“Certain charming, revealing anomalies in your behavior this evening, my dear,” he said, “have not gone unnoticed by your friends and fellow passengers.”
There was laughter about the table.
“What shall we say,” he asked, “a certain nervousness, or distractedness, an occasional jitteriness, perhaps even an outburst, perhaps even an occasional uncharacteristic tartness, quite out of order?”
She flushed, angrily.
“And yes,” he said, triumphantly, “just such surprising, delightful, quite broadcast, changes in complexion.”
The portions of her body not covered by clothing, her face, her throat, her arms, her shoulders, all such, suddenly blushed red.
“Yes!” he said.
There was laughter.
“With your permission,” he said, “I shall clarify matters for those at the table who may not be aware of the cause of these occasional, delightful manifestations.”
She regarded him, angrily.
“You do not mind?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“It is no secret, I trust?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not!”
“Our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, rising to his feet, lifting his bowl, “is betrothed, and, even now, on the Alaria, an eager bride-to-be, she hastens to the arms of her groom!”
“Yes, yes!” said those about the table.
“No wonder then,” said Pulendius, “under such circumstances, that our charming fellow passenger, though an officer of a Terennian court, seems sometimes as nervous, as frightened, as confused, as a lass from a rural village, being led to the rope ring.”
There was laughter.
The bodyguard found this a somewhat unlikely figure of speech. He was himself, you see, from a rural village, a festung village on another world, and he did not think many a rural lass would be particularly nervous or frightened, or confused, being led to the rope ring. Many would be the time they had tossed in the hay or in the rushes, by the lake, before getting to the rope ring. To be sure, he thought that certain urban daughters might be nervous, or frightened, at such times, not that rope rings were used in the urban communities, for such girls often knew little, particularly the middle-class girls, about sex, that by the intent of their parents, and the community. Some of them, on the bridal night itself, made discoveries which, for them, were quite startling. For those it might interest, as I have mentioned it, the ceremony of the rope ring was a rude form of marriage, in which the couple made their pledges, exchanging their oaths, within the circle of a rope, spread on the ground. At the end of the ceremony the lad would fasten one end of the rope about the lass’s neck and then lead her thusly, publicly on his tether, about the village, and thence to his hut. It was understood in the village then that the lass was his. The ceremony was not regarded as completed until he had thrust her before him, the rope on her neck, he holding it, into the hut. The point of the display, leading her publicly about the village, is to give any who might object to the union a last opportunity to voice their protest. Various rude peoples in the empire had such ceremonies. This choice of a figure of speech may be excused on the part of Pulendius, I think, who was from an urban area, and on the whole, accordingly, unfamiliar with the ways of small, isolated rural communities. On the other hand, the figure of speech, with due respect for Pulendius, who was a highly intelligent man, may not have been as unlikely as the bodyguard surmised. It is, after all, one thing to roll with a fellow in the hay, or near the lake, and another to be thrust into his hut, before him, a rope on your neck, knowing that you are then his, and that the entire village accepts this and will enforce it. It is natural that a bride should be apprehensive. After all, who is the man, truly, to whom she is married? It is a bit like a slave, who has been purchased. She does not yet know the nature of her master, only that she is wholly his, in all ways.
“For what world are you bound?” asked Pulendius.
“Miton,” she said. “It is within the first provincial quadrant,” she added.
Miton was not one of the original Telnarian worlds.
The young woman, who was, of course, the officer of the court, she whom we have already met, had not been eager to volunteer the name of the world.
It was not one of the original Telnarian worlds, you see.
“And who is the lucky man?” asked Pulendius.
“Tuvo Ausonius,” she said. She looked about. “Tuvo Ausonius,” she repeated.
“Of course,” said Pulendius.
“He is an executive in the finance division of the first provincial quadrant,” she said.
“Wonderful,” said Pulendius.
“He is of the blood,” she said, suddenly, irritably.
“Wonderful,” said Pulendius. To be sure, the young, dark-haired woman was, to the knowledge of most at the table, the only person there of such birth. We may make an exception, however, given our privileges in these matters, for the young naval officer. He, too, was of the blood, and, if it must be known, literally of the ancient senatorial class itself, and by direct line. To be sure, none knew this at the time. We might mention two points about this officer. First, it was quite unusual that one of his high birth, which was quite as high as that of the emperor himself, in these days, would have undertaken the arduous and often unrewarding tasks of military service. Second, although he was putatively on leave, he had boarded the Alaria when she was in orbit at Tinos, and Tinos, in its remoteness, might seem, if one paused to give the matter thought, an unlikely venue for an officer’s leave. To be sure, perhaps he was returning from leave, and his home was on Tinos. It is not likely that he was stationed on Tinos because on Tinos there was no naval base, or large-scale base, only a small outpost.
“And can we hope,” asked Pulendius, “that his blood is as high and noble as yours?”
“It is higher,” she said.
This information was greeted with polite enthusiasm by the table.
That Tuvo Ausonius was of the blood was not at all a matter of indifference or accident, incidentally, to the projected union. Indeed, it was the essence of the entire matter.
If it must be known, many in the empire, particularly urbanites, often viewed with coolness, if not resentment, certain distinctions which seemed to them unnecessary, if not arbitrary, not significant distinctions, of course, like that between the humiliori and the honestori, or that between the citizen and the noncitizen, both of which were quite important for many reasons, or even, really, that between themselves and the high aristocracy, which was still regarded with a certain awe, partly as a matter of tradition, and partly, doubtless, because of its ancient, historic contributions to the republic, and then the empire, but between themselves and the minor aristocracy, the minor patricians, the members of local senatorial classes, and such, which they often resented as being officious, pretentious and of dubious value to anyone, including themselves. Such distinctions, as we have suggested, were not like those between the humiliori and the honestori, or, one supposes, even more importantly, between the citizen and the noncitizen.
“In any event,” said Pulendius, chuckling, tactfully shifting the group’s attention to less sensitive matters, “now becomes clear the meaning of many of your delightful manifestations this evening, your unease, your unsettledness, your agitation, your confusion, your charming changes of hue, all such are merely consequences of your trepidation, yet eagerness, to fly to the arms of your beloved.”
There was laughter about the table.