A Wild Divinity

by Rebecca Schneider

  “I’m good at patterns. It’s what I did at the temple.”

  There’s silence. “No doubt you miss it,” he says finally.

  I knit to the end of the row, let the work fall in my lap. “I can’t miss something that never was. The god I worshiped is not the god who showed Himself to me.”

  “Tell me about the god you worshiped,” Eidel said. “What drew you to Him?”

  I pick up the knitting and start another row. “Why does it matter?”

  “Whatever you felt, it still belongs to you.”

  I pause to recover a dropped stitch. “If you must know, I devoted myself to avoid marriage. I was betrothed to a herdsman, a man twice my age. What I felt toward my god was mainly gratitude for saving me from an unhappy life. No doubt I earned my disappointment.”

  “Funny,” Eidel says, “I consecrated myself because I couldn’t marry the village ostler. Well, the ostler and his wife. It was the most terrible scandal. My parents were respectable farmers, so my choices were the army or the temple. For all that, no one has ever accused me of lacking devotion. At least not to my face.”

  “Maybe I’m the one who lacks devotion.”

  Eidel looks disgusted. “For Love’s sake.”

  I set down the knitting. “You don’t understand. You want to give yourself to your goddess. But my god asks for duty, whatever we feel. How do I know I was right to leave?”

  “I don’t give myself to my goddess.” Eidel regards me with lowered eyes. I realize I’ve angered him. “When I receive supplicants, I am the Queen of Desire. I am the one who is worshiped, and the encounter happens on my terms.”

  “I didn’t know that.” My voice is small.

  There’s a pause. “Why would you?” Eidel says, gentle now. “You’re a stranger here.”

  Silence settles over us. I pick up the knitting again, but before I can knit one stitch, Eidel says abruptly, “I would conduct your dedication ceremony.”

  I spring to my feet, the work falling from my lap. “Oh, not you too!”

  Eidel rises, hands extended palm out. “It’s not your heart’s choice, I understand! But I know that’s what the priestess discussed with you, and I wanted to make the offer.”

  “I can’t!” I say, my voice a sob.

  Eidel stares at me. “Oh,” he says, realizing. “No, the ceremony isn’t, it doesn’t have to be… I mean, you would be in control of what happens. It doesn’t have to be what you’re thinking.”

  I realize I’m trembling. I sit back on the bed. “I misunderstood.” I say, not looking at him.

  Eidel comes to kneels beside me. He picks up my blanket and wraps it gently around my shoulders.

  “I just want you to feel safe,” he says.

  ***

  I Witness an Act of Worship

  Three weeks later, I kneel in a dedication chamber.

  The room is small, candlelit, with crimson walls and soft rugs piled on the floor. Incense smolders in one corner, but it doesn’t hide the scent of what this room has been used for.

  I kneel in a robe of soft sheepskin that laces to my throat and wonder, not for the first time, just what I am doing.

  For three weeks I’ve learned about the goddess. The Queen of Delight, Eidel calls her. I’ve read the prayer-book he lent me and endured a frightening hour of theological instruction with the Consecrated Tehafa.

  In my favorite prayer in Eidel’s prayer-book, the goddess is compared to a mother hawk who teaches Her young to hunt and afterward watches them fly away. For You love that which changes, and do not desire possession.

  I know I will never worship the goddess as I once worshiped my god, with a singular trust and belief. I hate myself for bargaining with divinity. But if Eidel’s goddess is who She claims, She will never resent me for not giving enough of myself.

  Behind me, the door opens and closes. “Her blessings on you,” Eidel says.

  “Her blessings honor me,” I recite.

  I hear the flutter of his robe against the floor and keep my eyes trained on the opposite wall. Eidel has offered to remain clothed for the ceremony, but I don’t think it’s right to ask for the protection of his goddess while breaking Her customs.

  I hear him settle behind me. “I have oil,” he says. “Would you like some for your hands?”

  “Yes.” The word comes out as a squeaky question.

  Eidel makes an exasperated sound. “This isn’t about pleasing me. It’s rosehip oil. Do you like the smell of rosehips?”

