The only two who weren’t tied by blood to Volemak or Rasa were nevertheless nieces in Rasa’s house: The waterseer Luet and the raveler Hushidh. They were still only girls, of course, hardly ready to handle the difficult work of governance. But they had enormous prestige among the women of Basilica, especially the waterseer. They would be only figureheads, but with Rashgallivak to actually run things, and Bitanke to watch Rashgallivak and protect the figurehead from being manipulated against Moozh’s best interest, the city could run very well while Moozh turned his attention to his real problems—the Cities of the Plain, and the Imperator.

  Rashgallivak married to Rasa. It sounded so pleasantly dynastic. No doubt Rash’s dreams included supplanting Moozh one day and ruling in his own right. Well, Moozh could hardly begrudge him those dreams. But there would soon be a dynasty that would surpass Rash’s poor dreams. Rash might take the Lady Rasa, but how would that compare with the glorious marriage of the waterseer or the raveler with General Moozh himself? That would be a dynasty that could stand for a thousand years. That would be a dynasty that could topple the feeble house of that pathetic little man who dared to call himself the incarnation of God—the Imperator, whose power would be nothing when Moozh decided to move against him.

  And, best of all, by marrying and using one of these chosen vessels of the Oversoul, Moozh would have the triumph that pleased him most: The triumph over God. You were never strong enough to control me, O Almighty One. And now I’ll take your chosen daughter, filled with your visions, and make her the mother of a dynasty that will defy you and destroy all your plans and works.

  Stop me if you can! I am far too strong for you.

  * * *

  Nafai found Luet and Hushidh together, waiting for him in the secret place on the roof. They looked very grave, which did nothing to calm the fear in Nafai’s heart. Until now, Nafai had never felt himself to be young; he had always felt himself to be a person, equal to any other. But now his youth pressed in on him. He had not thought to marry now, or even really to decide whom to marry. Nor was it the easy, temporary union that he had expected his first marriage to be. His wife would probably be his only wife, and if he did badly in this marriage, he’d have no recourse. Seeing Luet and Hushidh, both looking at him solemnly as he made his way across the brightly sunlit roof, he wondered again if he could do this: If he could marry this girl Luet, who was so perfect and wise in the eyes of the Oversoul. She had come to the Oversoul with love, with devotion, with courage—he had come like a bratty child, taunting and testing his unknown parent. She had years of experience in speaking with the Oversoul; perhaps more important, she had had years in speaking for the Oversoul, to the women of Basilica. She knew how to dominate others—hadn’t he seen it there on the shores of the lake of women, when she faced them down and saved his life?

  Will I be coming to you as a husband or a child? A partner or a student?

  “So the family council is over,” said Hushidh, when at last he was near enough for easy speech.

  He seated himself on the carpet under the awning. The shade gave him little enough respite from the heat. Sweat dripped under his clothing. It made him aware of his own naked body, hidden from view. If he married Luet, he would have to offer that body to her tonight. How often had he dreamed of such an offering? And yet never once had he thought of coming to a girl who filled him with awe and shyness, and yet who was herself utterly without experience; always in his dreams the woman was eager for him, and he was a bold and ready lover. There would be nothing like that tonight.

  He had a wrenching thought. What if Luet wasn’t ready yet? What if she wasn’t even a woman yet? He quickly spoke a prayer in his heart to the Oversoul, but couldn’t finish it, because he wasn’t sure whether he hoped she was a woman, or hoped that she was not.

  “How thickly woven are the bonds already,” said Hushidh.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Nafai.

  “We’re tied to the future by so many cords. The Oversoul has always told dear Luet, here, that she wants human beings to follow her freely. But I think she has caught us in a very tight-woven net, and we have about as much choice as a fish that’s been dragged up from the sea.”

  “We have choices,” said Nafai. “We always have choices.”

  “Do we?”

  I don’t want to talk to you, Hushidh. I came here now to talk to Luet.

