Wedding Dancing
Lill sat in the cart, and it carried him out under a huge, threatening blue sky, along a road that wound like a dropped garrotte between the hills of Akramarra.
Trees leered at him from the sides of the road.
Villages on hilltops stared down disapprovingly.
He had ridden this road, the Great King’s Road, half a dozen times before, coming and going from Torakand and even as far as the court at Rataxa.
But he had never travelled it alone, unprotected, an outcast from the Order.
Alone and unarmed. He had no weapon to protect himself—or, as he would have preferred to use it, to end himself.
He had nothing. The driver of the cart had been paid to take him to Torakand, and there he would be set down and left.
If the vengeance of the Almighty had not descended on him by that time.
Perhaps that was where it would come, in starvation or the jaws of stray dogs on the streets of the city.
I, Yarasha, Great King, King of Kings, desire no worship from my subjects, no burning of incense or slaying of sacrifices, for it is not pleasing to the true God.
King Xshamaya had reinstituted the practice a hundred years ago when he founded the Order.
There were no penalties—no earthly penalties—for practicing the old, forbidden rites of worship for the king.
It was simply displeasing to the Author of all life.
To remain true to the Order was to condemn your own soul in service to the Great King.
To be found false and expelled was worse.
Lill could feel the created world judging him, the contempt of every living thing he passed, as the cart rolled along the road, focussed on him.
He had killed the sacrifices so many times, lit the incense and read out the incantations—his voice had been girlish, somehow, even after it had deepened, and he had once admitted to being ashamed of it, so he had been chosen often for that role.
He had done everything that the Order asked of him.
Out here under the sky there could be no escape for him.
The amulet that he had worn for protection the other times he had left the site of the Order was gone, of course, but he could not stop his hand going to his neck to search for the cord, to grasp the familiar shape—and every time it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there. He was unprotected.
Would he know his doom when it fell upon him?
Would it be obviously supernatural, angels from the sky with swords and wings, or a bolt of obliterating lightning?
Or would he die in an accident or from a mysterious illness, fate working its way through the natural world from the fingers of the deity?
It had never been explained to him which was more likely, and he had never found it in anything he had read.
It was a day’s journey to Torakand, but they had set off in the early afternoon and had to stop for the night. The carter had some food which he offered to share with Lill, but Lill couldn’t eat. He tried to sleep in the back of the cart, but his thoughts circled endlessly.
Why had it happened? What had he done? What more could he have done? Was this always going to happen to him sooner or later, because of who he was, what he was, what he wasn’t?
He watched the sun rise with a terror that exceeded anything he’d ever known. He heard birds singing, and their voices sounded knowing, judgemental, as if they were talking to each other about him. The wind in the grass was talking about him. The ox swishing its tail was talking about him.
The carter said something—probably “Good morning”—and Lill screamed.
He bolted from the cart and threw himself down in the grass by the side of the road, hands clamped over his ears.
The carter, startled and unsympathetic, swore at him and threatened to leave him there if he didn’t get hold of himself.
That helped, because it was an order. He knew how to follow orders. He got up from the ground, got back in the cart, and they rolled on toward Torakand.
On the morning after his wedding, Lill watched the sky lighten outside his window as he lay in bed.
He had not slept. During the day, with Vanu outside on the balcony and the rainwater dripping off the eaves, he had slept instantly and well, but at night, alone in the dark room, his mind was as alert as if he were standing guard, on a watch that lasted the whole night.
Thoughts that he had held at bay for months crowded back in on him in the silence.
He’d tried to meditate, tried going over possible plans in his mind, but nothing worked.
He thought instead about the events of the day, and that at least kept down the panic.
Not that they were comfortable thoughts: the shame of what he had felt and done with Vanu, the shock of the things Vanu had said.
The way Vanu had stopped when Lill said no.
The sky was bright now, and he heard Vanu whistling downstairs, a cheerful sound. He should at least pretend to have been asleep. He stripped off his clothes, folded them in a neat pile on top of the chest by the door, and slipped under the beautiful blue quilt on the bed.
The next thing he knew, Vanu was standing in the doorway of his room, looking in at him. The sun coming in the window was a midday blaze. He had fallen asleep after all.