  “I like rosehips.”

  “I know you’re nervous. It’s all right.” Eidel’s arms appear on either side of me. He anoints my hands, tender and efficient as a parent rubbing ointment on a child’s chapped skin. The oil smells like dry grass.

  “I’m going to anoint your face,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

  I wonder if the closed eyes are part of the ceremony, or if Eidel wishes to preserve my modesty. I close my eyes and hear him come to sit in front of me. He draws the oil across my eyelids.

  “For eyes that see beauty, Goddess, I thank you.”

  A slick finger brushes my lips. “For lips that shape beauty, Goddess, I thank you.”

  Last, he draws a curving shape on my forehead. “For a mind that conceives beauty, Goddess, I thank you.”

  I hear him walk behind me. “Open your eyes,” he says. “And try to relax. You’re jumpy as a cricket.”

  My eyes open, and I exhale. “What next?”

  “Don’t sound so excited.” He pauses. “You’re supposed to experience pleasure,” he says in a rush. “Sometimes it’s a certain type of pleasure, but there aren’t any rules. I thought I could brush your hair.”

  “Brush my hair?”

  “Never mind. We’ll think of something else.”

  I am getting exasperated at Eidel treating me like a glass ornament he might break..”Is that something you do with your supplicants?”

  Eidel laughs softly. “No, it is not. But my grandmother used to brush my hair when I was a child. It’s a nice memory.”

  “It sounds fine.” But as I say the words, I remember my god pulling the scarf from my head.

  “You don’t sound enthusiastic,” Eidel says. “It’s supposed to be something you enjoy.”

  “I don’t enjoy you hovering behind me like a ghost. Come where I can see you.”

  There’s a long enough silence for me to regret my words. Then Eidel comes around and kneels in front of me.

  He’s wearing gold bracelets and nothing else. His eyelids are painted the color of garnets. He smiles as I frankly survey his clean-shaven body, the serpentine tattoo twining from shoulder to ankle. He’s even more broad-chested than I realized, long torso and short legs, muscular but a bit soft in the belly.

  “Well, this is pleasurable,” I feel brave enough to say.

  To my surprise, Eidel’s cheeks color. “Thank you,” he says, gruff but obviously flattered.

  We sit there in silence. I continue to look at Eidel, and find I understand the point of his loose, draping clothes. I imagine him taking them off, like unwrapping a present to reveal smooth brown skin.

  Eidel is still waiting for me to tell him what I want. I am not used to wanting, and Eidel is my friend, and I want to be careful. I don’t understand why looking at Eidel feels so different than seeing my god in the bathhouse. For Eidel this encounter is sacred, but that knowledge doesn’t disgust me.

  I observe with embarrassment that Eidel is becoming aroused. “Ah,” he says, seeing me noticing, light brown cheeks rosier than ever. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t mind,” I say, and find that it is true. My pulse is racing, I feel mildly intoxicated, and no, I don’t mind at all. This thought is followed by another thought that does not seem to belong to me. It is an alarming, alluring thought, and it must be spoken at once or perish.

  “You could pleasure yourself, that would give me pleasure,” I say in a single breath.

  Eidel’s expression changes to almost comical
disbelief.

  “Only if you want to,” I hurry to add.

  “I…” He looks hard at me. “You’re in earnest? You’re not just—”

  “I’m in earnest.”

  “You don’t want to me to touch you?” he asks softly.

  I shake my head. “I just… I want to see how you worship.”

  We consider each other in silence, and I wonder if I’ve crossed a line. I’m afraid that Eidel won’t understand why I want this, that he’ll think I’ve mistaken his tenderness toward me for attraction. It isn’t that. I don’t want Eidel for my own. I just want this one pleasure, the pleasure of looking.

  Finally Eidel nods, giving me a brief, warm smile. His dark eyes close, and he lowers an oil-slick hand to his sex.

  I feel as if I am watching a thunderstorm, my body tensing before each thunderclap, shivering with the reverberations. Eidel shudders, and his lips part, then press together as he swallows a moan. When his moment comes, he cries out in a brief, unintelligible prayer, eyes still closed.

