It finally grew so obvious that he hunted up Damon to ask about it. Damon chuckled and said, “I had forgotten that you are a stranger to the Kilghard Hills, brother. You don’t want to cheat them of their fun, do you? It’s a game at weddings, to keep husband and wife apart so they cannot slip away and consummate their marriage in private, before being put to bed together. Then everybody can have the fun of making the kind of jokes that are traditional here at weddings.” He chuckled, and Andrew wondered suddenly what he was in for!
Damon followed his thoughts accurately and said, “If the marriages had been held in Thendara—they are more sophisticated there, and more civilized. But here they keep country customs and I’m afraid they’re very near to nature. I don’t mind all that much, myself, but then, I was fostered here. At my age I’ll take a little extra teasing—most men marry when they’re about Domenic’s age. And Ellemir was brought up in the hill-country, too, and she’s teased the bride at so many weddings, I suppose she’ll enjoy the fun as much as any of them. But I wish I could spare Callista this. She’s been… sheltered. And a Keeper giving up her place is fair game for dirty jokes; I’m afraid they’ll think up something really tough for her.”
Andrew looked at Ellemir, laughing and blushing in a crowd of girls. Callista was similarly surrounded, but she looked withdrawn and miserable. Andrew noticed, however, with relief that while many of the women were giggling, blushing, and shrieking with laughter, a substantial number of them—mostly the youngest ones—were like Callista, red-faced and shy.
“Drink up!” Domenic thrust a glass into Andrew’s hands. “You can’t be sober at a wedding, it’s disrespectful. Anyhow, if you didn’t get drunk, you might be too eager and mishandle your bride, eh, Damon?” He added some kind of joke about moonlight which Andrew failed to understand, but made Damon snort with shamed laughter.
“I see you are consulting Andrew for advice about later tonight. Tell me, Andrew, do your people have a machine for that too? No?” He pantomimed exaggerated relief. “That’s something! I was afraid we’d have to arrange a special demonstration.”
Dezi was staring at Damon with concentrated attention. Was the youngster drunk already? Dezi said, “I am glad you declared your intention of legitimating your sons, or are you? At your age, do you mean to tell me you have no sons, Damon?”
Damon said with a good-natured smile, a wedding being no time to take offense at intrusive questions, “I am neither monk nor ombredin, Dezi, so I suppose it is not impossible, but if I have, their mothers have neglected to inform me of their existence. But I would have welcomed a son, bastard or no.” Abruptly his mind touched Dezi’s; drunkenly, the boy had failed to barricade himself, and in the flood of bitterness Damon understood the one relevant thing, realizing for the first time what lay at the core of Dezi’s bitterness.
The boy believed himself to be Dom Esteban’s son, and never acknowledged. But would Esteban have done that to any son of his, however begotten? Damon wondered. He recalled that Dezi had laran.
Later, when he mentioned this to Domenic the other said, “I don’t believe it. My father is a just man. He acknowledged his nedestro sons by Larissa d’Asturien, and has settled property on them. He has been as kind to Dezi as to any kinsman, but if Dezi had been his son, he would surely have said so.”
“He sent him to Arilinn,” Damon argued, “and you know that no one except those of the pure Comyn blood may come there. It is not so at the other Towers, but Arilinn—”
Domenic hesitated. “I will not discuss my father’s doings behind his back,” he said at last, firmly. “Come and ask him.”
“Is this the time for such a question?”
“A wedding is the time for settling questions of legitimacy,” Domenic said firmly, and Damon followed him, thinking that this was very like Domenic, to have such a question settled as soon as it was raised.
Dom Esteban was sitting on the sidelines, talking to a painfully polite young couple who slipped away to dance as his son approached. Domenic asked it bluntly:
“Father, is Dezi our brother or not?”
Esteban Lanart looked down at the wolfskin covering his knees. He said, “It might well be so, my boy.”
Domenic demanded fiercely, “Why, then, is he not acknowledged?”
