Tressa returned from her bath. Claudia helped her into her loose underrobe, and sat her down to arrange her hair. Taming the thick black mass into
chaste braids atop her head took some time, and the silence among the three women stretched endlessly.
Astra fingered the red marriage gown. It was softest silk, and intrinsically beautiful-if only the bride were happily choosing to marry a man she loved. She knew Tressa perceived it as ugly-as she would, were she forced to wear it to wed a stranger and destroy her powers.
What would happen, she wondered idly, if the bride and groom decided not to consummate their marriage? Surely no Master Reader spied on their wedding bed to make certain-
She almost gagged at the thought.
Yet for all the rumors and innuendos her errant powers had brought her over the years, never once had she heard of a couple not performing their marital duties. Peculiar, when they were always strangers and usually sick at heart at having been expelled from the familiar life of the Academy.
A cloying smell assailed her nostrils, and she turned to see Claudia molding the last stray locks of Tressa’s hair with perfumed oil.
Tressa wrinkled her nose. “Uff! That stuff smells like Morella’s whores!”
Indeed it did, Astra recognized, only stronger, and with a few subtle musky tones she didn’t know.
“Oh-I can’t stand that!” Tressa protested. “Let me go wash it off!”
“No,” Master Claudia insisted, one hand on Tressa’s shoulder holding her in place. “It is the traditional wedding oil. You must wear it, just as your bridegroom does. I mixed it for you myself, Tressa-it is the formula specified in the wedding rite of Selene.”
An aphrodisiac, Astra speculated. Probably intended to make things easier. Still, her nose wrinkled too as she brought the red dress and helped Claudia put it on Tressa.
Then Claudia picked up the token both Astra and Tressa had been studiously ignoring-a small enamel badge, black circle on a white background. As she started to pin it to Tressa’s dress, the young woman pushed her hand away. “No! Master Claudia, you know I don’t deserve-!”
“Oh, child,” the older woman said, her eyes brimming with tears, “no Reader thinks she deserves it, but the Council of Masters must make certain that no undeserving Reader reaches the upper ranks. The nonReaders trust us to govern our own.”
A surge of sympathy opened Astra’s powers despite her intent to keep them under control, and she felt the deep sincerity of Claudia’s feelings for Tressa. If there was a conspiracy among the Masters, she was sure the healer was no part of it.
But as she escorted Tressa to the temple, Astra let herself Read for other conspirators. Could she catch someone gloating with satisfaction?
No. There were the girls she taught music, the best of the advanced class, playing sweetly and looking charming in their pink dresses. There were the priest and priestess of Selene, robed in blue and silver.
A privacy screen shielded the door to the anteroom, where the bridegroom waited gloomily, accompanied by two male Masters in their red robes. The Master Readers would Read the ceremony from there, never entering the temple of the Academy of female Readers. Only the groom, on shaking legs, had to walk out to face the assembly.
He, too, was dressed all in red-how ironic, Astra thought, that these two, who had dreamed of wearing the scarlet of Master Readers one day, should end their dreams in the red of marriage garments.
Bride and groom would now see one another for the first time, for neither one had had the desire to Read for the other, both parties enclosed in their private grief. If it was not coincidence, someone had done an amazing job of matching physical types-the young man was slightly taller than Tressa, and had the same thick black hair and black eyes. Astra suspected that when he was in a good mood those eyes would flash just as Tressa’s did. Two of a kind. Was it possible that once they were past the difficulties of this forced marriage they would find happiness together?
Astra sincerely hoped that they would.
The ceremony began. The musicians fell silent, and the priest and priestess began chanting to the goddess, first in her incarnation as the goddess of chastity, then as one of the many aspects of the Great Mother.
Astra, stationed behind Tressa, waited for the signal to remove the light bridal veil. As she leaned forward to do so, she came between the bride and groom… and smelled the scented oil he also wore.
But the man’s was different, pleasant, attractive, drawing her to turn to look at him and realize that he was very handsome indeed-
It is an aphrodisiac! Astra realized, quickly lifting Tressa’s veil away and stepping back out of range.
Still, she doubted that the powers of that oil could do much against the severe depression of the immediate participants in the ceremony. Neither of them seemed to be attracted to the other-and both were still completely closed to Reading.
They were not allowed to remain so, however. When the priest and priestess completed the wedding prayers, joined the hands of the bride and groom, and had them vow loyalty to the Goddess and to one another, there was only one more step to the ceremony. For nonReaders, that step was merely sharing a goblet of wine, first symbol of the life they would now share.
For Readers, though, the ceremony included the joining of minds as well as hands. Portia herself joined the priestess, Marina beside her with the goblet of wine. The priestess blessed the two Master Readers, and Portia began something Astra had witnessed only once before, at Helena’s wedding.
“Stephano,” Portia directed the bridegroom, “open your mind. Read your bride. Tressa, let your thoughts meet those of your husband. Read with me.”
There was no denying Portia’s command. The bride and groom began to Read, Portia drawing them and every Reader in the temple into a most beautiful soaring emotion. She captured Tressa’s wild, prancing thoughts, too spirited to tame-and Stephanos eager quickness, sharp wit, loyal courage.
The bride and groom turned to one another, startled recognition on their faces. To her joy, Astra saw them smile-the Masters had chosen well. Maybe that was why such marriages always seemed to work-
It was impossible to retain independent thought as Portia wove the two personalities together in a dreamlike pattern more compelling than any music Astra had ever heard. No Reader could resist joining in, minds circling the intertwined thoughts Portia manipulated into a promise of shared happiness.
It was far more beautiful than what Astra remembered from Helena’s wedding. She had been much younger then, unable to control her own powers at all, totally caught up in what Portia had been able to make of the weaker powers of Helena and Tranos. Stephano must be as strong a Reader as Tressa, for what Portia found to work with today engaged every Reader’s mind in a rapture such as-
Astra realized she had withdrawn from the rapport, was observing it from without, admiring but not participating, something she could not do at age twelve. As Portia’s thoughts developed, she felt strangely distanced, as if she were watching a drama. But Tressa and Stephano were not acting; for them it was all real, shared love, shared grief, shared joy.
Recognition tingled along Astra’s spine. Something she had picked up from Portia-making that poor mother see her dead baby-making her see with a Reader’s inner eye-
Making her see what was not real!
Gooseflesh rose on Astra’s body. There had been no Reader mother… now. No mother, no dead baby-and not a fever dream! A memory Portia had let slip in a moment of guilt.