Page 60 of The Boy Bride

“Good night,” said Lill, and turned to go back up the stairs.

Chapter 19

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.

It had been made clear to him for as long as he could remember that the members of the Order of the Sworn Defenders of the Divine King lived outside the law of Heaven. They did so because it was necessary, because the Great King required their service, their complete loyalty. But the prophet Vaksha, 700 years ago, had condemned the worship of the kings, which had been common at the time, when he brought the doctrine of the Almighty to Zash. His followers, even the kings themselves, had forbidden the practice. Lill had read some of the proclamations, copied on tablets and preserved in the Order’s extensive library.

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.