by Sharon Shinn
She shrugged. “The spaceport on Semay is not one of the great meccas of vice in the settled universe. We are not talking Orleans or Prustilla or even Scarlatti here. There are no comparisons. It’s just—”
“Life has been a little tame,” he finished. “I’m game.” He turned to face her again, spreading his arms in a questioning gesture. “How do I look?”
“Good enough to seduce,” she said promptly. “How do you want to look?”
He ushered her toward the door with an arm around her shoulders. “You’re trouble,” he informed her.
She laughed and preceded him from the room, waiting while he locked the door. “I’m bored,” she said.
“Be patient,” he said. “We’ll have fun tomorrow.”
* * *
* * *
He learned in the car that they were attending the wedding of Alejandro Ruiso’s oldest daughter. He was so surprised that he said the first thing that came into his head.
“Why am I going?”
“I thought you might enjoy the ceremony.”
He shook his head. “No, I mean—Forget it.”
“I have never been Alejandro’s escort in public,” she said serenely. “We are both too highly visible to flaunt our relationship—whatever our relationship might be.”
“So I’m camouflage?”
“No, you’re a friend of mine. You’re a visiting Moonchild. You’re studying the religious observances of Semay, and you have some general conversation that might interest the other guests. I thought there were many benefits you might gain from attending the wedding with me.”
He smiled in the dark; she was too complex to outmaneuver. “Gratze,” was all he said.
Ruiso’s place, as expected, was fabulous. Although Ruiso generally resided in the governor’s mansion, his mother still lived in the family’s ancestral home, along with Ruiso’s sister and her family; and from here Angela Ruiso had chosen to be married under the supervision of her aunt.
“Homey,” was Drake’s comment as he took Jovieve’s arm and helped her up the flight of stone steps leading to the mansion.
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Inside, it really is.”
“No doubt.”
His voice was wry, but he meant what he said. The elegant but somehow severe home before him, even from a distance spilling over with light and music, was devastatingly familiar. He knew what it was like to come from a house of wealth and power, to celebrate a family event that had political significance as well, to have that event presided over by the most powerful religious figure in the city. He climbed the shallow stairs with a dizzy sense of walking into a picture long-destroyed, of stepping backward into time. His mother would answer the door. He would see his father over in the corner, surrounded by the powerful men of his circle. His sister, perhaps, would descend the carpeted staircase, dressed all in blue, her face solemn except when her eyes met his and she allowed the smallest expression of mischief to cross her face . . .
He shook his head to clear it, reaching for the bellpull outside the door. In minutes, they were inside, swallowed by a press of people, and with a murmured excuse, Jovieve disappeared. Drake edged toward a convenient wall and looked around a moment to get his bearings. The party seemed to encompass three or four large rooms, all connected by high, gracious archways. There were perhaps seventy-five people in his immediate vicinity and, at a guess, four times that many in total. Drake couldn’t imagine that anyone with the smallest pretensions to wealth or power had been left out of the festivities tonight.
He snagged a glass of wine from a passing waiter, downed it in three swallows, and took a second one when he got a chance. It wasn’t the Semayan opulence that had left him shaky enough to need a drink; it was the strong sense of déjà vu. But these people were far less solemn than his father’s friends had been. They laughed and talked with a carefree animation so often missing from those assemblies Drake remembered. Perhaps his father’s friends would have been merry as well had they ever attended a wedding at the Drake home, but Cowen had not married and Maya had wedded herself to a religious life . . .
He shook his head again, and pushed himself away from the wall, determined to kill the memories. He had already spotted two faces familiar to him from his evening at the Triumphante temple, and now he made his way toward them through the crowd. General Frederico Merco and his wife turned at the sound of his voice, and both of them looked pleased to see him.
“Lieutenant,” the general said, shaking his hand. “Good to see you again. How do your investigations progress?”
They talked civilly for another half an hour, the general introducing Drake to friends who approached them. Everyone greeted Drake with the relaxed courtesy of the very rich, and he talked to them with a nonchalance that matched their own. He had been bred to it, after all, but it still felt strange. Of Jovieve there was no additional sign.
After the thirty minutes of polite conversation, a pretty chime sounded, and the crowd began to press toward double wooden doors at the far end of the farthest room. The ceremony, apparently, was about to begin. Drake determinedly followed the general through the crush of the crowd, unwilling to be separated from someone who could give him some pointers about what to expect.
He found himself, and three hundred others, in a large round chamber which he instantly realized must be the house chapel. The curved walls were covered with tapestry upon tapestry, rich bright fabrics woven with cloth-of-gold and threads of silver. Overhead, the entire domed ceiling was constructed of stained glass in elaborately worked designs. Below, rows of padded benches made two broad semicircles around an open area, raised above the audience level just by the height of two stone steps. In the center of this modest dais, arms outstretched in welcome, stood Jovieve.
She had worn a cloak in the car and so he had not properly assessed her costume, but he saw now that it was magnificent and probably ceremonial. Like the tapestries, it was fashioned of cloth-of-gold; the shirred bodice reflected light from every candle in the room. A narrow crimson shawl lay over her shoulders, embroidered with gold thread that picked up even more light. The goddess-eye pendant at her throat burned with an ice-blue fire.
