Cristoval followed her with his eyes before he blew out the candle. She heard him lie down on his own pallet, heard his voice in the darkness: “Thank you.”
They walked slowly along the road to town, silently. Amanda listened to the creaking gulls and the twittering waking sparrows. This is my wedding day, she thought, surprised. Will I be different tomorrow, if we’re wed? Will he? She glanced at Cristoval, his face turned away toward the sea. He didn’t touch her but walked as though he were entirely alone, brooding. Everything will be different. I’ve lived alone for so long. . . .
“Amanda,” he said suddenly, startling her. “Do we have to go to your father?” Her breath caught; she saw that they were passing the field where his ruined ship lay. “I mean, isn’t there—a priest, or somebody, who could just marry us quietly, instead?”
She saw the unhealed wound that still lay behind his eyes, felt her own fear drain out of her. “Each man is his own priest, with the Prophet’s Book to guide him. My father must give us his blessing, or we will be living in sin, and no better off than we were alone. We’ll go to my sister first, she can speak to Father for me; and, I hope, make him listen—”
He sighed, nodded. “‘Casamento e mortalha, no céu se talha…’”
“What?” She looked up at him.
He shrugged. “‘Marriages and shrouds are made in heaven.’”
José came to the door of his house; surprise showed on his face, and then incredulity. “Amanda!”
“José. This is ... this is my bethrothed. Cristoval…Hoffmann.” She struggled with the word.
“By the Book…Teresa! Amanda’s here. And”—he laughed—“by the Prophet Angel, she’s brought a man with her!”
Teresa, José, and the laughing children went ahead of her as they reached her father’s courtyard at last; Cristoval walked grimly beside her. Her heart fluttered like bird wings under the wedding vest, beaded with pearls, that Teresa had given her to cover her faded dress. Cristoval wore one of Jose’s robes, a vest and head-covering, in place of his poncho and his flopping hat. He could pass for a townsman; but she knew that it would not fool her father. The sun’s heat made her suddenly giddy.
The heavy door of the house swung open, and Diego Montoya came out into the yard. His broad, jowled face widened with a smile at the sight of his grandchildren; they danced around him, chanting, “Aunt Amanda’s getting married!”
Her father’s obsidian eyes flickered up, seeing her in her wedding vest, seeing the scarred stranger beside her. “Teresa, what’s the meaning of this?” Behind him her mother came to the door, and her sister Estella.
Teresa hung on her husband’s shoulder, his arm around her waist, steadying her. “Father, Amanda has asked me to speak to you for her. This man would take her for his wife, even though she hasn’t any dowry. Please, Father, she begs your forgiveness for the past; she asks you to give her in marriage, so that she may live as a dutiful wife, and—and make amends for the grief that her willfulness has caused you.”
Her father stared at Cristoval, the words lost in the rising fury of his realization. “Amanda!” He spoke directly to her for the first time in eight years; she dropped her eyes, despairing. “What new mockery is this?” He came toward them; his hand closed on the cloth of Cristoval’s head-covering. He jerked it off, revealing the ragged wound and the short, sun-faded hair. Her father threw the cloth to the ground, disgusted, moved away again. “Why do you shame me this way?” He turned back, his voice agonized. “How have I offended God, that such a creature was born a child of mine? How can you come here, and tell me you would marry this—” He gestured, his hand constricted into a fist.
“Father!” Teresa said, appalled, not understanding. The children hung on her skirts, eyes wide.
“By the Son of God, I won’t stand for it! No more; no more humiliation, Amanda!” He reached down, caught up a stone. He lifted his hand.
Amanda cried out, cringing. Cristoval pressed against her, his body as rigid as metal.
José moved forward, caught his father-in-law’s arm. “Father, no!” He pulled the hand down, his arm straining; Montoya glared at him. “Forgive me, Father. But I won’t let you do such a thing before the children.” He shook his head. “What’s this man done to make you hate him?”
Amanda’s father looked at the stone. “He’s the sorcerer whose machine fell into my field. He is despised by God; it was God’s will that he should die; no man would raise a hand to help him. But my—daughter,” the word cut her, she flinched, “would defy natural law, defy God, again, to help him. And now she asks to marry him. Marry him! God should strike them both dead!”
“Perhaps He’s punished them enough,” José said quietly. “Even a sorcerer can repent and be forgiven.”
Cristoval put his arm around Amanda. “Sir—” She heard a tremor in his voice, very faint. “God—God has stripped the evil thoughts from my mind; I can’t remember anything of what I was.” He touched his head. “I only want to marry your daughter, and live quietly; nothing more.”
“Nothing?” Montoya said sourly.
“I don’t demand a dowry. In fact, I’ll give you a ... a bride payment for her, instead.”
Amanda’s eyes widened; she saw every face turn to stare at her, at Cristoval.
“What kind of a payment?” The merchant pressed forward into her father’s eyes.
“You use metals, don’t you? Aluminum? Steel? I’ll give you my ship in the field, what’s left of it.”
“It’s accursed; it’s full of demons.”
“You have rituals to purify metals. If the ship was your own to make into…natural objects, the curse could be lifted. ...”
The merchant weighed and considered.
“There must be at least half a ton of usable scrap metals left there. Maybe more.”
“Oh, please, Father!” Teresa burst out. “Think of the honor it does you. No one has ever made such an offer, for anyone’s daughter!” Amanda saw tears wetting her mother’s veil, felt the look of astonished envy in Estella’s dark and perfect eyes. She suddenly saw that one of the eyes was not perfect, swollen by a black-and-purple bruise. Amanda looked away.
“Half a ton…?” her father was saying. He drew himself up. “The mayor’s men came here looking for you, you know. In case you were still alive.”
“No,” Cristoval said. “I didn’t know.” His hand tightened on Amanda’s shoulder. “Why? What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Her father shrugged. “Your body was gone from the field. I told them God had taken it away to hell— what else could I say? I thought you were dead. So did they; they seemed relieved.” A smile struggled in the folds of his face. “The mayor has halved my field tribute this harvest, because of the miracle.” He dropped the stone, sighed. “Half a ton. It must surely be God’s will in the matter…All right, Amanda, I will see you wed. But that is all. We’ll go to the temple now. And then I will call a gathering, to bless the machine.”
Amanda knelt by Cristoval before the altar in the silent temple while her father pronounced the words above them, and her family looked on. There would be no ritual, no feasting, no celebration. It was nothing like her dreams…But the dreams go away forever. She remembered how long it had been since she had prayed in the temple; it had been too far to walk into town, to be met by stares and whispered scorn. She gazed without emotion at the rainbow of light that broke across the dusty tiles, below the altar window fused from colored shards of glass.