She watched Kathein from across the dance floor.
Then Gaet started to invite her to dance but three pretty women from Sorrow stole him away for the complicated weave. He was enjoying himself gluttonously.
She moved over to eavesdrop on Teenae who was with a group of her o’Tghalie clan, laughing. Teenae puzzled Humility, for she had no convenient place to put two-wife in the Liethe spectrum of women — perhaps because Teenae wasn’t really Kaiel and she wasn’t really o’Tghalie. She was having fun insulting her male relatives. No matter what they said, she topped them with a grin. They couldn’t even make a crack with a hidden mathematical meaning without her catching it. They seemed to like her — though this was the family that had sold her to Gaet.
Humility wondered why she was so melancholy on this gay night. She decided to forget the maran and just enjoy herself. She found a young Kaiel who did a superb yaba, and then joined him later in the Red Canyon Reel. People noticed her dancing and called for her to do a solo and she obliged, but only because Hoemei was watching. Then she found her way back to the food and ate ravenously and disappeared into an unused game room where she stared at the boards. For a while she moved a Black Queen on an empty chess board, talking to it. Then she went to sleep. But even sleep did not please her, could not quiet her, and she wandered out of the Temple to find a place alone where she could watch the dawn come over the mountains. Noe found her there.
“I’ve been looking for you!”
Noe did not like her, she knew. What did a rescued temple courtesan have to complain about anyway? “I’m having a chat with Getasun.”
Noe sat beside her on the stairs. “I’ve decided I like you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It is with apologies that I remember my rudeness to you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I was watching my marriage disintegrate and I was upset,” explained Noe.
“Sometimes we are too close to something to see what is really happening,” said Humility. “Who would let the maran break apart? We’d skin you alive and boil you in oil if you dared!”
“My marriage is precious to me,” continued Noe simply. “It wasn’t always. There was a time when I wanted out, and hated Joesai for bringing me back, knowing that he, of the three, liked me least. That was long ago. I was immature.”
“You have no fears from me.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I really think you are loyal to us. That’s why I like you. Loyalty is the most important thing a person can ever find.”
“It is one of the importances.”
“Honey, I’m going to intrude on your privacy. Another of your names is Comfort, isn’t it?”
Humility went into White Mind and smiled, pausing long enough to think out the consequences of any answer. “Comfort is my sister. I have a hard enough time telling the difference between my sisters myself; how could you?”
“There are chemical ways. I am an accomplished biochemist.”
Humility did not believe such ways existed. How could se-Tufi clones be differentiated by chemistry?
Noe took Humility’s arm and showed her a small scratch. “I brushed against you when you were taking care of the children. Remember? Without your permission I infected you with the anti-toxin of Fosal’s Disease out of curiosity. The Kaiel did not trust the Liethe anti-toxin and we brought the disease home from Soebo and made our own. I brought it home. Ours has fewer side-effects than the Liethe variety, but still you should have had some swelling and a rash. Nothing. You are immune. Why would a Liethe from Kaiel-hontokae be immune to a disease that never left Soebo?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a biochemist.”
“I was with you a week in Soebo.”
“You were with my se-Tufi sister.”
“All right. I won’t insist. But you won’t change my mind. Comfort, whoever she was, saved Joesai’s life in her own strange way and I love that man. She was somehow in harmony with Hoemei for she did much to promote his predictions. Such manipulation weakened Aesoe considerably and made Hoemei ascendant. I think you helped us at the Palace. Did Aesoe ever suspect?”
“I am fond of your family,” said Humility, moved.
“Where are you staying?”
“My room at the inn.”
“Come with me.”
“No,” said the Liethe.
“I’m looking for Hoemei,” Noe tempted.
“All right.”
The wedding revelry was dispersing. Noe found her family in a tub in one of the tower rooms, scrubbing off their make-up. There was water all over the floor and they were splashing each other and shrieking. They were slightly drunk. “There she is!” shouted Gaet. “Get in the tub!”
“Not on your life!” said a grinning Noe.
“Get her in the tub!” Gaet ordered his family. A great naked Joesai and a little naked Teenae began to chase her.
She retreated down the hall, pulling her Liethe se-Tufi with her, and bolted the door of an apartment she had taken for herself. She was laughing. “I’m sitting this one out! I know what comes next! I’ve been to maran weddings before! I married those maniacs when there was only one of me!”
“Shall I give you your bath?”
“I’m a woman,” said Noe, surprised that a Liethe would offer to bathe a woman.
“You’re a priest, too.”
Noe lit the fire for the hot water and sank down on the pillows.
Humility began to undo her priest friend’s elaborate hairdo. Noe stared at her in the mirror. “What a wife you’d make!”
“Would you like another wife?” Humility asked mischievously.
“God forbid!”
“What is it like to be married?”
“Well now,” mused Noe, “if you are a single wife with three husbands…” She went into reverie. “They were always bringing home a new woman for the pillows on the excuse that they were looking to fill the empty wife slots. I think they had a great time. It made me sulk. How can you bring a new man home when you already have three of them? Now that the numbers are reversed with four of us and only three men, I think the situation will be interesting. How do you suppose the brothers will react when I bring home a nubile youth without a brain in his head and tell them so casually that he is a candidate for four-husband and don’t bother me tonight while I try him out.” She laughed. “I can’t wait!”
“You’re naughty!”
“I always was a spoiled brat.”
Noe tried to draw out the real woman in her Liethe but found Honey opaque. She could talk music and art and dance, speak of philosophy, writings, politics, even science — but she was never personal. What kind of a childhood had she lived? She never said. She was as evasive verbally as she was quick on her feet. Noe decided to try a new tack against the same soft breeze. When the tub water was warm and Honey was bathing her with massaging hands she got her chance.
“Do you like my touch?” Humility was asking, while she gentled Noe’s neck to relax it.
“I’d give anything to be able to do what you are doing right now,” said Noe. “Then my husbands would never leave me.”
“It’s a secret. I can’t tell you. Then they’d never need to come see me.”
“Let me offer you a Kaiel bargain. Teach me how to be a Liethe and I’ll make you an honorary maran wife.”
Honey hugged her briefly. “If you are a spoiled brat, you’d hate it. You have to be able to sleep on a hard floor. One night in my cell at the hive and you’d quit.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“Then I’d teach you more — like how to sit all day without moving a muscle either in tension or relaxation.”
“That sounds like a fair exchange for giving you Hoemei when he comes home from a hard day at the Palace!” Noe laughed. She splashed out of the tub and wouldn’t let Honey towel her. “Now it’s your turn. Get in the tub and I’ll scrub you!”
“No. I’ll do it myself. You’re a priest and I’m a priest’s servant.”