Finally Oelita turned to Tonpa and asked with a precise electric force, “Is she speaking under duress? Are you forcing her to say this?”
“Do you imagine that people only speak Falsehood under duress? Yes, she is speaking under duress. Can you imagine this Truth to be pleasant for her? She speaks Truth under penalty of death.”
“She seems to be ill-treated.”
“I have been under no obligation to treat her well.”
“What will happen to her?”
“She loses her nose for slandering the Mnankrei and then we give her to you to do as you please.”
“You will not harm her in any way or I will slander the Mnankrei in ways you cannot imagine!”
The sea priest chuckled. “Ah, the Gentle Heretic who forgives her worst enemy. Flowers for the criminal. So be it.” He bowed. “We’ve been wronged, but yours is the graver wrong.”
“May I speak with her alone to see that she is not speaking what torture has commanded her to speak?”
“Of course.”
On the deck away from everyone, Oelita placed a shawl around Teenae’s shoulders to protect her from the sea chill. “Why? Tell me why?”
Teenae shook her head.
“Why!” Oelita insisted with a storm’s forpe.
“We were proposing to you,” she said in the tiniest of sounds while looking at the deck.
“You were what?” Lack of understanding made Oelita’s voice antagonistic.
“Proposing marriage.”
Oelita stared.
Teenae was in a state of shock. “Our marriage is incomplete. We need another.”
Finally the calm wonder with which one treats the truly insane mellowed the Heretic of Sorrow. “Is that a Kaiel custom, to murder the bride?” she asked as if she was asking about the weather.
“If you survive, you’re worthy.”
“And you think I would be willing to present my grail after such a courtship?” The grail was the bride’s gift, a layering of sacred and profane foods.
Teenae hung her head.
“Was this the way you were courted?”
“No,” said Teenae with a wistful absence. Her mind hardly functioned. “My husbands took me to the mountains. They sang songs. I was only a little girl. I didn’t even have any breasts. They were kind.” She was crying. “Don’t you see? They didn’t want you! They were ordered to marry you! We wanted another.” She sobbed. “It’s too complicated. Joesai was the wrong man to send but they had to send him because all the Kaiel they’ve sent have been murdered and he’s a violent man who is at home with murder and I was supposed to mute him and I didn’t.” Teenae spoke more but nothing that was comprehensible.
The older woman led the young one back to the Storm Master’s stateroom. “We’ll go now,” she said, defying any of the Mnankrei to stop her. They let her go, her arm around Teenae’s shoulders, having gotten what they wanted — witnesses to tell of Kaiel deceit and weakness.
Among a quiet group on the quay, Oelita reunified Joesai with his wife. “Take care of her.”
“Thank you for this favor,” he intoned stiffly.
“Am I glad to see you,” muttered Teenae, hiding her nakedness in her husband’s chest.
“I brought her back without killing anyone.” Oelita was defiant.
Joesai laughed because he was so happy to have Teenae in his arms again. The laugh blazed as a forge does while it melts steel. “But imagine the violence that has been done to my pride.” His fingers combed Teenae’s long hair. “To soothe that fire I’ll have to kill them all.”
“It is wrong to kill,” Oelita said.
“No,” he said.
“I have contempt for the traps you have laid for me, and the deception with which you have laid them. Both of you!”
“The next time we shall take more care to win your respect,” he replied ironically.
“So! You’re not going to leave me alone!”
“You read me that easily?”
“Yes! You are Kaiel! You are a creature of ritual. Ritual; that’s the plague of Geta.” She sounded frightened. “I’ll survive you!”
He was grinning like a skull. “I don’t recommend that. Then you’ll have to marry me.”
His arrogance possessed Oelita with a stormy mixture of rage and fear. “I’ll poison the grail!” she said, not knowing what she was saying.
Joesai couldn’t contain his laughter. With Teenae back, his fear was gone. “It’s wrong to kill,” he chided. All this time he was appraising the hostile crowd. He gestured his group into a defensive formation and they moved out.
Kaiel men surrounded Teenae, fast-pacing along the quay from the angry mob. Far across the bay, the Mnankrei ship was blending darkly into the waves. Only now, as Teenae was beginning to be aware that she was alive and even safe, did she have time for rage.
“That shipleech Tonpa, may his scars turn to pus! I’ll never forgive him. Never.” She felt her nose. It was still there. “Kill him for me, Joesai. You can do it. I want a new pair of boots!”
Joesai’s mind was more on immediate survival. “First your feet will have to acquire a new set of calluses. Second you will have to row to the moon. Third…”
She was in no mood to be joshed. “Kill him for me tonight while my hatred is hot enough for me to enjoy it!”
Joesai laughed. “He’s just lucky he didn’t make the mistake of beating you at a game of kol!”
“You’ll have your chance to kill him at lownode!”
“How?”
“Cut his throat at lownode!”
“And what happens at midnight’s halfmoon?” he asked cautiously.
“A Mnankrei party is going to come ashore and burn down the peninsula granary.”
19
The Wheel of Strength has four spokes — loyalty to Self, loyalty to Family, loyalty to Clan, loyalty to Race.
It has been said that Self is the first loyalty, for if the Self is not whole can we build a Family? can we build a Clan? can we build a Race? But I say to you a selfish human is a one-spoke wheel soon broken, a fool trying to move the boulders of Mount Nae by himself.
It has been said that Family is the first loyalty, for if the women and children are not protected can there be men? But I say to you a Family of selfless humans, who stands against their Clan while exploiting the Race for the sake of their children, will not roll far.
It has been said that loyalty to Clan is the first loyalty, for is it not the Clan which moves mountains and brings its terrible force against evil? But I say to you a Clan dominated by loyalty to itself will destroy its Families and perish.
It has been said that loyalty to Race is the first loyalty, for without genetic purity can we hope to meet the Danger? But I say to you the Race is heartless without its Clans and Families and Selves.
The Wheel of Strength has four spokes — each equally weighted and balanced or there is no strength at all.
KATHEIN HAD NEVER MET Aesoe before. She did not know what he looked like, for whenever they had been within sight of each other — and once she had been as close as an arm’s reach — he had been gazing at her and she had dared not return the gaze. She could feel his fascination deep in her loins as a face can feel the sun that eyes must turn from. She did not know what to make of this summons to his country residence.
Two Ivieth from his personal livery came for her with a richly cushioned palanquin. A wet nurse met them at the carved doors to take the baby. Another woman led her to a hot tub where a male and female servant bathed her and attainted her with perfumes upon her ears and nipples before dressing her in soft robes resplendent enough for an audience with the Prime Predictor.
Kathein could not even look at him now as she made her entrance into his grandroom. It was with relief that she knelt in formal bow to touch her head upon the stone-cold floor of smooth granite. Music was playing — gentle strings, a reed. She had watched the musicians briefly with eyes that were avoiding his. The afterimage of these delicate women stayed with her.