MacAllister and the two Elhim huddled over a small table to one side of the party, not looking at anyone. I shed my stolen cloak and startled the three of them out of a year’s peace when I dropped onto the bench beside MacAllister. “You’ve got to get out of here right now ...” I said, forestalling the Elhim’s greetings as I told them of the circle of Riders posed at the edge of the forest. “We can pretend we’re wedding guests. Head down the road with some of these others.” Even as I said it, three young men fell weeping on each other’s shoulders and waved farewell to the others, holding each other upright as they staggered out the door.
“They’re sure to have a checkpoint on the road,” said Tarwyl.
“Through the woods might be better, then,” said MacAllister. “We could slip between the watchers.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “These will be experienced Ridemark scouts, and the moon’s full. You couldn’t do anything in the woods they wouldn’t notice.”
“Well,” said Davyn. “There’s one thing they wouldn’t notice.” He nodded his head toward a burly man who had his hand down a blond woman’s bodice while she slathered his mooning face with kisses. The other partygoers began cheering and garlanding the two with flowers. A fiddler took up the piper’s tune.
“Tjasse’s gift!” toasted a red-haired farmer with a feathered hat. “May Ule sire fifty sons!”
“May Norla birth healthy babes!” cried a wizened woman, who then sucked down a tankard of ale without taking a breath. The group laughed and applauded when the burly man and the blond woman, draped in flowers and already half-undressed, ran out into the night bearing the blessings of Tjasse. The more matings at this celebration, the more pleased Tjasse would be and thus the more likely to bless the newlyweds with children. Two more fawning pairs were close to bolting.
“Offer to buy a round for the party,” said Davyn, placing a silver coin on the table. “Make your good wishes. And ... demonstrate your sincerity.” He jerked his head at me. He had to be joking. MacAllister flushed, his gaze riveted on his mug.
“We’ll take the road and kill the sentry if we get stopped,” I said. “Attach ourselves to the other guests here. Or do something else ... set fire to the place to cause a commotion.”
Tarwyl ignored me, wrinkling his brow. “You could each approach one of the guests. At a Udema wedding party anyone is fair game—well, I don’t think they’d take me or Davyn.” He grinned. “But of course if you two were together it would be easier. Once you were sure the watchers had lost interest—a convincing few moments at most—you could be away. We’ll come along later. Meet you at the shop in Aberswyl. Aidan knows where it is. Are you game?”
MacAllister glanced over at me bleakly. “We’ll think of something else.”
The Elhim were right, and we had to be quick. “I can do what’s necessary. You keep saying the same of yourself. Prove it.”
Davyn was sympathetic. “I understand that customs differ widely in these particular matters—”
“Stop talking and do it,” I said, fighting not to scream at them. Every time the music fell quiet, I feared I would hear the teylark’s hunting call that meant now.
“Begin here,” said Davyn, laying a hand firmly on Aidan’s arm as the Senai started to stand up. “Do not these activities take fire in small ways?”
A grinning Tarwyl raised his cup and proclaimed loudly in his deep voice, “To our human friends who have developed such affection for each other—an uncommon bond, unrivaled in all of history.”
If we were not so desperate, I might have laughed at Tarwyl. MacAllister closed his eyes and murmured, “Vellya, god of fools, defend us.” Then he raised his mug to Tarwyl, drank deep, and laid his arm around my shoulders as if trying to do it without touching me.
“Your turn, Lara,” said Davyn. “We’re trying to attract attention here, if you recall. From your current aspect you might well be mistaken for a part of this bench.” The two Elhim were having more fun than the Udema.
“Put your hands on him, Lara,” whispered Tarwyl, unable to smother his grin. “I’m sure hands are important.” I gritted my teeth and clasped the gloved hand that rested so lightly on my shoulder, and I put my other hand on Aidan’s cheek, pulling it close to mine.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said. “I can’t—”
“Perhaps it would help to think of something else.” Aidan’s head was resting on mine. He whispered in my ear, “Did I ever tell you about the time I was chasing bats out of a cave and set my hair on fire?”
I turned my head and stared at him, sure he’d gone mad.
“Oh, gods, don’t look at me,” he whispered, ducking his head so that I could only feel the heat from his rush of embarrassment. “Do you think these people will notice if we take the Elhim with us for tutors? Were ever two players so woefully miscast?”
From such a close view, I could not miss the nervous terror behind his merry humor. Suddenly I understood a great deal about him that I had never imagined. “You’ve never ... in all your youth ... all the people you met ... the women and girls fawning over you ...”
“I never had time. Always traveling. Preoccupied. Tangled with gods and music. And I’d been brought up so strictly. You just didn’t ... not even to look ... until you’d known someone a long—Until you married. And I never learned—Damn! Am I red enough now?”
To Davyn’s and Tarwyl’s immense satisfaction, I burst out laughing. Was nothing ever easy? I’d thought he was only excessively modest or disgusted by my common manner or revolted by my ugliness. I had never imagined that a Senai noble who had grown to manhood in the world could be a virgin.
“Laugh as you will,” he growled quietly. “But you’re perhaps not so worldly as all that. You were only thirteen when you took up with Elhim!”
“I grew up in a tent smaller than this room with my parents, two grandmothers, two uncles, one aunt, three cousins, and an older brother with many friends. Modesty is not a value the clan prizes, nor is celibacy. There is nothing that you don’t see and nothing that you don’t hear, and a Ridemark girl is available to her father’s friends and her brother’s friends and any Dragon Rider when she is eleven.” I said it lightly, but it had been yet another teaching of my true place in the clan. There was nothing of pleasure in the remembrance of ale-sotted men and groping boys in the dark corners of the family tent.
“Ah ... Well.” He didn’t know quite what to say. “I’ll do as you command me, then.”
“The couple at the end of the table are the bride’s parents,” whispered Davyn, who had been observing the Udema while we were babbling. “And they’ve sent a boy to light their lantern.”
“Time for the second chorus,” said MacAllister. “Perhaps I can do better at this part. I suppose you’ll have to bear with me.” His grin chased away a shadow from his face. I had most likely revolted him with my unclean past. He looped my hands over one of his arms so he could grip his ale mug securely with both hands; then he approached the wedding party, wobbling a little as if he’d drunk as much as they.
“Greetings, good friends,” he said, slurring his words ever so slightly and bowing to the stocky blond pair at the end of the table. “Please excuse my intrusion on this happy occasion, but I could not hold back my congratulations and best wishes for the bride and groom—not when I am so blessed myself.” He pulled his elbow inward. I took the hint and clung to him. “Innkeeper! A round for these good Udema. And a toast”—he drained his mug with a flourish and tossed it onto the pile of empty ones littering the table—“to the happy union. May Tjasse bless them with ... all her blessings!” To my astonishment he threw his arms around me and, with tenderness quite at odds with his performance, he kissed me on the left side—the scarred side—of my face. “I am reminded of a verse from one of your great poets. ...” Softly he pressed my horrid cheek to his chest as he began speaking in the tongue of the Udema rather than the common speech. I did not know the words, but he did not slur them; rather he caressed them with his beautiful voice as gently as his hands were unbinding my hair. Before he was finished every eye among the Udema was swimming with tears. I was on the verge of panic.