  Then it’s over, and he’s breathing hard. He looks across at me, and starts to laugh.

  “What?” I demand, rather breathless myself.

  “The expression on your face,” Eidel says, still laughing, “is quite wonderful.”

  ***

  I Question My Faith

  It’s Eidel who finds me a job. One of his supplicants is the Patrician’s tax collector. When Eidel tells him about my training, I am promptly offered a position in the city Treasury.

  As a devotee, I performed calculations for imperial architects and engineers. Calculating taxes is not quite as interesting, but it’s a living. The tax collector is a stout man with a sleek black beard, fair-minded but prone to bluster. When he irritates me, I amuse myself with the thought of him worshiping my goddess in the form of Eidel.

  For a while I dress like other unmarried women, in a sleeveless dress and two long braids. But the clothes feel like a costume, and I get tired of men showing me attentions on the street. I ask my seamstress to remake my dresses with sleeves, and I buy headscarves from the Khadazi woman who sells garments at the river market.

  “Would it be wrong for me to wear these?” I ask her, concerned they have some meaning I don’t understand.

  “All women wear them in Khadaz,” she says. “No wrong. You will look very beautiful.”

  The scarves are sheer silk, with bright colors and patterned gold edging. I love how they drape over my back and shoulders. One of the women clerks asks me if I have joined a cult, while another informs me I will never find a husband if I cover my hair. I tell her I am not looking for one. Men still harass me on the street, but they don’t seem to know what to shout at me.

  No one pays me attentions when Eidel is with me. One evening a week, we go down to the river market and visit the yarn-sellers from Talbard, or share a meal at the tavern across from my apartment on Lapidary Street. Eidel wears simple clothes and no makeup, and I can tell he enjoys being anonymous. When people mistake us for husband and wife, I say that we are brother and sister, just to make him laugh.

  Sometimes I dream of my old god, a shadowy presence in a dark room, or dead hands holding me beneath icy water. But I never see him in the waking world. When I feel afraid, I touch the carnelian stone at my throat and remember that I am loved.

  ***

  At the height of summer, a festival is celebrated in Valatira. The occasion is unmemorable—the birthday of a dead emperor—but people look forward to it for months. The gardens of the Patrician’s palace are opened to the public, musicians perform continuously, and vats of mead and wine are provided by the city’s trade guilds. Neither Eidel nor I have ever attended. He’s not expecting supplicants on a holiday, so we arrange to go together.

  Eidel meets me at the palace gate. He’s dressed for the holiday in red linen, a matching ribbon woven into his black braid. I’m wearing a new gown of yellow silk paired with an orange scarf. We compliment each other on our good looks and start up the hill.

  It’s a still, cloudless day. Graceful shade trees dapple the Patrician’s lawn with light and shadow. City folk in their best clothing wander in laughing groups, lutes and drums fill the air with rhythm, and children dance with colored streamers.

  Neither of us drinks alcohol, so I buy cups of cherry water from a vendor. We walk among the performers, choosing favorites. I like the mother and daughter singing country ballads, but Eidel prefers the troupe of dancers accompanied by a single, skillfully played tabor drum.

  After a while, we find an unoccupied bench and rest. Two young women walk past us, hands clasped, eyes only for each other. Someone’s escaped lap dog sprints after them.

  Eidel lifts his gaze to the clear sky. “Paradise.”

  I laugh. “It’s certainly a beautiful day.”

  “It’s not just the day. It’s the feeling of belonging to myself.”

  “You do belong to yourself,” I say gently. “I know you enjoy slipping away like this, but devotion is a choice.”

  “Yes.” Eidel twists one hand in the other. “The truth is, I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to make a different choice.”

  My smile falters. “You would leave our goddess?”

  “You left your temple. With my background, I could find work at a brothel, work on my own terms. I could be a wealthy man.” He looks at me. “What I valued in the temple, I’ll still value. Can you understand that?”

  I hear his words, and I understand completely.

  “Eidel,” I say, “I think you’re an atheist.”

