Perhaps we Theseni women could not enjoy ourselves in sex-play. Perhaps I was still grieving for my sister’s sorrows. Perhaps I had some foreboding and presentiment. Only the Creator knows our hearts.
“You’re lovely,” he said, surprising me. Perhaps I expected him to know how far away my mind was. Nevertheless, he must’ve seen something to suddenly say such healing words. Such good kind words.
I began to believe myself as lovely as he declared. My body relaxed under his hands, and all fears of New Father and worries for my indebted parents fled my mind. All I could think was: a good and lovely husband loves me. I breathed freely. His fingers—warm they were—found the softness between my thighs. His lips found my breast again and he entered me. A sensation of warmth passed from his body into mine. It became fire, increased, and raced up my arm and neck. Sudden moistness ... blood and something else ... oozed between my legs. Mam had told me there’d be blood. How sticky my legs felt. I saw then what was meant when they said lovemaking was a covenant of blood, a sacrifice. I suppose the child was created on that very night.
After, he laid his head on my heart and his hand relaxed in mine. A ripple of giggles rose from his throat then exploded into laughter. “I never knew such joy existed,” he said. Then kissing my stomach he said, “Let’s do it again.”
We did. This time it lasted longer and was sweeter still.
Then we lay there, eye to eye, knowing our souls had entered into each other. I had heard about the fierceness of Doreni lovemaking. It was said that after couching Doreni women could not walk for hours, often days. Yet, although he embraced me tightly, he had been gentle and I sensed he was afraid to let me go.
He kissed my lips. “How could I ever love another if you own my heart?” He pointed toward a low incline behind Taer’s marriage quarters. “There’s a tiled pool near there. A hot spring bubbles up from beneath the ground and the pool is carved out of the rock surrounding it.”
Wee walked—naked, hand in hand—to the pool.
In the moonlight the glazed tiles shone like blue mother-of-pearl. We descended into it and far off, on the hillside, the women of Taer’s household appeared, gathering flowers. I would later learn they were the flowers for my bridal ceremony and that the hasty full marriage had been accepted by all. I thought, How easy it is to bend to the will of a husband one is beginning to love! Yes, from that night, I began to love him, and the more I loved him the more unsettled I became.
* * * *
I was married, not after a year but after a week of my betrothal. On that day we stood in the Pagatsu ancestral arbor watching Okiak and three minor Pagatsu priests kill the sacrificial sheep and draw the bloody circle around Sio, Loic and me to seal our covenant with the Creator. I was sure all the world knew our secret. How could they not? Loic looked like a lover who already knew and enjoyed the secret places of his wife’s body. I, for my part, could look no one in the eye. Even when the Ibeni priest watered our hands, and the Theseni shaman blew the wind of life into our faces, I kept my head turned down.
The guests who had come for the seven day feasts extended their stay another seven days. In those days, a wedding feast was a public affair and all came from far and near. Well-wishers joined us in the ring dance. All wore the wedding garments provided for them: tunics which included both the Pagatsu markings and the symbols of my parents’ professions—golden tents and silver needles. How wonderful and strange it seemed to me that the household servants had embroidered those wedding garments in so short a time! How honored I felt when my new clansmen danced around me and praised Loic for choosing such a gracious wife. The wedding feast seemed like nothing less than the Great Feast of Heaven! I had once again found a new clan for the lost one. Such love and peace I felt that the past griefs and loneliness that had oppressed me began to dissipate.
When I thought that this joy could bloom no happier, who should arrive at Taer’s Golden House with great retinue of horsemen and courtiers but King Jaguar, the three tribal queens, Prince Lihu and all the Matchless Family! I cannot praise the beauty of Our Matchless Prince enough. All the tribes were found in him—the curled black hair of the Theseni; the Doreni eyes, gray and wide; and the high Ibeni cheekbones.
“The people of the land of the three tribes say Jaguar chose the three most beautiful women in the land at his coronation,” Loic whispered to me when they entered the Outer Courtyard. “They are wrong. No woman—not even the three queens—is more beautiful than you.”
“Truly, any woman would be happy to marry Our Matchless King. But you, my husband, are all I want.”
He smiled a bit nervously and stared at me a long time. I suspected he only half-believed me.
From across the room, First Prince Lihu lifted a glass of distilled palm sap and shouted loudly. “Little Thesenya,” he said. “Lift your veil and let me glory in your presence.”
“The Thesenya will no longer wear her veil,” Loic shouted back. “I have told her repeatedly she is Doreni now. Even though she wears the Theseni marriage veil now, it still hides too much. My wife, let my guests see how beautiful you are. Indulge me by removing your veil.”
At this Lihu added, “Wait, brother, tonight she’ll remove everything.”
Everyone except Queen Butterfly laughed. She seemed to be trying to make me feel like an intruder at my own wedding.
Lihu must have seen this, because he turned to his mother and said, “Loic has found a beautiful Theseni woman to rest his heart and head and ypher on, has he not, Mother? You and Thira will have to wait for Sio to grow up.”
Queen Butterfly was the only one who didn’t laugh at her son’s joke. Lihu’s first-born status had made her Chief Queen and she relished her position over Second Queen Sweet-as-Jasmine and Third Queen White Star. The Trabu Theseni were like that. Willful and arrogant, power-hungry, and lacking in humor. Not fun-loving like we Kluna. However, her strong will made her a good advocate for all the Theseni in the land even if her flamboyance and arrogance had earned her the nickname Butterfly.
She tossed the too-long sleeves of her brightly-colored gyuilta over her knees and clapped her hands together. Immediately, wooden, metal, reed, and skin instruments sounded throughout the Golden House, in the outer and inner courts, and in the longhouse. Dancers rose at her bidding to perform traditional and contemporary songs. This silenced her son. Then rising, and giving me a disdainful look, she gestured that Sio and Thira should also dance. They rose immediately. Together their feet skimmed across the floor as lightly as a feather floating on water. When the dance ended, they were giggling in a corner together.
The Third Wife had spent the wedding glaring at me but when she saw her son dancing, she smiled. I had been sorry for her. The servants—even the half-Angleni ones—had been ignoring her all day, even while they filled her platters and bowls with honeyed sweets and fat meats.
“How good those dainties look,” I said to Loic.
I wanted to pile my plate high, but Loic had only touched the rich foods when the ritual required he “taste a little sweetness.”
His Mamya hovered near him, offering only vegetables, fruit, and buffalo meat. If at any time, she saw him put any cake or bread to his mouth, she slapped his hand. This he endured long into the night until at last he pleaded with her to leave him alone.
About sunset, the entrance curtains of Taer’s Golden House were pulled aside and several Doreni men in blue clan caps marked with patterns I didn’t recognize walked through the doorway. Their leader, one who wore a jade bracelet, seemed only a few years
