and not used to someone challenging him, I can see that he longs for the Good Maker as I have longed for goodness. Perhaps the Creator has indeed claimed him as his own.
* * * *
The next morning, Mam and Little Mother came to my door. They were like two minds in one head, and each head overflowed with similar plans for me.
“How did you sleep, my married daughter?” Mam asked, pushing the wooden curtain aside.
I was glad to see her. Yet because I was still unsure if such solitary visits were allowed, and because I was a married woman, I told myself that Mam need not know all that occurred between Loic and me.
She set about searching among my gifts for the right dress for me, while Little Mother explained that Okiak had been appointed to tell me about the Doreni food rules.
“In a year when the full marriage is performed, you will be expected to create a great feast for your guests,” Little Mother said. “And you’re expected to show your skills in Doreni daggerwork, and horsemanship. Horse riding, food knowledge, daggerwork and diplomacy are the four arts a high-born Doreni woman must know. We call them the Four Defenses because they are beneficial in dealing with danger.”
* * * *
The art of Doreni knifework was powerful and graceful. As Mamya Jontay showed me one tactic after another, she seemed no longer an old woman but a young Doreni warrior. “A Doreni woman has a small dagger hidden on her person at all times,” she explained, brandishing a dagger. “With all these vendettas, one never knows when one might be carried off.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Mamya Jontay,” I said, “My life is protected and safe. I see no use in learning useless traditions.”
Mamya Jontay said nothing, only smiled her inscrutable smile, then turned back to her practice.
Later Loic approached us on the field. How happy I was to see him and yet how fearful! I wondered if he was still angry with me.
“I see you’ve been studying,” he said, but his eyes showed neither desire nor anger.
“Mamya Jontay could assassinate even Fiancour, our hardiest Theseni warrior,” I replied.
“Fiancour?” He said, whistling. “Jobara!” Then he left. No other words did he speak to me, no emotion did he show.
That night, as moonlight spread across the fields, I paced back and forth in my room waiting for our Love Trespass. That was what they called it in those days. When I heard his footfall sounding along the corridor, my heart leaped.
“You needn’t have worried,” he said, when I pushed the curtain aside. “I’ve forgiven you.”
I hadn’t been thinking that I needed to be forgiven, but I kept my peace. Small twigs can be fodder for great fires, and he was so happy, holding my hand as he danced and leaped along the corridors, I thought it best not to defend myself. He led me from the guest women’s quarters to the edge of Taer’s marriage quarters where a herb garden of spices bordered a wrought-iron gate.
“This is arvina,” he said, plucking a thorny plant with many small purple flowers. “They say it makes lovemaking fierce.”
I glanced back at my rooms. “I see.”
“When this Restraint is over,” he said, “and we have built our own marriage quarters and our own houses and households, we will blanket our bed with it.” Without asking, he lifted my veil and pushed aside my scarf. “Haven’t we promised we will unveil our hearts to each other?” He kissed my cheek and warmth throbbed through my body. Then he smiled so intimately that even now I’m embarrassed to speak of it.
“Since you asked,” I said, “I did not like your coldness to me today.”
“Such coldness was necessary,” he said. “If I had not been cold you would have seen my anger. My clansmen expect to see wisdom and propriety in our actions. They know we’re young and want to couch with each other. They know we will have disagreements. If we display all our emotions and cannot show our restraint, they will think us unwise and deem us people who are easily overthrown by their emotions.”
“Jobara?” I asked. “Indeed?”
“Jobara.”
“Truly, my husband, living a life of such importance can be both tedious and grievous. I often thought myself unlucky that my parents lost all their wealth, but now—”
“This life is now yours, whether you wish it or not,” he answered. “Perhaps it was always yours—from the beginning of time. Perhaps it left you for a while, only to return again. I’ve found that some people cannot lose their destiny no matter how they fight against it.”
“Do the Doreni always speak of destiny and responsibilities?”
He pointed to the east near the longhouse, then to the west near the servants’ quarters, the stables and the farm, to the north where the men’s quarters and the guest houses were, and at last to the south at the women’s quarters and the clan houses. “The Doreni have their moments of light-heartedness, but the son of a chieftain must be serious. And the son of a Pagatsu chieftain who happens to be the king’s First Captain ... well...”
In the distance one of our family goats was butting her head against a barrel. “Look at that stubborn Myuhli,” I said. “She’s a bossy one. She’s not hungry at all. She just likes causing trouble.”
I opened the gate and ran toward her. When the stubborn creature saw me coming, she sped away another hundred paces. She could not outrun me. I was fleet and fast then, not old and fat as I am now. My two long legs caught up with her four short ones, and I trapped her near one of the squatting places. When I reached her, I tapped her on the nose, then turned to look backward at Loic. He had not moved. I called back to him. “Come, no one will see us. We’ve broken no taboo if no one sees us.” He jumped over the gate. When he reached me, his eyes studied me as if entranced.
“We should not linger too near the Large Path,” he said at last. “Remember the taboo.”
I burst out laughing. “How can you hate the spirits and say they have no power over us, and yet also speak of taboos? Surely, a freethinker such as you should examine all your customs.”
“I have considered many of our customs, my wife. But this is not only a matter of spirits and their demands. These taboos are man-made, sound and proven. They protect us from grief, gossip, and suspicion.”
“Do they? Jobara?”
“Consider if we should meet my Father and our guests as we walk on this path. My clansmen would say that because my illness weakened my manhood I went looking for Father’s help to bed you. They may consider me a weakling who seeks his father’s help in all things. Also, if they see you talking to your father, they’ll say your father bedded you before we married and you went searching for him because I didn’t satisfy you. Or they will say your father himself had no desire to give you up.”
“You’ve thought all this out, I see.”
“Not me, but the ancients. They know how vile and unkind human reasoning can be. The Golden House is large and wide. A hundred towns could be contained within it. Over the next year, we will choose servants from the household for our own household. Then, when the year—” he paused as if pondering the word “—a year seems long, does it not, my wife?”
“It is the custom, my husband. As you say, the ancients know what is best.”
“Kwelku.” He sounded unconvinced. “In a year, a very long year, when our household is built—”
“My husband, I have thought much about a certain matter. As you probably know, Theseni husbands and wives do not live in separate houses, and at night we sleep in the same bed. I do not wish to live in one house and you in another.”
He was silent for a moment. “Theseni customs have fascinated me since my youth. If my wife wishes to live