Chapter XLIX
Geoffrey came to a quick halt outside the door, glancing about frantically for Artur before finding him stalking about behind the building, his fellows milling around him. Laying his hand upon his son’s shoulder, he counseled him, “You have given up much in your life. You have sacrificed what most men cling to most desperately, and always to benefit your people. Now you have learned to take care of people not your own as well. Come inside with me; I have something to say to you and to all.”
Geoffrey pulled the fuming man back into the community hall, as the Rufoux crowd continued to murmur. Artur hardly knew what buzzed about him, so aggravated he still was. Theodoric and Dungo moved to speak with him, but Geoffrey waved them off.
“Hear me, Rufoux! I claim my right as elder of the clan, and I have a proclamation. I am elder of the Rufoux and of my family, and I will judge rightly the prospects of both. The events of these days away from Rufoux lands have shown me many things, one being that we must not sacrifice the future for the sake of the past. Therefore, I proclaim this before all the Rufoux: My son Artur, chief of the Rufoux, has been betrothed and engaged according to Rufoux custom, and all that remains for him is to marry.”
Artur now forgot his anger and stared at his father in utter confusion.
Geoffrey continued: “Therefore I proclaim that he will marry the bride of his choosing.”
Where once murmuring simmered on the Rufoux side of the building, now shouts of disapproval boiled over. “No! It is not according to the traditions!” cried out a voice.
“He has undergone the ceremonies!” Geoffrey barked back. “What is most important, the intended bride or the ceremony? Flesh that dies or traditions that live?”
“You would defile the Rufoux way!” voices argued.
“What good does the Rufoux way, when it fails?” said Geoffrey. “What victory did the Rufoux way give us against the Aoten? When our traditions fail, we must seek a different remedy. We must find a way to redeem the failure of the law!”
“Our traditions have preserved our clan for generations! They have made us the most prosperous and powerful of all tribes in Medialia!”
“And yet where do we find ourselves now?” asked Geoffrey. “At the brink of extinction. Would you also condemn Artur’s line to extinction? Does he not have an obligation now to fulfill?”
Quiet held sway for a moment. “But the traditions!” said a single voice; and others, not as many and not as strident, joined in.
“What harm would come if Artur did marry?” asked Wyllem.
Again silence fell, and nothing but silence, as no suitable answer presented itself. “But —” a lonely voice said. “But no woman Artur’s age remains single.”
“He’ll have to figure that out for himself,” said Geoffrey.
Still no rebuttal was raised. “I claim my right as elder,” Geoffrey declared a second time. A cheer hummed and rose out of the Melics, joined by Bedoua clicking. Dungo clapped Artur on the back with a broad smile and much talk; Mercedi brought her archers to their feet in salute; Theodoric, now upon the rafters with an arm around his foundling child Picta, gazed upon his rash friend in wonder; even Yarrow looked up from happily inspecting Kylie’s blade.
In those days many young Rufoux girls had not been betrothed, but all less than six years old. A few widowed women still lived as well, centuries old. For Artur only one choice offered itself. So he went about finding her.
“Besides,” said Geoffrey. “Andreia has submitted to betrothal and engagement as well. Just not with Artur. She has fulfilled the traditions.”
A bird had flown against a boisterous wind, splaying the feathers of its wings and tail, fighting to gain some leverage over elements it could not control. Pure white, with deep brown eyes, deep like the night, the dove combated its unseen foe, with no panic upon its countenance. Each twist, each contortion gave it more mastery over the buffeting breeze. Slowly she floated toward a perch, an odd configuration of horizontal poles, thick and slender, great and delicate, green with olive sprigs, and set upon a high hill. Just as her feet lit upon one of the thin rods, the air calmed and all was peaceful. There she took refuge, safe from the whipping winds, and she waited. So did Andreia dream, and so there she withdrew, to the stacks of logs and racks for drying leather at the crest of the bluff, away from the bluster of the community house. Eventually, guided only by the dim moon, without insight of dream, Artur found her there.
“Andreia.”
She looked to him in silence, a slight smile making her glistening eyes a little less clear.
“Geoffrey has spoken tonight.”
“Your father.”
“Andreia —” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“I — I have often thought I wanted to be free, loosed from the clan’s traditions that have laid chains upon me. But tonight Geoffrey declared me bound, and in need of fulfilling my promise, not to a woman but to the clan. In that I have found the freedom I needed.”
“Sir Artur, your time with Theodoric has made you incomprehensible.”
“What I mean is — ” and Artur’s voice trailed off into a prolonged pause.
“Would you like to walk with me, Artur? Come, and your steps will help collect your thoughts, and perhaps you will be entertained by a tale I can tell.”
She took hold of two fingers of Artur’s immense hand, and he joined her, trying to fit together what few words he had into sentences with meaning. Soon he found it much easier just to listen, as Andreia’s smooth voice flowed into his ears. Her words rang more beautifully than the Melic harmonies, more delicious than milk and honey, more gloriously precious than all the gold ferreted away in Koinoni hiding places.
