Ever (9 page)

I dislike even his whispery voice.

He adds, “It would befit a bride.”

I laugh. I'm wearing it because I never will be a bride.

“Did I offend you?” He sounds offended.

I swallow my laughter. “No. It was nothing. I'm sorry.”

“I meant
my
bride. Your mati shouldn't have let you wear it on a lesser occasion. It should be kept safe.”

I don't answer. He stops walking. I turn, wondering why.

His hands grasp my shoulders. “I would hate to offend you.”

I try to shrug him off, but his grip is firm. I pull back and feel the wall behind me.

“If we are almost betrothed, I can kiss you. When I watched you dance . . .” The dark oval of his head comes at me. I can barely make out his parted lips, the faint gleam of his teeth.

I shout for help, but I'm sure we're too far away for me to be heard. I cry, “Admat!”

One of his hands lets go of my shoulder and presses on
the back of my head. His teeth clink against mine. His breath smells sour.

Then his mouth is gone. His hands are gone. A wind blows along the avenue. I wrap my shawl around me to keep it from flying away. Two figures are struggling.

Elon groans. I hear a thump. The wind dies. One of the figures is at my side, taller than Elon. In the dark I can't tell if I recognize him. Too late I think of running.

“Mistress . . .” The voice is hardly louder than a whisper, but it's deep and it seems to echo. “Pardon me.” He has an accent. His
p
sounds like a
b. Bardon me
. I don't know anyone who speaks with an accent. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. Thank you for rescuing me.” Who is he? “Thank you.” I am grateful enough to thank him a thousand times.

“Good. Er . . . good.”

“Is Elon . . . Will Elon—”

“Elon is only stunned. He'll sleep awhile. I'm glad you are fine.”

“Thank you. How did you know? Did you hear me shout?”

“Yes, but . . . er . . . I followed you.”

If he hadn't just saved me, I might be frightened that
he followed us. No. How can I be afraid of someone who sounds afraid of me?

“Why did you follow us?”

“I didn't trust him. He kicked me.”

My savior is the handsome slave! “You're the . . . You pile dishes and unpile them.” Maybe Admat did send him.

He laughs. “I'm not a slave.”

Why pretend to be one?

“I'm . . .” He hesitates.

My guardian?

“I'm a goatherd.”

He can't be!

“I am Olus, son of Arduk and Hannu.” Foreign names. “I rent grazing land from your pado.”

Now I am a little frightened. “How do you know who my pado is?”

“You arrived together. And I heard your aunt say.”

Ah.

He adds how generous Pado has been to him, and then I know he is telling the truth. I tell him my name. We start back to the wedding.

In the distance the musicians are still playing. My slippers
shush-shush
on the baked mud street. His bare feet
pat-pat
. My heart does a
pat-pat
too. Although I can't see him clearly, I am aware of how glorious he is.

I wonder why I didn't hear him following us. Then I remember the plate he dropped, the plate that hung in the air before touching the ground.

I want to ask him about the plate and his silent feet and why he's pretending to be a slave and why he came to the wedding. Most of all I want to ask him if he is my guardian. But I'm afraid to. Instead I say, “Where is your pasture?”

“Close to the northern boundary of your pado's land. There is a brook.”

“I know where.” Pado let him have a good spot. “Every autumn we spend two weeks nearby. I love to walk into the hills.”

“I wish you could see a wedding in Akka, where I come from.”

I've never heard of Akka. “Are your weddings different from ours?”

“Some parts are identical. There is a marriage contract and eating the bitter and the sweet. But in Akka we have a pantomime. The bride and groom hold hands. Someone—perhaps a friend of the groom—dons a gray tunic. He is Storm. He attempts to tear the couple apart, but they
hold fast. Another friend wearing black is War. She tries to separate them, but they hold fast. Someone else may be Gossip. Two mort— Two people may be Children Arguing.”

I love this. “What does Gossip wear?”

“Gossip doesn't have a costume, but Gossip claps together the jawbones of a donkey.”

“Is there music?”

“Drums.”

“Do the bride and groom always hold fast?”