The guests crowded inside, lighthearted whispers and soft rills of laughter betraying their anticipation. Drake was surprised when the general took his arm and urged him toward the left side of the chapel, until he realized that the audience was dividing: men to one set of benches, women to the other. He settled beside his mentor in a seat four rows back from the front, and watched with genuine curiosity.
When everyone was settled, Jovieve lifted her arms above her head and greeted the guests with words of welcome. It was more her tone of voice than the words themselves which made the greeting seem so joyous, Drake decided; he felt his own heart lift when she spoke. Around him, the crowd replied with a single, throaty voice. So this, like the Fidele service, was to be a responsive ceremony, but with a far different tenor.
“Why do we come here tonight, my friends?” Jovieve asked, once the ritual opening prayers were completed.
“To witness a ceremony,” the crowd answered.
“A ceremony of sorrow or delight?” the priestess pursued.
“Delight!” The answer was shouted.
“An ordination?”
“No.”
“A confirmation?”
“No.”
“A dedication of a child to the blessings of Ava?”
“No!”
“Ah, then it must be a wedding we come to celebrate tonight.”
“Yes, a wedding!”
Jovieve turned to the women of the congregation. “Who among you is to be married tonight? Who leaves her father’s home and her family’s close attention? Who parts from her brothers and sisters and lays aside the things of childhood?”
“Angela Ruiso,” the women told her.
Jovieve faced the men. “And
who among you is to take this woman in marriage?” she inquired. “Who leaves his father’s side and turns from his mother to look into his wife’s eyes? Who declares he is a boy no longer and steps up to the estate of manhood?”
“Vittorio Rigolberto,” the men said.
Jovieve spread her hands once more. “But they are young! They are babes! Who will help them in their new life? Who will show them how to cook and how to tend a garden? Who will give them pans for their kitchens and blankets for their beds and coins for the empty coinbox on the sill? Who will guide them along this perilous path? Who will take them aside and say, ‘This is what it means to be a married man and a married woman’?”
“We will!” the crowd roared.
“Angela, rise,” Jovieve commanded. A girl in the very last row on the women’s side of the chapel came to her feet. She was clothed in an exceptionally plain gown, a wholly unadorned muslin. Her hair had not been dressed, her feet were bare, and Drake could see no jewels upon her fingers or at her throat.
“Vittorio, rise also.” Drake did not turn his head; he was sure a simply attired young man had stood up in the back of the men’s section. “You have found each other once. Can you find each other again? Your friends will help you, they have said. Trust them, and you will find the way easy.”
Because she was the one he could see, Drake watched Angela Ruiso. She began to thread her way through the narrow rows between the benches, stepping carefully over the feet and ankles of her father’s friends. She carried a large woven basket over one arm, and as she passed them, the women tossed small items into it—coins, Drake thought, and prayer books, and silver goblets, and small picture frames. Now and then a woman stopped the bride to add something to her costume—a bracelet, a ring, a ribbon for her hair. One very old woman draped an incredibly beautiful silk shawl over the girl’s shoulders, tying it at her waist in a complicated knot. A much younger woman stood beside Angela briefly, applying rouge and eyeliner and face powder. Someone who looked enough like Angela to be her sister knelt in the aisle when the bride paused; and when Angela moved on, she wore satin shoes upon her feet. As the bride came nearer and nearer to the central dais, she grew more and more wealthy with the offerings of her friends, and more and more beautiful.
Vittorio was making his way slowly down the aisle where the Moonchild sat. Drake fumbled in his pocket and came out with a handful of gold coins; not much, maybe, but this youth wasn’t going to go wanting for lack of a generous contribution on Drake’s part. As Vittorio passed him, Drake tossed the coins into his sturdy cloth bag and noted how the groom had acquired a fine linen shirt, a gold watch, highly polished shoes and the scent of expensive cologne. Vittorio grinned at him. “Gratze,” he whispered, and moved on.
It took the bridal couple some time to complete their tour through the packed aisles, but none of the watchers seemed to mind the wait. In fact, there were appreciative murmurs and occasional scatters of spontaneous applause when the crowd particularly favored a certain gift. A woman who could only be Ruiso’s sister put a glittering necklace around the bride’s throat; Vittorio’s father dropped a heavy bag of coins in his son’s sack.
When the circuits were completed, the young man and woman paused at opposite sides of the dais and looked hopefully up at the Triumphante. She smiled, and held her arms out to them.
“What, you are ready? So soon?”
“Yes, amica,” they replied in small voices.
“Angela, you are ready? You have brought with you everything you can bring to this wedding?”
“Everything,” Angela said. Her voice grew a little stronger. “I have brought the love in my heart and the best wishes of my friends and family.”
“Vittorio?” Jovieve questioned. “What have you brought?”
“Everything, amica,” he replied. “I have brought the adoration in my heart and the love of my family and my friends.”
“Then come forward,” she invited, “and receive the blessing of the goddess as well.”
