been writing. It was the sober list of attributes that a warrior clan would have to possess. She sat near him on the pillows. He was a sounder sleeper than Hoemei, and she had to pull his ears.
“Ho!” he started.
She rubbed his chest gently. “I see you still wear the amulet I gave you.”
“It has brought me luck.”
“Not luck. It has magic Liethe power.”
“How did you get here?”
“You were dreaming about me and the amulet summoned me. It’s a superior way of travelling.”
“What was I dreaming about?”
“You were dreaming about making love to me!” She kissed him.
“I don’t believe you. I must have been dreaming about Comfort.”
She smiled in the swinging light like an apparition and touched the carved charm to her breast. “I am Comfort. I told you when I gave you the amulet that it would protect you. All you had to do was need me and I would be there, pazam! just like I’m here now! I take on different names depending on my mood.” She straddled him.
“Ho! I’ve never heard a more unlikely story. How do you travel so fast?”
“I don’t; I live in the amulet,” she said mischievously.
“So that’s why you are such a small handful.”
She had not wanted to talk to Hoemei during their body loving, but she wanted to talk to Joesai with every thrust. “You’re beautiful,” she said.
“I’m ugly.”
“You’re my master!”
“That’s why I’m underneath.”
“I’d like to be your woman at your Ritual Suicide.”
“I’d rather be your man at your Ritual Suicide.”
“Do you like se-Tufi women?”
“I’ll take three of them at the breaking of fast, slow-fried.”
“What was it like to make love to Comfort?”
“We did it with a stone in her God’s Eye.”
“That’s a romantic story.”
“For an encore she poisoned me!”
“I love you.”
“Now you’re getting wax-mouthed.”
“But I do!”
He had to be silent while he held her in the final heaving embrace. He sighed. She kissed him, wet little kisses while the tension went out of their bodies.
“You can go back into your amulet now,” he said.
“No,” she teased.
“I was afraid of that.”
“You have to come with me.” She unhooked the bioluminous globe in one hand and pulled Joesai to his feet with the other. “Every pleasure has its price!”
The smooth-skinned Liethe with the sapling legs and rounded hips and firm small breasts and laughing face dragged the fiercely symboled Kaiel giant down to Hoemei’s quarters. The two naked brothers confronted one another guiltily.
“You have to hug each other!” she ordered. When they did, she made them hug her, too. She cried while she dressed — a wave finally smashing into the beach — and disappeared into the dawn.
65
Only a hermit can avoid talk of weddings and politics.
HE’S MORE OF an Expansionist than you are!”
The Kaiel woman arguing in the tavern at Sorrow wore her finery, and silver cheek-inlay that fitted the curves of her facial cicatrice. Her two intense male friends were also Kaiel and were dressed in their formal black robes. All three of them had arrived from Kaiel-hontokae for the wedding. The men were unhappy. It had already been announced that Hoemei was to be the new Prime Predictor.
“His nose bows to his anus and asks permission to sneeze.”
“Why is it that you think he is so formal and cautious?”
“He forbade his brother to move on Soebo when that city was ripe for capture, fearing illusional Mnankrei terrors.”
The woman was exasperated. “But Joesai reached the city before Bendaein arrived! He took the city within days with little murder and less disturbance than Aesoe predicted. Because of that easy transition the underclans there have long ago shifted their loyalty to us. Hoemei is an Expansionist. Of course he is! He was trained by Aesoe!”
“But he is afraid to grow however much his heart…” The creche female interrupted with annoyance. “… which is why he is Prime Predictor and you are not. He is no Lenin, like you, with grandiose plans for immediate world domination and a bee brain to go with them. He is a complex conqueror with a complex mind.”
“You do not sense the simplicity of Aesoe’s plan?”
“I like simple plans! I hate plans so simple they are inadequate for the task at hand! It is not enough to be able to lead men! Who cannot lead the underclans to their death by choosing to oil one’s speech and to veneer one’s lethal program with slogans to impress the masses? Look how that fool Lenin became a butcher trying to extricate himself from the bizarre consequences of his simplistic solutions.”
“Aesoe was hardly as simplistic as you claim. You slight him. When did he ever fail? He had more success than Tae!”
“Aesoe knew small systems very well. He was like Napoleon in Europe. His disasters would have come in a larger theater — like Russia. Hoemei predicted his coming failures!”
The older of the men scoffed and downed his mead; the younger man smiled at the creche-woman’s fire and spoke. “You underestimate Aesoe. He was a superb organizer.”
“How would you know? You know nothing about organization on anything larger than a city Bok level! You do not rule a world in the same fashion that you rule a Bok!”
The girl-woman, with her auburn locks shaved along two off-centerlines, was one of those who had worked within the loose but dedicated structures which had aligned themselves with Hoemei’s organization — though she had remained so far-removed from him that he was unaware of her loyalty. Once she had stood next to him and he had accidentally bumped into her and excused himself and smiled. She remembered his smile to this day. She was one of the many people he attracted who somehow made his projects go easily when he wasn’t even sure where the help was coming from. He would have appreciated her, had he known her, for he enjoyed people who could quickly duplicate his vision and who could create a role for themselves within it.
“I do not like Hoemei’s opposition to our bargaining with the Itraiel,” said the older man darkly, filling up his mug from the mead pitcher and spilling some on the wooden table.
“Have you read The Forge of War or only skimmed it? A military clan is not to be founded casually to pursue the immediate goals of an Expansionist who wants more paperwork for his cluttered desk!”
Their serving girl came over for a moment to wipe the table and they changed the subject. “What do you suppose they’ll be wearing?” asked the young man.
The barmaid glowed at gossip which interested her intensely. “I’ve seen the dress of Joesai at the tailor shop where it was made by my friend and splendid it is in blue and silver brocade with great insects woven in!”
“Will they be by soon?” she was asked.
“You’ll know! We’re closing up then!”
Once the happy girl was gone, the three resumed their quarrel. “Expansion is God’s goal!”
“But God deplores Racial Suicide! A military clan is the most dangerous idea that the Kaiel have ever played with! It is worthy of Hoemei’s caution. Have you seen his military plans? I’ve read the report. It is still too tentative to commit to the Archives. Half of it was written by his brother Joesai. Still, preliminary as it is, it is an awesome document. They show us ways we can safely build a military clan. Beside these maran thoughts, Aesoe is a Napoleon wading through the snows of Russia! Hoemei will take longer to build his clan. He will use it with more caution, more restraint, and not as soon. But he will not stop at Moscow! God has brought us here to mend our wounds and to meditate upon the harshness of human life. When we pass into God’s Sky the very stars will twinkle from the shakings of the Riethe. They will fear to touch us because they will never know where our dagger is. And those future Getans will thank Hoemei for his farsighted caution!”