  Eidel looks pained. “That’s not the word I would use.”

  “I’m using the word that fits. You don’t really believe, do you?”

  “What do you want me to say?” Eidel regards me sadly. “When we first met, you asked me if I saw visions. The answer is no. I’ve never seen anything. I’ve never seen my goddess.”

  “Then you don’t believe what I’ve seen. You don’t believe me.” I am suddenly rigid with anger. “My dedication, what did that mean to you?”

  “My work is sacred to me. It’s not a matter of belief, Nassa. I wanted to help.”

  He reaches for my hand, but I turn from him.

  “Please go away,” I say.

  ***

  After Eidel is gone, I sit for a long time on the bench. I finger the carnelian at my throat and think about the goddess Eidel has worshiped with such outward devotion.

  The goddess who makes him feel trapped.

  Why won’t the Queen of Delight show Herself to Eidel? The answer that occurs to me is the simple one. She doesn’t value his devotion. His happiness means nothing to Her.

  Are all gods and goddesses the same? Promising us superlatives, wisdom beyond measure, ecstasy beyond desiring, but in truth desiring only one thing.

  Control.

  I stand and unfasten the chain that hangs around my neck. The bright carnelian falls to the ground, a lucky find for some festival goer. Then I begin down the hill.

  Halfway to the gate, a shadow falls over me. I look up, expecting a cloud concealing the sun.

  The sun has disappeared.

  Around me the world has gone gray and silent. My god appears out of the gloom. He wears a long robe patterned with hexagons, blue and white, the white hexagons never touching.

  I can’t feel my body, can’t move. My god walks toward me, arms outstretched. His cold arms close around me. One hand presses my head forward and pushes His mouth against mine.

  His lips taste like dead leaves. I feel myself contract. The lips part around me. Suddenly I’m a speck traveling down a dark tunnel…

  My god has swallowed me up.

  ***

  In the Godhead

  I am nowhere, but my mind creates substance out of formlessness.

  I am in a courtyard. Everything is black or gray, and it is easier to touch things than to see them. The yard is filled with geometric statues, each of them a mathematically significant shape studied by my god’s ho
liest priests. There are one-sided surfaces, and complex knots, and assemblies of rods and wires that resemble topological puzzles. Above, ragged gray banners hang from nothing I can see. Occasionally the banners wave, and I am showered in fine dust.

  The courtyard is surrounded by a stone wall. In one corner is a staircase. I climb it and come to another stair. I climb four staircases, but at the end I find myself back in the courtyard.

  “I don’t recommend that,” a woman’s voice says. “He enjoys it when you try to solve his puzzles.”

  The woman sits at the base of a statue. She is the only colorful thing in this courtyard, her skin a rich brown, her eyes amber. She wears nothing but the long black hair that falls over one shoulder and a gold chain around her waist studded with carnelians. She is tall, and muscular, and very beautiful.

  It takes me a long time to find words. “You’re…here?”

  “For a thousand years,” the Queen of Delight says. “Come sit beside me, sweetheart.”

  Dazed, I sit beside the goddess. She smiles at me sadly and takes my hand in Hers. I accept the touch, the first comforting thing in this unreal landscape.

  “It was my own fault,” my goddess says. “He’s such an intriguing creature, quite attractive when he chooses to be, and I wanted to help him. You see, he had measured the universe and decided it belonged to him. I tried to teach him to love without possessing, but he never understood me. He learned to desire me, and after that he grew hungry. He overpowered me, and consumed me, and here I have been ever since.”

  “But I had Your protection…”

  My goddess shakes Her head. “Oh no, sweetheart. I do watch over my followers, but I have no power to act. You humans have a certain virtue of your own. It was love that protected you, my darling. I’m sorry it couldn’t last.”

  Tears wet my cheeks. “Please forgive me,” I choke. “For casting away the carnelian.”

  My goddess puts an arm around me. I lean against Her. “Hush. You have paid the price, a punishment much higher than suits the crime. My heart breaks for you, but I am with you now. It will be easier for you than the others, because you know me. I will never leave you until the end.”