They came together, taking each other’s hands as they approached the priestess, and at her gesture, they knelt before her. “Oh, Ava, great is our joy this evening,” Jovieve said, and her voice was exultant. “You see before you a man and a woman who love one another and desire to marry, to share for the rest of their lives their great delight in each other and this wonderful world you have created. Surely the stars dance at such a sight! Surely the goddess who puts the love in our hearts rejoices at such an event as this!”
“Ava rejoices and we rejoice with her!” all the audience members roared, surging to their feet all together. Drake was propelled upward by the common motion. “This is a holy day!”
Somewhere, music started. Drake had not seen an instrument anywhere in the chapel, but this sounded like an organ, liquid, symphonic and beautiful. Everyone around him burst into song. He was not familiar with the lyrics and could not translate all the words, but there was no need; he knew what they were singing. Let us celebrate, let us be glad. He stood in the midst of the revelers and hummed along, smiling benignly at them all. Triumphantes, indeed.
* * *
* * *
It was quite late by the time Jovieve and Drake left the Ruiso household, although Drake was ready to depart an hour or so before the evening actually ended. But he watched Jovieve slip through the slowly thinning crowd, speaking to hundreds of people in that intimate, personal way, and he held his peace. He had stopped trying to mingle and he had stopped drinking, and he was making it a point to avoid speaking directly to Alejandro Ruiso. When Jovieve finally looked across the long room and caught his eye, he raised his brows in a question. She smiled liked a naughty child and nodded, and ten minutes later they were on their way.
“Thank you,” he said, after they had driven some way in silence.
“For what? Inviting you?”
“Yes.”
“You enjoyed yourself?”
He considered. “Not exactly,” he said. “But I greatly enjoyed witnessing the wedding ceremony.”
She nodded, the motion ruffling her hair against the back of the seat. “It is sweet, isn’t it? My favorite of all the sacred rites.”
“Are the others similar?”
“Oh, they involve the audience to a certain extent, particularly a baptism, you know. And there are always gifts.”
“I would imagine,” he said, “that the gifts in Alejandro Ruiso’s house are very different from the gifts a couple might get in, say, one of the poorer districts of Madrid.”
“Yes, well, when the tradition was started, the gifts were almost always deeply practical. Pots and pans and seedlings and grains and essentials like that, which a young couple most likely wouldn’t have. Certainly Angela Ruiso could want for nothing on the face of the planet. But people like to participate in joy, you know. They like to give presents, they like to have some tangible way of expressing their fondness and best wishes. That’s why everyone loves a wedding.”
He drove on a while longer, thinking over what she had said. People like to participate in joy. They like to warm themselves at a vicarious fire, bask in happiness, turn their faces toward the goddess’s smile. Sorrow, on the other hand, was too often borne in solitude.
It was close to midnight when he pulled up in front of the Triumphante temple. The soft exterior lighting sparkled through the falling water of the fountain and glinted off the gold-rimmed statues on the porch. Both the moving water and the motionless sculpture seemed to Drake to be alive.
“Would you come in for a moment?” Jovieve asked him, facing him in the darkness of the car. “I won’t sleep for hours yet—I can never relax quickly after a ceremony. I have wine—or coffee, if you’d rather.”
He was not sure exactly how much the invitation encompassed, but coffee, at least, sounded good. “Be glad to,” he said, and switched off the car.
She took his hand and led him through the crystalline dark by
a side path that ran along the outside of the sanctuary. “I have a private entrance,” she said. “I always come this way at night, because that’s when you can smell the flowers best. Can you?”
“Yes,” he said, inhaling deeply.
“The garden’s just over that way,” she said, pointing. He saw a high-walled enclosure, dark with vines. “When my window is open at night, I can smell the flowers. Sometimes I sit at my window for hours, watching the stars and waiting for the wind to blow over the garden.”
“I watch the stars, too,” Drake said.
“And what do you look for?”
He shook his head, not sure what reply she wanted. “Do you mean, do I look to the stars to reassure myself as to the existence of a god?”
She laughed. “Something like that.”
“No. I just see depth and mass and brilliance and motion. I don’t see Ava’s face in the constellations.”
They had reached a side door set into a stone alcove. Jovieve unlocked it and turned to smile at Drake. “Just as well,” she said. “Ava is found in the heart beside you and not in the skies overhead.”
He laughed and followed her inside. Even before she lit the candelabra, he could tell that this was not the office she had met him in before. No, these were definitely living quarters. He made out a long, deep sofa, two comfortable chairs and a variety of tables and dressers. Once the candles were glowing, he glimpsed through a partially open doorway a wide bed and half of his reflection in a freestanding mirror.
“Nice,” he said, looking around.
“Home,” she said. She had gone over to a small cupboard in what looked to be a tiny kitchenette. “Did you say wine or coffee?”
It should be coffee, but recklessness made a sudden pass through his chest. “Wine,” he said.
“Me, too.”
He settled himself on the sofa, stretching his long legs before him under a low table. She carried over two tall glasses of amber liquid and curled up beside him.
