Page 37 of The Boy Bride

“You’d be lucky if it was just sticks.”

Halza laughed ruefully. “How do you do it, Lill? How do you keep calm in the face of all this?”

Lill thought of the way he had run frantically away from the round house the first day he’d woken up there, how he’d been ambushed by Barda and panicked when Vanu pounced on him in the well yard the day before. Was that “keeping calm”?

Maybe that was how it looked from the outside. That was good; Lill wasn’t about to reveal the deep wells of fear inside him to anyone.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m resigned to my fate, like those soldiers said.”

“Right. For your family. Holy God, I hope my mother’s all right. She won’t have started to worry about me yet—I sometimes take an extra day coming down the mountain.”

* * *

“Many of the usual rituals are not appropriate, you see,” Padunu explained, settling himself comfortably against the cushions on Vanu’s seating platform as if he planned to stay a while. “Considering that they are, of course, aimed at securing the fruitfulness of the union.”

Vanu considered whether this was meant to be a joke that he should smile at, or a serious thing he was expected to be concerned about. Padunu didn’t have a sense of humour that he’d ever noticed, so it was probably serious. He gave the shaman a blank look.

“Couldn’t you say that it’s, um, happiness or something?” Mikhi wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “You know, they’re not going to have kids, but they could produce … you know. A happy life. Together.”

Padunu was giving her a pained look, which Vanu found disappointing, since he’d thought her idea was clever.

“Essentially you are suggesting a metaphorical interpretation of sacred ritual. That smacks of some of the heresies of the Zashians.”

“Is that … a bad thing?”

Padunu looked around as if for someone who might appreciate how foolish a question this was. Vanu was not that person.

The shaman sighed. “Yes. Heresy is a bad thing. Or so the Zashians believe. We do not subscribe to any of the doctrines of the Zashians, so whether they are heretical or not is of no concern to us.”

At least he talked to Mikhi, instead of ignoring her the way Faru and sometimes even Tirtu did, and he looked directly at her when speaking to her and used a loud, carrying voice, although that was just the way he talked to everyone.

“Can you leave some of the rituals out?” Vanu asked.

“I will have to.” Padunu spoke as if he was being generous and this would inconvenience him greatly. Maybe it was true; Vanu didn’t, of course, know anything about how shamans operated. “I wanted you to be aware of the reason, lest you felt that anything was lacking. I will of course consult with the bride to determine whether there are any … ” He paused to search for a word with the air of someone who smelled something bad. “Any suitable rites from his homeland which may be incorporated. The whole thing is highly irregular.”

“Rose … biscuits,” said Mikhi. “When I took them their lunch, they said there should be some kind of biscuits made with roses at the wedding. I forgot to tell you,” she added apologetically to Vanu. “And something you’re supposed to do to the door of the house with … spices? Tirtu was interpreting for me, and he didn’t know the word.”

“I doubt there is any ritual significance to biscuits,” said Padunu, looking as if the bad smell had gotten worse. “Even in Akramarra. The spices may be another matter, of course, and I will have to inquire into it.”

“Tell your sisters and Gurti about the biscuits,” Vanu told Mikhi. “That is a job for them.”

He toyed with the piece of leather thong in his hands. It was the knotted remains of the one that had snapped in the boy’s hair when he took Tirtu hostage. It was one of Vanu’s, a scrap of soft red leather that he’d used to tie back his hair for years. The boy must have taken it from the basket by Vanu’s bed.

“Can you find out his name?” he asked Mikhi suddenly.

“Can you—” she started to translate the question for Padunu.

Vanu cut her off with a gesture. “Not him. You. Please.”

“I did,” she signed back. “Sort of. He said it, but I couldn’t catch what it was. It’s something very short.”

“Would you care to enlighten me?” said Padunu haughtily, watching all this hand language.

“Da wants to know his bride’s name,” said Mikhi before Vanu could stop her.

The shaman raised an eyebrow. “That is generally advisable. I will make inquiries.”

* * *