  “We have the choice to follow the Oversoul or not,” said Luet, her voice coming soft and sweet, compared to Hushidh’s harsher tone. “And if we choose to follow, then we are not caught in her net, but rather carried in her basket into the future.”

  Hushidh smiled wanly. “Always so cheerful, aren’t you, Lutya.”

  A lull in the conversation.

  If I am to be a man and a husband, I must learn to act boldly, even when I’m afraid. “Luet,” he began. Then: “Lutya.”

  “Yes?” she said.

  But he could not ignore Hushidh’s eyes boring into him, seeing in him things that he had no desire for her to see.

  “Hushidh,” he said, “could I speak to Luet alone?”

  “I have no secrets from my sister,” said Luet.

  “And will that be true, even when you have a husband?” asked Nafai.

  “I have no husband,” said Luet.

  “But if you did, I would hope that he would be the one you shared your inmost heart with, and not your sister.”

  “If I had a husband, I would hope that he would not be so cruel as to require me to abandon my sister, who is my only family in the world.”

  “If you had a husband,” said Nafai, “he should love your sister as if she were his own sister. But still not as much as he loved you, and so you should not love your sister as much as you loved him.”

  “Not all marriages are for love,” said Luet. “Some are because one has no choice.”

  The words stung him to the heart. She knew, of course—if the Oversoul had told him, it would certainly have told her, as well. And she was telling him that she didn’t love him, that she was marrying him only because the Oversoul commanded it.

  “True,” said Nafai. “But that doesn’t mean that the husband and the wife can’t treat each other with gentleness and kindness, until they learn trust for each other. It doesn’t mean they can’t resolve to love each other, even if they didn’t choose the marriage freely, for themselves.”

  “I hope that what you’ve said is true.”

  “I promise to make it true, if you’ll promise me the same.”

  Luet looked at him with a chagrined smile on her face. “Oh. Is this how I’m to hear my husband ask me to be his wife?”

  So he had done it wrong. He had offended her, perhaps hurt her, certainly disappointed her. How she must loathe the idea of being married to him. Didn’t she see that he would never have chosen to force such a thing on her? As the thought formed in his mind, he blurted it out. “The Oversoul chose us for each other, and so yes, I’m asking you to marry me, even though I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of me?”

  “Not that you mean me any harm—you’ve saved my life, and my father’s life before that. I’m afraid—of your disdain for me. I’m afraid that I’ll always be humiliated before you and your sister, the two of you, seeing everything weak about me, looking down on me. The way you see me now.”

  In all his life, Nafai had never spoken with such brutal frankness about his own fear; he had never felt so exposed and vulnerable in front of anyone. He dared not look up at her face—at their faces—for fear of seeing a look of wondrous contempt.

  “Oh, Nafai, I’m sorry,” whispered Luet.

  Her words came as the blow that he had most dreaded. She pitied him. She saw how weak and frightened and uncertain he was, and she felt sorry for him. And yet even in the pain of that moment of disappointment, he felt a small bright fire of joy inside. I can do this, he thought. I have shown my weakness to these strong women, and still I am myself, and alive inside, and not defeated at all.

  “Nafai, I only thought of how frightened I was,” said Luet. “I never imagined that you might feel that way, too, or I would never have asked Shuya to stay here when you came to me.”

  “It’s no great pleasure to be here, I assure you,” added Hushidh.

  “It was wrong of me to make you say these things in front of Shuya,” said Luet. “And it was wrong of me to be afraid of you. I should have known that the Oversoul wouldn’t have chosen you if you weren’t a good-hearted man.”

  She was afraid of him?

  “Won’t you look at me, Nafai?” she asked. “I know you never looked at me before, not with hope or longing, anyway, but now that the Oversoul has given us to each other, can’t you look at me with—with kindness, anyway?”