“There lived a thylak, a great and strong thylak, leader of the pack. He burst with courage, and led the rest of the thylak on every hunt. Every other animal of the land feared him, except the snake. In truth the snake feared too, but he went about in secret, trying to find a way to destroy the great thylak. He relied upon cunning, which is not the same as bravery, and he would not attack the thylak. So he waited until the thylak fell asleep, and he slipped into his mouth, slithered into the thylak’s chest and stole his heart. When the thylak awoke, he knew his heart had been taken. Now he was afraid, at first, for his heart had been the seat of his courage and strength, and his hope for the future. He hid behind the trees and tried to stay away from his pack. Then he realized that because he had no heart, he could not be killed. This became strength to him, though he felt a hole in his chest; he had become invincible. He rejoined the hunt, and became even more courageous, because he could not be killed.”
“What do you mean?”
Andreia smiled with kind patience. “The story means nothing. It is but feathers of pleasantry dancing upon the air. But when the thylak took his heart back, he became not quite so daring.”
The passage of time seemed to waver as their conversation turned to sometimes-unrelated inspirations of thought. At times they tested deep waters; at other times they were satisfied to consider a particular leaf, glinting with a color they had never noticed before.
“I have always been one to challenge the traditions,” Andreia offered, looking away. “Foolishly, I’m afraid. Tragically. But not you, Artur. You saw our ways as the Rufoux themselves, and only by serving the traditions could you serve your people. But you have changed. Your ideals have slipped to become like mine now, and I pray my desires have not corrupted you.”
“You and I have much to be responsible for, good and bad, but you could not corrupt a daisy,” Artur replied. “The progress of events, traced backwards, leaves an unlikely trail, twisting around obstacles and boldly plunging into pitfalls, every former turn forsaken for another leading to a completely different present. Will one choice ever deliver us from the bitter fruit of another once taken? How can we know, until we arrive at a new present and can look back again? These last few months I have learned to use the traditions only as they serve me, and leave the
rest to the wiles of fortune.”
“I believe Theodoric has affected your thinking.”
“He has made me think. He has forced me to see. I have seen many new things, and that they may be wrong, or maybe not, or maybe I can not even tell the difference.”
As the night folded its blanket over the land, the multitude of stars turned out in silent celebration. The moon reigned over the crystal sky, its crescent smiling upon the Earth and the strolling couple. Artur and Andreia sat against a tree deep in the Melic forest.
“I have not felt this way since the hour I lost Lauræl. But I should not speak of her.”
“But you should. She must not be forgotten. Nor either Aric.”
“No, but today I must speak of Andreia. At times I have grudgingly kept affection far from myself, knowing it to be doomed to frustration. Other times I fended it off with bravado, as if swinging Kylie — ” and he stopped. “Kylie! I have lost another lover!”
“Kylie is lost to you?”
“Yes, for the honor of another girl. One whose heart also breaks. Never did I know the world nurtured such heartache. And yet you’ve been at my fingertips for so long, for years.”
“For years. For years I knew nobody else would find my bed,” said Andreia. “But besides the traditions, the chieftain of the Rufoux had more important duties than to see after a young girl. You don’t remember the times I served you, invisible right before your eyes. I knew to have no hope in my designs. But one day everything changed, and I knew when you carried me from the battleground and into safety, everything had changed.”
“But you lay unconscious then.”
“Yes, and still I knew, somehow. Perhaps we know more than we realize in our dream shadows. But then, I feel like I’m unconscious even now.”
Night birds sang brilliantly against the flitting shadows. In the background crooned a sound Artur now recognized, though through all the many decades of his life it had never meant a thing: Melic songs, the blending of barkstrings and reeds, a composition of Mienrade. Branches swayed gently as the wind caressed and tweaked their leaves, an elegant dance of incantation over the man and woman as they leaned upon the tree’s strength.
“What we do has never occurred before, at least not as long as anyone remembers,” said Artur, still feeling clumsy. “I imagine I should ask — Andreia — will you be married to me?”
“Hoo-rah,” she said quietly.
“I suppose this day has forever been coming. I never to my last breath thought that I would receive blessing from Mog. Never a blessing of any kind. But hasn’t every couple thought their love to be specially endowed by their god? Are we all correct, or all deluded? Mog knows only strength and anger, forcing his way with hot rage. I would prefer to think I have received grace from you, not him.”
Artur took the liberty of caressing the back of Andreia’s head, cupping it in his oversized hand. His eyes fell into hers, like the deep pools of Medialia itself. She looked patiently up to him, her delicate frame entirely at his mercy. He hesitated once, twice, before his lips came upon hers with a sigh like a great flock of birds taking wing, bearing away the totality of burdens he had carried all his life.
“You are the morning sun rising over Medialia. You are the waters of the Alluvia. You are the life-giver.”
Artur stretched back and cradled Andreia under his arm. His eyes climbed the massive standancrag before them and came to rest upon a little grotto, where dried leaves blew about lazily and stones lined the floor, some forty kronyn up.