“Is she pure?” Father Kulcyanov asked.
The Keldara set big store by virginity. At least to a point.
“She is. On my oath as a Mother.”
“Is she free of defect?” Father Kulcyanov asked.
“She is. On my oath as a Mother.”
Mike realized that he’d never been to one of the bonding ceremonies. That question begged a dozen others. But if Gretchen had any defects, he’d never noticed them. Okay, so maybe the Rite wasn’t all bad.
“Is she fit to bear child, to bring forth warriors and wives, to be a Mother of Tigers, to honor the Keldara?”
“She is,” Mother Mahona said, fiercely. “On my Oath as Mother Mahona.”
“Bring to me the boy,” Father Kulcyanov said, looking at the Devlich contingent.
Mother Devlich stepped forward, holding her son’s hand.
Kiril looked nervous. Any teenage male would being forced to hold his mother’s hand in public. Being called a boy wasn’t the greatest, either. And he’d nearly missed the thing, arriving at the last minute at a dead run. And from the direction of the barracks, by the looks of it. Playing Halo again. The boy needed to get out more.
“Who brings this boy before me?” Father Kulcyanov asked.
“I, Mother of the House Devlich,” Mother Devlich said. Short and dark she was as calm and pleasant as her husband was an asshole. Given that they’d been bound in a similar ceremony, possibly without any input from either side, Mike thought that it had to be an interesting marriage.
“Is he a warrior?” Father Kulcyanov asked.
Mike had to snort. The most important thing about the girls is that they be virgins. The most important thing about the guys is that they be warriors. He looked across the crowd at where Stella Mahona, recently married to Vil Mahona one of the team leaders, stood holding her husband’s hand. Tall, slender and as beautiful as her husband was handsome, the girl had unshed tears in her eyes. Oh, they were tears of happiness. But Mike remembered the girl dropping down a fast-rope in the middle of a firefight and had a hard time not wondering why the first question for both groups wasn’t the same.
Next to her was Jessia Mahona, the mortar team leader. Tall with long brown hair and… well one fricking huge chest, she wasn’t nearly as smart as Stella but Mike would take her at his back any time. He’d wondered recently, given her status, if he should bring her into his household. Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask but he could understand her less than thrilled reaction to the events.
“He is. On my oath as a Mother.”
“Is he free of defect?”
“He is. On my oath as a Mother.”
Same question. Mike felt there was an itch there he needed to scratch.
Various societies in history had had “tests” at birth to determine if a baby was pure. Inbreeding, especially in a group like the Keldara, was always a problem. Oh, with the Keldara the problem of fathers covering their daughters didn’t seem to be an issue. But it was a very small gene pool with minimal outside input. Mother Lenka was the only outsider Mike knew who had entered the society in generations.
Inbreeding meant that the normal “spread” of breeding, the famous “bell curve” tended to turn into a sort of “U” on a graph. At one end were exceptional specimens. And the Keldara were exceptional specimens.
What Mike had never wondered, until now, were where the normal and anticipated “defectives” you’d get in a normal population were. Much less one with a restricted gene-pool. There weren’t any Down’s Syndrome Keldara, no hydrocephalics, none of the usual birth-defects you’d expect. Okay, Shota was pretty moronic. But he wasn’t Ausbergers, autistic or the rest of the alphabet of potential birth defects.
He suddenly got the feeling there was a lot buried in that one little question.
“Is he fit to start a child, to start warriors and wives, to be a Father of Tigers, to honor the Keldara?”
“He is. On my oath as Mother Devlich.”
Father Kulcyanov took the two young people’s unrestricted hands and placed them together.
“Kiril Mahona, do you give your Promise to Gretchen Devlich, save only that agreements can be reached between your two Families?”
“I do,” Kiril said, grinning hard. He suddenly looked sideways directly at Mike and grinned harder. Then his head snapped back. “I do!”
“Gretchen Devlich, do you give your Promise to Kiril Mahona, save only that agreements can be reached between your two Families?”
“I do,” Gretchen said then swallowed, nervously. “I do.” She was nervous but she was also glowing. Then she looked over at the Kildar and smiled.
Yeah, the Rite with Gretchen wasn’t exactly gonna be awful.
It wasn’t time for the next major ceremony, the Choosing, yet, so Mike grabbed a mug of beer and wandered.
There were several contests going on but Mike avoided them. He’d be called in as judge and he had no clue how to judge most of them. The Keldara had a number of games based around pebbles and throwing sticks that he just couldn’t follow. Some of them were like marbles but so complicated they made his head ache. Others were easier, most of the young men were throwing axes and that he could figure out easy enough. He still avoided it. He’d participated in an axe throwing competition, once, and done well enough. But he also knew most of it was luck and he wasn’t going to try his hand again.
But, by golly, a deputation was catching up to him. He paused when he noticed Father Kulcyanov and the rest of the Fathers approaching. What this time?
“Kildar,” Father Kulcyanov said, nodding and gasping for breath. The old guy was looking particularly worn today. Mike hoped he’d make it through the ceremonies okay.
“Father Kulcyanov,” Mike replied, nodding back.
“I will let Father Mahona speak to this,” Father Kulcyanov said. “It is complicated and… ”
“I understand,” Mike said, nodding back. “And takes air.”
“Which I will much need later,” Father Kulcyanov said, nodding at Father Mahona.
“Kildar, we have a request,” Father Mahona said, nervously. “We wish to… to do a ceremony that we have not done for some time, the Beatai Leanah.”
“The ceremonies of the Keldara are their own,” Mike said, blinking. “Why did you stop doing it?”
“None of us were alive the last time the Beatai Leanah was performed,” Father Mahona replied. “But it was stopped in the late Tsarist period.”
“Does it involve human sacrifice?” Mike asked. “That’s about the only thing I’m not going to go for.”
“No, Kildar,” Mahona said.
Mike had asked the question in dead seriousness and it was returned the same way. Which meant there probably was a ceremony they had somewhere in memory that did involve human sacrifice.
“But it is the ritual slaughtering,” the Father continued, clearing his throat. “AS you know, at this time of year we need to start slaughtering the animals that we don’t wish to keep through the winter. This is a ritual that… starts that process.”
“You do it up on the dun?” Mike asked. “You’re going to just haul it all down again.”
“Some,” Father Kulcyanov said. “Some is burned there, some is left for the ravens.”
“Most is kept,” Father Mahona said. “It is considered special, used in specific dishes.”
“Kildar,” Father Makanee said, taking a deep breath. “It is a very… bloody ceremony.”
“Slaughtering generally is,” Mike said, frowning.
“Somewhat bloodier than that,” Father Makanee replied. “You… might want to change.”