Page 41 of The Boy Bride

“No, certainly not.” Padunu bristled. “The bride hunt is a sacred rite, recalling what happened when Naturi hid from Tu, the first man.”

“Can we make it brief?” He regretted the words as soon as his hands had finished forming them. It would be a long, drawn-out affair now. It would take half the day.

“We will perform it as properly as we may, under the circumstances,” said Padunu with exaggerated dignity. “The great house will function in place of the bride’s family home as the starting-point for the wedding ceremony—following the Akramarran custom. I will perform the usual invocations and rituals in the gathering place, and we will proceed inside, here, where bride and groom will kneel on these cushions in front of these symbolic articles, and Halza will recite various traditional texts from the lowlands. After that, all this must be gathered up and conveyed in procession—Halza will explain how—to the groom’s, that is, Lord Vanu’s dwelling, which will have been decorated in accordance with Zashian custom. We will then return to eat in the gathering place, as there is no room for tables in front of Lord Vanu’s house. I trust all that is clear? Does anyone wish to ask any questions?”

“When do we get to eat all this?” Barda indicated the pile of goods on the table.

“You do not!” Padunu barked. “These are items of ritual significance to the lowlanders. They will be used in the wedding ceremony. Do not touch any of them.”

“All right, all right.” Barda rolled his eyes.

“Some of them are not even edible,” Padunu added. “Ah, Na Gurti, there you are. I trust the bride’s apparel will be ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes. It is all ready now. I will help him dress in the morning and accompany him when he goes to hide. If that is … ” She glanced between Vanu and Padunu, seeking approval. Vanu nodded readily, and Padunu waved a hand as if to say these details were beneath him.

“Are we done?” Vanu asked.

Padunu pursed his lips and appeared to consult a list inscribed in his mind. “We are indeed done, my lord. Until tonight. I will expect you at the well at moonrise for the first invocation of the ancestors.”

Gurti caught up with Vanu as he was leaving the great house.

“My lord, I found this in Lill’s dress when I was repairing it. The chain must have snapped when he fell, and it got lost in the folds of the fabric.” She held out a green stone cylinder in the palm of her hand, with a length of fine gold chain.

Vanu picked it up to examine it. The green cylinder was a seal, the type that the Zashians used on their correspondence. It was incised with a design he recognized: a winged man and a tree. He had seen letters sealed with that design, a long time ago.

So that was who Lill was. Of course. Davanu had mentioned that he had taken in the youngest of Madurasha’s sons, after the elder brothers had disappeared one by one.

He remembered those four boys when they were young, from his sole visit to Torakand. He had one clear memory of the youngest, dark-haired and dark-eyed, pretty as a doll the way so many lowland children were, scampering through his father’s courtyard. What had happened to him after that to lead him at last to where he was now?

Had he really ended up working in a hostel as a hired bedmate? Was that where Davanu had found him? Davanu had not mentioned anything like that in his letter when he said he’d taken the boy in, but then he wouldn’t have. He retained too much respect for Madurasha, in spite of how things had turned out, to spread around anything shameful about his only surviving son.

“I thought you might have another chain to replace that one,” Gurti said, recalling Vanu to the present. “I can have one of the boys take the broken one down to Sakka for repair.”

“Good idea,” Vanu signed. He passed the chain back to Gurti and closed his hand over the cylinder seal.

The edge of the cylinder felt chipped, as if it had suffered ill use in the years since it had been used to seal Madurasha’s letters. So had its current owner, no doubt. But that was over. Vanu was going to take good care of him now.

Chapter 14

The Bride Hunt

The wedding day dawned cold and cloudy. Vanu felt groggy and unrested. He had been up foolishly late while Padunu tried to get his invocation ritual to work. For some reason it had been Vanu’s fault that he couldn’t get his sacred fire lit or properly enter his trance. Maybe he was right. Maybe the spirits could sense Vanu’s contempt for the shaman and disapproved of it. He felt guilty.

He’d washed his hair after the ritual to get the scent of Padunu’s acrid herbal smoke out of it, and he ran his hands through it now, wondering whether it looked strange after he’d gone to bed with it still damp. He’d had a fine mirror at his old house, a round piece of polished bronze from Shing, but he had not wanted to ask anyone to pick one up for him here. He didn’t like to be thought of as vain, though he supposed he was.

He scraped back his hair with a comb and tied it tightly at the nape of his neck, a style that Enu had always said suited him.

He wondered what Enu was doing now, and what he would think if he knew today was Vanu’s wedding day. He could imagine the reaction, the wide eyes and bark of disbelieving laughter. Vanu, marrying?

He’d cleaned his best clothes for the day. It was cold enough that his best coat, which he rarely wore up here, would be entirely comfortable. He dressed with care, fiddling with the folds of his shirt and the set of his sash.

Might as well admit it. He was nervous.

He’d never got around to asking if anyone had told Lill about his voice. What if no one had? It was too late now. That did not help him feel any easier.

Overall the past week had not been too bad. Padunu had made a couple of waspish speeches about the inconvenience and the irregularity of the wedding, but like much of what Padunu said, it had seemed put on, and Vanu thought the shaman was really enjoying his role in planning the event.

Khatu and Barda had openly enjoyed their job of bustling back and forth from Sakka fetching things and putting up decorations. Tirtu had wisely chosen to leave the planning of the rituals to the shaman and the other lowlander, and had instead laid claim to organizing the feast. He had wanted to slaughter one of the pigs, so they could have fresh pork for the wedding, but Vanu had argued it would be a waste, and the ham and sausages they had left from the winter’s slaughter would be plenty. Then Barda, of all people, saved the day by going out “for mushrooms” one afternoon and killing a deer. It was a scrawny buck that should really have been left alone until the fall, but at least it meant fresh meat for the wedding.