“Domenic, you don’t understand these things, lad. His mother—”
“A common whore?” Domenic demanded in dismay and disgust.
“What do you take me for? No, of course not. She was one of my kinswomen. But she…” Oddly, the rough old man colored in embarrassment. He said at last, “Well, the poor lass is dead now and cannot be shamed further. It was Midwinter festival, and we were all drunk, and she lay that night with me—and not with me alone, but with four or five of my cousins. So when she proved to be with child, none of us was willing to acknowledge the boy. I’ve done what I could for him, and it’s obvious to look at him that he has Comyn blood, but he could have been mine, or Gabriel’s, or Gwynn’s—”
Domenic’s face was red, but he persisted. “Still, a Comyn son should have been acknowledged.”
Esteban looked uncomfortable. “Gwynn always said he meant to, but he died before he got around to it. I have hesitated to tell Dezi that story, because I think it would hurt his pride worse than simple bastardy. I do not think he has been ill-used,” he said, defending himself. “I have had him here to live, I sent him to Arilinn. He has had everything of a nedestro heir save formal acknowledgment.”
Damon thought that over as he went back to the dancing. No wonder Dezi was touchy, troubled; he obviously sensed some disgrace which bastardy alone would not have given. It was disgraceful for a girl of good family to be promiscuous that way. He knew Ellemir had had lovers, but she had chosen them discreetly and one, at least, had been her sister’s husband, which was long-established custom. There had been no scandal. Nor had she risked bearing a child no man would acknowledge.
When Damon and Domenic had left him, Andrew went moodily to get another drink. He thought, with a certain grimness, that considering what lay ahead of him this night, he might do well to get himself as drunk as possible. Between the country customs Damon thought so much of a joke, and the knowledge that he and Callista could not consummate their marriage yet, it was going to be one hell of a wedding night.
On second thought he would have to walk a narrow line, drunk enough to blur his awareness of embarrassment, but sober enough to keep in mind his pledge to Callista, never to put the slightest pressure on her, or try to hurry her. He wanted her—he had never wanted any woman in his life as much as he wanted her—but he wanted her willingly, sharing his own desire. He knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t get the slightest pleasure out of anything remotely approaching rape; and in her present state, it couldn’t be anything but.
“If you do not get drunk, you might be overeager and mishandle your bride.” Damn Domenic and his jokes! Fortunately none of them except Damon, who understood the problem, knew what he was going through.
If they did know, they’d probably think it was funny! Andrew considered. Just one more dirty joke for a wedding!
Abruptly he felt distress, dismay… Callista! Callista in trouble somewhere! He hurried in her direction, letting his own telepathic sensitivity guide him.
He found her at one end of the hall, pinned against the wall by Dezi, who had one arm at either side of her so she could not dodge away and escape. He was leaning forward as if to kiss her. She twisted to one side and then the other, trying to avoid his lips, imploring him. “Don’t, Dezi, I do not want to defend myself against a kinsman—”
“We are not now in the Tower, domna. Come now, one real kiss…”
Andrew grabbed the boy by one shoulder and plucked him away, lifting him clear of the floor.
“Damn it, leave her alone!”
Dezi looked sullen. “It was but a jest between kinfolk.”
“A jest Callista seemed not to share,” Andrew said. “Get lost! Or I’ll—”
&n
bsp; “You’ll what ?” Dezisneered. “Challenge me to a duel?”
Andrew looked down at the slight youngster, flushed, angry, obviously drunk. Abruptly his anger melted away. There was something to be said, he thought, for the Terran custom of a legal age for drinking. “Challenge, hell,” he said laughing, looking down at the angry boy. “I’ll put you over my knee and spank you for the nasty little boy you are. Now go away and sober up and stop bothering the grown-ups!”
Dezi gave Andrew a look like murder, but he went, and Andrew realized that for the first time since the declaration he was alone with Callista.
“What the hell was that all about?”