  How could he lift his face to her now, with his eyes full of tears; and yet, since she asked him, since it would mean disappointment to her if he did not, how could he refuse? He looked at her, and even though his eyes swam with tears—of joy, of relief, of emotions even stronger that he didn’t understand—he saw her as if for the first time, as if her soul had been made transparent to him. He saw the purity of her heart. He saw how fully she had given herself to the Oversoul, and to Basilica, and to her sister, and to him. He saw that in her heart she longed only to build something fine and beautiful, and how readily she was willing to try to do that with this boy who sat before her.

  “What do you see, when you look at me like that?” asked Luet, her voice timid, yet daring to ask.

  “I see what a great and glorious woman you are,” he said, “and how little reason I have to fear you, because you’d never harm me or any other soul.”

  “Is that all you see?” she asked.

  “I see that the Oversoul has found in you the most perfect example of what the human race must all become, if we are to be whole, and not destroy ourselves again.”

  “Nothing more?” she asked.

  “What can be more wonderful than the things I’ve told you that I see?”

  By now his eyes had cleared enough to see that she was now on the verge of crying—but not for joy.

  “Nafai, you poor fool, you blind man,” said Hushidh, “don’t you know what she’s hoping that you see?”

  No, I don’t know, thought Nafai. I don’t know any of the right things to say. I’m not like Mebbekew, I’m not clever or tactful, I give offense to everybody when I speak, and somehow I’ve done it again, even though everything I said was what I honestly feel.

  He looked at her, feeling helpless; what could he do? She looked at him so hungrily, aching for him to give her—what? He had praised her honestly, with the sort of praise that he could have spoken to no other woman in the world, and it was nothing to her, because she wanted something more from him, and he didn’t know what it was. He was hurting her with his very silence, stabbing her to the heart, he could see that—and yet was powerless to stop doing it.

  She was so frail, so young—even younger than he. He had never realized that before. She had always been so sure of herself, and, because she was the waterseer, he had always been in awe. He had never realized how . . . how breakable she was. How thinly her luminous skin covered her, how small her bones were. A tiny stone could bruise her, and now I find her battered with stones that I cast without knowing. Forgive me, Luet, tender child, gentle girl. I was so afraid for myself, but I turned out not to be breakable at all, even when I thought you and Hushidh had scorned me. While you, whom I had thought to be strong . . .

  Impulsively he knelt up and gathered her into his arms and held her close, the way he might hold a weeping child. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “Don’t be sorry, please,” she said. But her voice was high, the voice of a child who is trying not to be caught crying, and he could feel her tears soaking into his shirt, and her body trembling with silent weeping.

  “I’m sorry that it’s only me you get as a husband,” he said.

  “And I’m sorry that it’s only me you get as a wife,” she said. “Not the waterseer, not the glorious being you imagined that you saw. Only me.”

  Finally he understood what she had been asking for all along, and couldn’t help but laugh, because without knowing it he had just now given it to her. “Did you think that I said those things to the waterseer?” he asked. “No, you poor thing, I said those things to you, to Luet, to the girl I met in my mother’s school, to the girl who sassed me and anybody else when she felt like it, to the girl I’m holding in my arms right now.”

  She laughed then—or sobbed harder, he wasn’t sure. But he knew that whatever she was doing now, it was better. That was all she had needed—was for him to tell her that he didn’t expect her to be the waterseer all the time, that he was marrying the fragile, imperfect human being, and not the overpowering image that she inadvertently wore.

  He moved his hands across her back, to comfort her; but he also felt the curve of her body, the geometry of ribs and spine, the texture and softness of skin stretched taut over muscles. His hands explored, memorizing her, discovering for the first time how a woman’s back felt to a man’s hands. She was real and not a dream.

  “The Oversoul didn’t give you to me,” he said softly. “You are giving yourself to me.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s right.”

  “And I give myself to you,” he said. “Even though I, too, belong to the Oversoul.”

  He drew back a little, enough to cup the back of her head in his right hand as she looked up at him, enough to touch her cheek with the fingers of his left.

  Then, suddenly, as if they both had the same thought at the same moment—which, quite certainly, they did— they looked away from each other, and toward the spot where Hushidh had been sitting through this whole conversation.

