Pattern

'What sort of no big deal?' he asked. 'I mean, do I have to do anything, or do I just stand there like a small tree until it's all over?'

Eyvind shook his head. He was mending a broken staff-hook by binding the smashed shaft with wet rawhide, which gave him an excuse for not meeting Poldarn's eye. 'Actually,' he said, 'to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure. You see, as well as being the bridegroom you're also the head of the household-both households, really, since Colsceg and his mob are under your roof. So, properly speaking, you're the one who should be doing all the speeches and saying the magic words. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out, really.'

Poldarn sighed. Getting a straight answer out of Eyvind looked like it would take major surgery. On the other hand, nobody else was even prepared to talk to Poldarn, except Boarci, who probably knew the score but was pretending he didn't. 'That's just silly,' Poldarn said. 'I can't marry myself, it sounds all wrong. There must be some sort of established procedure in these cases.'

'You'd have thought so, wouldn't you?' Eyvind replied. 'But apparently not, it's never happened quite like this before. You see, usually the sons and grandsons of heads of households are married by the time they're nineteen, sometimes earlier. Old men like you and me roaming around free as birds is definitely the exception rather than the rule.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'So why aren't you married, then? I've got an excuse, but you haven't.'

Eyvind shrugged. 'It just turned out that way,' he said. 'People like you and me, heads of houses or heirs apparent, can't just go marrying anybody-it's a serious thing, we've got to marry daughters of heads of other households, preferably ones whose farms share a common boundary or two. Our place-well, it's tucked in rather awkwardly between several much bigger spreads and, as it turned out, after they'd all done deals with each other there wasn't anybody left over for me. So I'd have had to go marrying up-country, which would've involved a lot of messing around with grazing rights and water rights and overwintering agreements and stuff like that, and it's hard enough as it is screwing a living out of the collection of large rocks we call a farm without buggering up all our arrangements just so I don't have to sleep alone. Besides, there's no real need. When I die, the farm will go to my mother's brother's family, and everybody's quite happy with that. If I got spliced and had a son, it'd cause more problems than it'd solve.'

Oh, Poldarn thought. Isn't that missing the point rather? Obviously not. 'Do you mind?' he asked.

'Not terribly.' Eyvind grinned. 'I know what you're thinking. But-no offence-you're forgetting the main difference between yourself and the rest of us. Take that into account, and maybe you can see how we've got a whole different set of motivations and priorities Or, at least, I'm guessing that, because I haven't got a clue how your mind works. Still, it seems to me that if you can go around thinking whatever the hell you like with nobody being able to look in on you, your approach to the whole subject has got to be completely different. Much better in some ways, I guess, and far, far worse in others. We tend to keep that side of ourselves-well, in reserve, out of sight, even, until we go abroad. Doesn't matter a damn what we do while we're over there, after all.'

Well, not quite, Poldarn thought; that's how I came to be born, or didn't you hear about that? I'm sure you must have done, so that was a definite mistake, my otherwise tactful friend. Now maybe-It was the first time he'd thought of it. Maybe the reason he couldn't read and be read was because his mother was a foreigner, not part of the swarm, with a mind that couldn't be prised open and examined by everybody in the household. Not that it mattered; and the subject as a whole seemed to be embarrassing Eyvind, so he decided to change it. 'You were saying something about speeches and magic words,' he said. 'Can you be a bit more specific, perhaps?'

Eyvind pulled the last strip of rawhide tight and wiped his hands on his shirt. 'Let's see,' he said. 'It's been a while since I was at a wedding. I think what happens is that the head of household goes through a sort of list of do's and don'ts, asks questions about whether you really want to marry each other, are there any things you haven't told anybody about, like being brother and sister; that sort of thing generally. The sort of stuff that probably meant something once but now it's just a set of meaningless rote questions and responses that everybody reels off by heart without thinking.'

'Fine,' Poldarn said. 'So you're telling me I've got to ask all these dumb questions and then answer them myself. And with people watching, too. There's got to be a better way of going about it than that.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, I don't know. Can't I appoint someone as a stand-in head of household, just for the day of the wedding? Or what about Colsceg? He's a head of house, he'll do.'

'Yes, but it's not his house. I think there's specific rules about that.'

'All right, then,' Poldarn said with a touch of desperation. 'How about you? You're not a head of house but you're in line to be. I'm sure you could do it. The logical choice, really.'

Eyvind shook his head. 'You can forget that,' he said. 'I'd rather be trapped in a burning house, with the roof falling in on me.'

'Even to help out a friend in need?'

'I said forget it. Wouldn't be right, anyhow. Strictly speaking, I'm an offcomer, I shouldn't even be in the house when there's a wedding going on.'

'What does that mean?' Poldarn interrupted.

'Oh, superstition,' Eyvind replied. 'They say that if there's offcomers in the house on a wedding day, it's bad luck, to the bride and groom and the offcomers too. Just a load of old garbage, of course, but some people take that kind of thing pretty seriously-it wouldn't do to go upsetting them by having an offcomer actually taking the service.'

'Somebody's got to do it,' Poldarn snapped, 'and I'm bloody certain it isn't going to be me. Now come on, for pity's sake, I've got to go out there and get married in a few hours, there isn't any time for playing games. Think of someone.'

'I'm thinking,' Eyvind replied, somewhat nettled by Poldarn's outburst. 'But I can think till my brains boil out through my ears and it won't do any good if there's nobody to think of. Oh, I don't know, what about Colsceg's sons?'

Poldarn looked up sharply. 'What, you mean Barn? If he can do it, so could Colsceg, surely. And at least Colsceg's a bit more animated than a broken cartwheel.'

'I just said, he's disqualified. All right, if you've got something against Barn, what about Egil?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'He doesn't like me,' he said.

'How doesn't he like you?' Eyvind looked concerned. 'And what gave you that idea, anyhow?'

'Nothing. Forget I just said that.'

'Sorry,' Eyvind replied, 'but some of us can't forget things as easily as others. What's your problem with Egil?'

'Nothing, really. It's just an impression I got, so it's far more likely to be wrong than right, anyhow. I can't see inside his head, remember, so I have to go by other kinds of signal. And I wouldn't trust my judgement in such matters further than I could sneeze it out of my ear.'

That didn't seem to satisfy Eyvind at all. 'Fine,' he said. 'Be like that, don't tell me. But it strikes me that picking imaginary feuds with your prospective in-laws isn't the most intelligent thing in the world, especially if they're going to be living a few hundred yards from your front door.'

Poldarn smiled defensively. 'That's interesting,' he said. 'You make it sound like it's actually possible to have a quarrel with anybody in these parts. I wouldn't have thought it could be done, with everybody being so like-minded and knowing what everybody else is thinking.'