She was as crimson as her light draperies, but she tried to make a joke of it. “Oh, he said that now I was Keeper no more, I was free at last to give way to the irresistible passion he is sure he must arouse in any female breast.”
“I should have mopped up the floor with him,” Andrew said.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, I think he’s simply drunk a bit more than he can carry. And he is a kinsman, after all. It’s not unlikely he’s my father’s son.”
Andrew had, after all, half guessed this when he saw Domenic and Dezi side by side. “But would he so misuse a girl he believes to be his sister?”
“Half-sister,” Callista answered, “and in the hills, half-brothers and half-sisters can lie together if they will, or even marry, though it is considered luckier for them to bear no children so close akin. And horseplay and dirty jokes are expected at a wedding, so what he did was only rude, not shocking. I am too sensitive, and after all he is very young.”
She still looked shaken and distressed, and Andrew still thought he should have wiped the floor up with the boy; then, tardily, he wondered if he had been too hard on Dezi. Dezi wasn’t the first kid or the last to drink more than he could handle and make himself obnoxious.
He said gently, looking at her tired, strained face, “This will be over soon, love.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “You do know… the custom… ?”
“Damon told me,” he said wryly. “I gather they put us to bed together, with plenty of rough jokes.”
She nodded, coloring. “It is supposed to encourage the begetting of children, and in this part of the world that is very important to a young family, as you can imagine. So we, must simply… make the best of it.” She glanced at him, crimson, and said, “I am sorry. I know this will make it worse—”
He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t think so,” he said, smiling. “If anything, that kind of thing would tend to put me off anyhow.” He saw the flicker of guilt again in her face, and ached to comfort and reassure her.
“Look,” he said gently, “think of it this way: let them have their fun, but we can do as we please, and that will be our secret, as it should be. In our own time. So we can sit back and ignore their nonsense.”
She sighed and smiled at him. She said softly, “If you really think of it that way…”
“I do, love.”
“I’m so glad,” she said in a whisper. “Look, Ellemir is being pulled away by all the girls.” She added quickly, at his look of dismay, “No, they’re not hurting her, it’s only the custom that a bride should struggle and fight a little. It comes from the days when girls were married off without consent, but it’s only a joke now. See, Father’s body-servants have taken my father away, and Leonie will withdraw too, so the young folk can make all the noise they like.”
But Leonie was not withdrawing; she came and stood beside them, still and somber in her crimson draperies.
“Callista, child, do you want me to stay? Perhaps in my presence the jokes will be a little more restrained and seemly.”
Andrew could sense how much Callista longed for this, but she smiled and touched Leonie’s hand, the feather-touch customary among telepaths. “I thank you, kinswoman. But I… I must not start by cheating everyone of their fun. No bride ever died of embarrassment, and I am sure I shall not be the first.” And Andrew, looking at her, bravely steeled to endure without complaint whatever obscene horseplay they had created for a Keeper who gave up her ritual virginity, remembered the gallant girl who had made brave little jokes, even when she was a prisoner, alone and terrified in the caves of Corresanti.
It is for this that I love her so, he told himself.
Leonie said, very gently, “As you will, then, darling. Take my blessing.” She bowed gravely to them both and went away.
As if her withdrawal had loosed the floodgates, a tide of young men and girls came surging up to them in full flood.
“Callista, Ann’dra, you waste time here, the night is wearing away. Have you nothing better to do this night than talk?”
He saw Damon being pulled along by Dezi; Domenic grasped his own hand and he was drawn away from Callista, saw the flood of young girls surge up around her and conceal her from him. Someone shouted out, “We’ll make sure she’s ready for you, Ann’dra, so you needn’t defile these holy robes of hers!”
“Come along, both of you,” Domenic cried, in high good spirits. “These fellows would rather stay here drinking all night, I am sure, but now they must do their duty, a bride must not be kept waiting.”