  But Hushidh wasn’t there. They turned back to each other then, and Luet, dismayed, said, “I shouldn’t have made her come with me to—”

  She never finished the sentence, because at that moment Nafai began to learn how to kiss a woman, and she, though she had never kissed a man before, became his tutor.

  SIX

  WEDDINGS

  THE DREAM OF THE RAVELER

  Hushidh saw nothing joyful about the wedding. Not that anything went wrong. Aunt Rasa had a way with rituals. Her ceremony was simple and sweet, without a hint of the false portentousness that so many other women resorted to in their desperate desire to seem holy or important. Aunt Rasa had never needed to pretend. And yet she still took great care that when the public passages of life—weddings, comings-of-age, graduations, embarkations, divinations, deathwatches, burials—were under her care, they took place with an easy grace, a gentleness that kept people’s minds focused on the occasion, and not on the machinery of celebration. There was never a hint of anyone hurrying or bustling; never a hint that everything had to be just so, and therefore you’d better watch your step so you don’t do anything wrong . . .

  No, Rasa’s wedding for her son Nafai and his two brothers—or, if you looked at it the other way, Rasa’s wedding for her three nieces, Luet, Dol, and Eiadh—was a lovely affair on the portico of her house, bright and aromatic with flowers from her greenhouse and the blossoms that grew on the portico. Eiadh and Dol were astonishingly beautiful, their gowns clinging to them with the elegant illusion of simplicity, their facepaint so artfully applied that they seemed not to be painted at all. Or would have seemed so, had it not been for Luet.

  Sweet Luet, who had refused to be painted at all, and whose dress really was simple. Where Eiadh and Dol had all the elegance of women trying—very successfully—to seem bright and young and gay, Luet really was young, her gown artlessly covering a body that was still more the promise than the reality of womanhood, her face bright with a grave and timid sort of joy that made Eiadh and Dol look older and far too experienced. In a way, it was almost cruel to make the older girls have their weddings in the presence of this girl who rebuked them by her very naivete. Eiadh had actually noticed, before the ceremony began—Hushidh overheard her urging Aunt Rasa to “send somebody up with Luet to help her choose a dress and to do something with her face and hair” but Aunt Rasa had only laughed and said, “No art will help that child.” Eiadh took that, of course, to mean that Aunt Rasa thought Luet to be too plain to be helped by costume and makeup; but Hushidh caught Aunt Rasa’s eye the moment afterward, and Aunt Rasa winked at her and rolled her eyes to let her know that they both understood that poor Eiadh hadn’t a clue about what would happen at the wedding.

  And it did happen, though fortunately Eiadh and Dol had no idea that when the watching servants and students and teachers whispered, “Ah, she is so lovely”; “Ah, so sweet”; “Look, who knew she was so beautiful,” they were all speaking of Luet, only of Luet. When Nafai, as the youngest man, came forward to be claimed by his bride, the sighs were like a song from the congregation, an improvised hymn to the Oversoul, for having brought this boy of fourteen, who had the stature and strength of a man and the bright fire of the Oversoul in his eyes, to marry the Oversoul’s chosen daughter, the waterseer, whose pure beauty grew from the soul outward. He was the bright gold ring in which this jewel of a girl would glow with unreflected luster.

  Hushidh saw better than anyone how the people belonged to Luet in their hearts. She saw the threads between them, sparkling like the dew-covered strands of a spider’s web in the first sunlight of morning; how they love the waterseer! But most of all Hushidh saw the firming bonds between the husbands and wives as the ceremony progressed. Unconsciously she took note of each gesture, each glance, each facial expression, and in her mind she was able to understand the connection.

  Between Elemak and Eiadh, it would be a strange sort of unequal partnership, in which the less Eiadh loved Elemak, the more he would desire her; and the more he treated her gently and lovingly, the more she would despise him. It would be a painful thing to watch, this marriage, in which the agony of coming apart was the very thing that would hold them together. But she could say nothing of this—neither one would understand this about themselves, and would only be furious if she tried to explain it.