The Bride Hunt #3
Gurti and Padunu stood behind the tables. She wore her best clothes and had a smile on her face that made her look years younger than usual. He was wearing his cloak and his shaman’s headdress and holding his staff.
“Welcome to our feast,” said Barda woodenly.
“Please eat and drink,” Gurti signed.
Everyone stood around munching bread and apples for a few minutes before a noise from inside the great house made Vanu look up.
The door opened, and the lowland guide emerged with a musical instrument, a small hand drum with jingling metal discs around the edges.
He had lost the stick he’d been leaning on and was limping only slightly.
He held his drum aloft and shook it and sang, in the up-and-down style of the lowlands that made it difficult to understand all the words, something about blessings.
It was quite arresting. He was a good singer.
Then his voice faltered, and for a moment his mouth hung open. Vanu followed his gaze and saw that it was fixed on Susami. It would have been his first sight of her.
He began singing again immediately, with a renewed passion, and banging his hand drum noisily. No one else seemed even to have noticed the hitch in his performance.
Vanu had seen deadly rivalries kindled and friendships turn to enmity before his eyes, but he had never been witness to someone falling in love in front of him.
Yet he was pretty sure that was what he had just seen.
Maybe it would have been charming if it hadn’t involved his own daughter.
He positioned himself between Susami and the lowlander and gave him a forbidding look.
The young man went on singing, but the colour drained from his face.
Tirtu came out of the house then, ready to play his part.
Although Vanu hadn’t wanted to do the bride hunt, he couldn’t regret agreeing to it when he saw the entertainment it was providing to his friends.
He just hoped Lill wasn’t hating this, that somebody had taken the time to explain things to him.
They weren’t very good at explaining things to each other in Umtúshta.
Tirtu was wringing his hands with exaggerated woe, preparing to make his announcement.
Gurti had tapped Susami and Atari on the shoulders to alert them, and would no doubt interpret for them.
Vanu could see Tirtu watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting until the girls were looking his way because he knew they would not want to miss this.
Halza was jingling his hand drum softly.
“What is going on?” a loud voice demanded.
It was Faru, standing in the open door of his half-ruined house, staring around as if he’d never seen a wedding breakfast before.
He was not dressed for a wedding; he wore riding clothes, dirty and wet in patches, as though he’d fallen in something after getting down from a horse. He really had not been in the fortress. How long had he been away? Vanu wondered.
A silence had fallen, so deep that Vanu could easily make himself heard by every hearing person there.
“Getting married,” he said. “Thought you knew.”
There were a couple of snorts of laughter—from Mikhi, certainly, but from someone else too, Vanu wasn’t sure who.
Barda was at Vanu’s elbow, eeling up to whisper, “He wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow, my lord. It was Khatu’s idea. Ma had nothing to do with it.”
Khatu and Barda were as loyal to their mother as they were quick to betray each other, so Vanu guessed this meant it was Gurti who had got Faru out of the stronghold with Barda’s help, and Khatu had not been involved.
“You have the audacity to conduct a wedding in my forecourt, in my absence, after I expressed my disapproval in no uncertain terms?” Faru’s voice rose in pitch with each added complaint.
“My lord—” Padunu began in a strangled voice. “I had thought—” He glanced wildly between Tirtu and Vanu with a look of betrayal in his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Susami signed to Vanu.
“We chose the village gathering place as the most suitable location for our festivities,” Padunu went on hastily, “and have arranged the articles for the lowland ceremonies in your hall because—”
“Lowland ceremonies?” Faru snarled. “In my hall?”
“Faru didn’t realize the wedding was happening today,” Vanu told Susami. “He’s upset he wasn’t invited.”
Atari giggled, quite audibly. Mikhi laughed aloud. Padunu swooped in and took Faru by the elbow to guide him back into the house. There was a moment’s tense silence around the feast tables.
“Alas!” Tirtu cried out, picking up where he had left off. He threw up his hands in a dramatic gesture. “My daughter has disappeared—oh, er, I mean my son—my only son has disappeared! Who will help me find him? Whoever shall find him for me today may take him to wife tonight!”
Mikhi and Barda whooped, trying to make up with extra volume for the fact that there were only two of them.
“Let us help Lord Vanu find Tirtu’s son!” Barda had switched roles now, no longer the child emissary from the bride’s father, now one of the groom’s entourage. Clearly he liked this role better.
“My lord,” said Gurti, switching roles too, “we will await your return with your bride.” She signed the same to Susami and Atari, and they all curtsied together.
From inside the great house they could hear Faru shouting and Padunu trying to placate him. It was as sweet to Vanu’s ears as the lowlander’s singing.
Halza himself had, Vanu realized, sidled over toward Gurti’s group as if he planned to stay with them.
Vanu didn’t care what role he might think he was playing now, if he even had any such excuse.
He caught Halza’s eye pointedly and beckoned for him to join the departing group.
The man came, looking sick and glancing back more than once at Susami.
“So,” said Mikhi brightly, “where should we search first?”
“Khatu helped him hide,” said Barda, “so he won’t be hard to find. I know how my brother’s mind works.” He turned to Halza and added maliciously, “Should we look in that shed where we found you?”
The lowlander’s face showed baffled fear, Mikhi looked confused and left out, and Vanu waved a hand angrily at Barda.
“This is a bride hunt, we’re not tracking a fugitive,” he signed and Mikhi translated. “We go around the village looking in every house and asking for the missing bride. It’s a ritual. Tell the lowlander he can sing and play his drum as we go, if he likes.”
“Right, yeah,” said Barda, trying to pretend this was what he’d planned all along.
Mikhi looked happier, and Vanu offered her his arm. Halza shook his hand drum and began to sing, and they set off in search of Vanu’s bride.