He and Damon were hauled up the stairs, shoved into the living room of the suite they had prepared this morning. “Don’t get them mixed up now,” the Guardsman Caradoc called out drunkenly. “When the brides are twins, how is a mere husband, and drunk at that, to know if he lies in the arms of the right woman?”
“What difference does it make?” asked a strange young man. “That is for them to settle among themselves, is it not? And when the lamp is out, one woman is like another. If they are confused between left hand and right, what difference does it make?”
“We must start with Damon. He has lost so much time that he must make haste to do his duty to his clan,” Domenic said gaily. Damon was quickly stripped of his clothing and wrapped in a long robe. The bedroom door was opened with ceremony and Andrew could see Ellemir, thinly gowned in spider-silk, her copper hair unbound and streaming over her breasts. She was red-faced, giggling uncontrollably, but Andrew sensed that it was on the ragged edge of hysterical sobbing. It was enough, he thought. It was too much. Everyone should get out and leave them alone.
“Damon,” Domenic said solemnly, “I have made you a gift.”
Andrew saw with relief that Damon was just drunk enough to be good-natured. “That is kind of you, brother-in-law. What is your gift?”
“I have made you a calendar, marked with the days and the moons. If you do your duty this night, see, I have marked in crimson the date when your first son will be born!”
Damon was red with stifled laughter. Andrew could see that he would rather have thrown it at Domenic’s head, but he accepted it, let them ceremoniously help him into bed at Ellemir’s side. Domenic said something to Ellemir which made her duck down and smother her face in the sheets, then conducted the watchers to the door, with mock solemnity.
“And now, so that we may pass our night in peaceful drinking, undisturbed by whatever goes on beyond these doors, I have another gift for the happy couple. I shall set up a telepathic damper just inside your doors—”
Damon sat up in bed and flung a pillow at them, finally losing patience. “Enough is enough,” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here and leave us in peace!”
As if that had been what they were waiting for—perhaps it was—the whole crowd of men and women began to withdraw quickly toward the doors. “Really,” Domenic rebuked, drawing his face into reproving lines, “can you not contain your impatience a little longer, Damon? My poor little sister, at the mercy of such unseemly haste!” But he closed the door, and behind him Andrew heard Damon come to the door and bolt it. At least there was a limit to the jokes considered proper, and Damon and Ellemir were alone.
But now it was his turn. There was, he thought grimly, only one good thing about all this. By the time the drunken men were finished with their horseplay, he was goin
g to be too tired—and too damn mad—for anything except sleep.
They thrust him into the room where Callista waited, surrounded by the young girls, friends of Ellemir, their own servants, young noblewomen from the surrounding countryside. They had taken away her somber crimson draperies, put her into a thin gown like Ellemir’s, her hair unbraided, streaming over her bare shoulders. She looked quickly up at him, and somehow it seemed to Andrew for a moment that she looked much younger than Ellemir: young, lost, and vulnerable.
He sensed that she was fighting to keep back tears. Shyness and reluctance were part of the game, but if she really broke down and cried, he knew, they would be ashamed and resentful of her for spoiling their fun. They would despise her for her inability to join in the game.
Children could be cruel, he told himself, and so many of these girls were only children. Young as she looked, Callista was a woman. She was, perhaps, never a child; she had her childhood stolen by the Tower… He steeled himself against whatever was coming, knowing that however rough it was for him, it was worse for Callista.
How soon can I get them out of here, he wondered, before she breaks down and cries, and hates herself for it? Why should she have to endure this nonsense?
Domenic took him firmly by the shoulders and turned him around, facing away from Callista.
“Pay attention,” he admonished. “We have not finished with you yet, and the women have not yet made Callista ready for you. Can you not wait a few minutes?” And Andrew let Domenic do as he would, preparing to give courteous attention to the jokes be did not understand. But he thought longingly of the time when he and Callista would be alone.
Or would that be worse? Well, whether or not there was this to get through, somehow, first. He let Domenic and the men lead him into the adjoining room.
* * *
Chapter Six