He sat bolt upright, the cold terror of realizing he’d overslept sluicing over him—and then draining away, leaving him shaking, as he realized it didn’t matter, nobody minded. Vanu had been standing there smiling at him.
Now Vanu was looking concerned. He had a dish in his hands, and he held it up indicatively. There was steam rising from it. Vanu had brought him breakfast.
“Oh,” said Lill. “Food. Thank you. Did—did you cook it?”
Vanu shook his head regretfully and made the sign for Susami’s name with his free hand. He came over to the bed and handed Lill the warm bowl and a wooden spoon. He tapped the spoon and pointed to himself. He’d made that.
It was a plain, slightly lopsided spoon, not nearly as good as the bowl with the carved snake and lettering that he had given Lill yesterday. It must have been one of his earlier projects.
Breakfast was the porridge that Lill had grown used to by now, with honey and cream on top. Lill scooped up a spoonful and blew on it. Vanu sat down on the side of his bed. He watched Lill eat, his gaze as inescapable as a touch. Then he looked away, and it was like a warm hand being removed.
He was dressed all in black today, with only a little white decoration on his sash. His hair was tied back, just the top layer, his usual style. He was barefoot. Lill finished the porridge, scraping the spoon around the bowl to get the last of the honey.
“Thank you, that was very good.”
Vanu took the empty bowl and set it aside. He signed something that Lill interpreted as an apology for not being able to speak aloud yet.
“It’s all right,” said Lill quickly. “I am learning hand language as fast as I can,” he signed.
Vanu smiled. “Thank you,” he signed back.
He picked up the comb from the table by Lill’s bed and held it up with a questioning look.
“You want to … ” Lill touched his hair. It was loose—he hadn’t braided it for the night—and must have looked untidy. “Of—of course.”
Vanu knelt on the bed and shifted Lill’s hair across his bare back. Lill moved to give him access, aware that as he did so the quilt around his hips shifted, exposing his thigh and his backside. Should he pull it back into place? Or would that make it seem as if he was trying to hide from Vanu?
Vanu set to work on Lill’s hair. Maybe he had combed his daughters’ hair before. He certainly knew how to do it, starting at the ends and working his way up, gently but not gingerly. His own hair was not long enough to require such care.
Mikhi’s voice rang out from downstairs: “Da! Are you in here?”
“He’s up here!” Lill called back, wanting to be helpful—not stopping to think that since Vanu couldn’t shout at the best of times, he must have some other way of answering a summons.
Vanu pulled the quilt back up around Lill’s waist and gave him a quizzical look as he got up from the bed.
“Da?” came Mikhi’s voice again. She had not been able to hear Lill from all the way downstairs.
Vanu went to the door and out onto the landing, closing it behind him. Lill couldn’t hear their conversation, which must have been conducted silently. He sat in the bed, feeling his face heat with embarrassment. Then he decided he should get up and dress before Vanu returned.
He crept over to the chest and was about to slip back into his clothes from yesterday when he decided to look and see what else might be in there.
He opened the lid and saw his wedding garments folded neatly where Vanu had put them away.
He shivered at the memory of how they had all come off.
On the other side of the chest was another garment, also blue, but a lighter shade, with mountain-style decoration in white.
He lifted it out and discovered it was a simple, loose woollen gown with a wide neck and slits in the side seams.
There was a tap at the closed door. Lill froze.
“Are you decent?” Mikhi asked.
“No!” he yelped. He dropped the gown back into the chest and grabbed the black trousers.
“What?”
“NO!” He braced a hand against the door, clutching the trousers.
“All right, I heard you! I won’t come in. Da wants me to tell you that you can come down for the dancing any time you want.”
“The what?”
“What?”
Lill drew a deep breath. There was a loud noise from downstairs that he interpreted as Vanu rapping on the rail of the stairs to get Mikhi’s attention.
“Da says I should wait for you to get dressed, and then we’ll talk!”
“THANK YOU!”
“He also called us ‘kids’ and rolled his eyes! Thought you should know!”
Vanu banged the railing again.
Lill stood with his trousers half on, holding onto the ties, looking down at the gown in the chest. Was he meant to wear that? If there was to be dancing, should he be in woman’s clothes?