stared at her, amazed. I had encountered Theseni outspokenness before. Ydalle, for instance, needed to learn more about the Doreni habit of silence, but Satha’s frankness bordered on rudeness.
She walked toward the curtained doorway, looked through the slats, then turned and studied the gathering room. “No, my father didn’t betray your little scheme. But since you have no desire to be honest—”
AlthoughIwasDoreni—andtheDorenirarelyspeakwithfrankness—I resolved to be Theseni and to speak with an open heart. “Your words are sharp shuwas, Satha, but they’re true. No promise exists. I saw you and loved you immediately. How can I prove this to you?”
“I’m not an unpleasant person, Loic.” Her voice grew gentler and she sounded almost like Little Mother. “But you can understand how strange it is to find one’s self suddenly married. Perhaps, if you’d courted me properly instead of interrupting my life so suddenly—”
Her gaze roamed the gathering room, studying the weapons, the buffalo horns, and pelts. In spite of myself, I found myself hoping my wealth would influence her to like me better. “I’ve lived by whims, my wife,” I said, lowering my voice. “Yet I am not selfish. I understand now that I made a grievous error to marry you so hastily. From my heart now I tell you that in my stupidity, eagerness, and joy, I thought this was the right way to proceed.”
“You speak like a poet, Loic. Yet you have much to learn for someone so educated.”
I touched her arm. “Jobara! Indeed, I have much to learn. But, can you not forgive my ignorance? Can you not see the blessings in this match? Consider that I’m one who respects your intelligence, your goodness, your beauty and even your anger. I’m Doreni. We Doreni men aren’t jealous adulterers like the Ibeni. Nor are we harsh like the men of your people who even go so far as to enslave women in their heaven. We have loving, free hearts and Doreni women freely roam where they please.” I paused to catch my breath then spoke again. “I see too you’re looking at the wealth which surrounds you. My family—”
“Now I know you’re speaking honestly because you’re bragging about yourself. Weak men always brag about their wealth. What does your family’s wealth mean to me?”
She took a slice of bala from a platter but didn’t offer me any. The bala was a fruit with many seeds, often used in wedding feasts to encourage fertility. Custom dictated that she should have put it to my mouth for me to suck on, a symbol that she was offering herself to me. She did not and this was considered selfish in the old days. It meant she considered her body her own and would not willingly share it with her husband.
I saw her mind, however: her ploy was designed to make me reconsider the betrothal. Instead of being offended, I also took a bala slice, chewing it slowly. “How juicy it is!” I shouted. “Flooding at the touch of my lips.”
She blushed but her face still retained its hardness.
“Satha,” I said, “You want the truth, therefore I’ll speak the truth.”
She frowned at the bala in my hand. “Say on.”
“I’m alone here in my Father’s house.”
She squinted in disbelief. “How can you say that? It’s obvious everyone loves you.”
“Perhaps they love me, but I walk on a different path and all here want me to tread lightly.”
She smiled at my joke and seemed curious. “And you think I will walk the path with you?”
I was tempted to tell her all my mind, to speak about Krika, about the shadow gods, about my inability to turn Father from the spirits, but I was cautious and I only said, “I sense you will walk with me, Satha. Don’t be afraid of marrying me, Satha. We were created for each other, and the Wind has brought us together to heal each other’s heart.” I stopped speaking when I saw tears rolling down her cheek.
She didn’t speak but stood fidgeting near the wooden curtains of the inner court through which our families had disappeared. She wiped her tears and we stood in silence until our fathers and the elders returned.
My father carried the yellow corn mush and Nwaha carried the white. They poured both into one bowl and put the spoon to my mouth. I ate, and after hesitating for a moment, Satha also ate.
Despite my grief at her resistance, I managed to finish the ceremonial oath. “Beloved, in my father’s house are many mansions. I have prepared a place for you, that where I am there you may be also. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in the Creator, believe also in me. Where you go, I will go. If I travel far away, I’ll return and bring you to my home.”
She bowed and answered, “My beloved is mine, and I am his. Into his hands, I commit my life.”
My heart leaped at her words even though I saw how distant her heart was.
As the women of the household prepared to take her to the women’s section of the guest quarters, I whispered to her, “Do you think you could love me? Just a little?”
She smiled, but I knew she thought I was like the wind—a force that could blow her wherever it willed, a breeze that could warm and freeze her with a sudden whimsical blast. She considered herself my toy, a thing that I would examine, play with, then throw away when a newer, more exotic plaything was found. Yes, I saw all this, and understood she had steeled her heart against mine.
After the ceremony, I walked to the men’s quarters and called out to Father.
“Why are you here, my son?” he asked, his eyes nervously surveying the courtyard. “Now that the Restraint has begun, you know the customs forbid us speaking together.”
My father rarely looked nervous, and I understood that he was worried for my sake. “I wanted to share my joy with you, Father.”
“I am honored. Tell me then, now that you have finally met the one you love so deeply, what do you think of her? Is she as wonderful as you imagined?”
“We told each other all our hearts, and Father, she pleases me well.”
He tousled my hair. “Does she not remind you of Krika?”
“Krika?” He had mentioned my lost friend and had stirred my anger. “Krika was Doreni and a boy. Satha is neither.”
“They share the same fire. Can you not see it?”
“If that’s true, she’s lucky that Nwaha and not Okiak is her father.” And then, suddenly, like a silly child I began to cry. On the day of my betrothal! How glad I was that Satha was not nearby to see my childishness!
Father held me tightly, pushing my head into his chest, enveloping me in his arms. “I cried, too, on the day I was betrothed to my first wife. I cried, too, on the day you were born.”
I had always understood that Father’s dearest love was not my mother, but his first wife, the one his parents had brought to him after Monua rejected him.
“Father,” I said, “Your first wife lives happily in the fields we long for. You loved her with all your heart. I loved Krika also. He was my age-brother but much more. He was my other heart. I cannot bear to think of him stumbling about in Gebelda, waiting for a life to be sacrificed for him. Could you bear to think of your first wife, or even of my mother, in such a place? Could we not go to the shrine, secretly, and shed some lamb’s blood for Krika? Can I not cut my wrist, hands and palms for him? Should he not be able to sit in the Creator’s longhouse? And look, on such a happy day as this, he should ... he would ... if Krika were alive now, he would stand by my side in all battles against the Arkhai. Yes, he would stand by me in the full marriage ceremony. He would—”
“Sio will stand by your side,” he said, interrupting me. No word about Krika: the deepest heart of my pleading was ignored.
I opened my mouth then closed it again. Clan tradition stated that the son of a warrior’s wife is a warrior’s true son. The law was made for the children of widows and concubines. Not for the bastards of adulteresses.