“They never let go.”

I wish Olus had kissed me instead of Elon. The most daring thought comes to me. I can't act on it.

But Admat sends everything: my thoughts, my feelings, my death, this goatherd. So perhaps I should. Tomorrow I will have twenty-nine days left.

“Kezi, I—”

“Olus, will you erase Elon's kiss? Will you kiss me?” I hold my breath, waiting.

His feet stop their
pat-pat
. Have I shocked him?

His hand tilts my chin up, so gently.

I close my eyes and give myself over to his touch. His other hand, gentle too, cups my cheek. He kisses me, a feather kiss. His breath is sweet. He kisses me again,
longer. I lean into his chest.

A wind picks us up, and we rise.

I am filled with terror.

OLUS

S
HE SCREAMS, “
A
DMAT!”

My high wind blows her scream into the sky. Again I didn't mean to use my winds. She pushes away from me and starts to fall. I catch her around the waist and bring her down slowly. She runs from me.

She runs until she reaches the nearest of the feast tables, which is deserted. For several minutes, which pass like months, she lingers there. Then she turns my way. To my amazement, she smiles.

I rise on my merry wind and smile back, although she
cannot see.

She points her toe, turns her foot to the side, raises her arms, and performs a brief leaping dance. When she's finished, she joins the dancers again.

Did she like our kiss?

KEZI

A
FTER THE WEDDING
I sleep into the afternoon. I awaken thinking of Olus.

Sleep has brought understanding. There is no mention in the holy text of Admat ever sending guardians to people. I am not so extraordinary that he would send one to me.

Olus must be a masma, a sorcerer—a foreign masma
because of his accent and his foreign name. This explains everything: how he kept the plate from breaking, how he followed us without our knowing, how he so easily defeated Elon, how he raised me in the air.

Masmas are people, like everyone else. Most are believed to be bad, but some are decent, even devout. Olus couldn't be evil, or Pado would have known. Pado wouldn't rent his land to an evil person.

Olus may be able to fly much higher than he lifted me. What marvelous magic!

I wonder why I caught his interest. Is he thinking of me right now? Or of his goats? Probably his goats!

I stretch in bed. My legs are sore from so much dancing. I would love to dance while flying. Mmm, mmm. Such a thrill to leap a mile, to touch a cloud.

These may be sinful thoughts, but I don't see why.

I sit up.

It is as if yesterday were in a corner, waiting to pounce, and now it does. I hadn't forgotten the oath and the sacrifice, but I hadn't looked in that corner until now.

I slump back and roll over, pressing my face into the mattress. My tears seep through the sheet into the wool stuffing. Soon I smell wet sheep. I can't stop crying.

Mati comes in and sits next to me. She pulls me against
her and rubs my back.

“Will . . . will . . .”

“What?”

“Will . . . will . . . the knife . . . hurt?” The priest's knife.

She holds me at arm's length and touches the tip of my nose the way she used to when I was little. “Admat won't let it hurt.”

Maybe he is so angry with me that he wants it to hurt.

Pado parts the curtain that crosses my doorway. When he sees us crying, he runs in. He kneels at my bedside. The three of us weep, clinging to one another.

After a while he pulls himself up and sits on the bed, too. The bed groans under the weight of all of us.

I have no more tears left, so I laugh. “The bed will collapse.”

“No matter,” Pado says.

The bed has to last only a few more weeks. Of course, that's not what he meant.

Mati says, “Aunt Fedo came while you slept.”

“We told her,” Pado says. “She's weeping, too.”

“She's here? Where?”

“In the reception room,” Mati says.

I don't want to see her.

But I do see her. Mati and Pado wait outside my room while I dress in my everyday tunic, which has a green stain at the hem.

Aunt Fedo is in the copper-inlay chair, head down, looking into her lap. When she hears us, she tries to stand but drops her cane. She bends over to reach for it. Her back shakes with sobs.

Through her tunic I see the bumps of her spine. Her hair is as much gray as brown. How many more years have I given her?

We may both die tomorrow, in spite of Pado's oath. As you wish, so it will be.