Wedding (19 page)

How else could I come home to you and look
you in the face and ask you to marry to me?
Dominic completed
my analysis, in thought, in my mind.

But you never did ask me to marry you,
I said.

You see,
he said as if apologizing,
I knew you must be my wife. From the moment of our first
communion, I knew what must be.

I remembered all those evasions and unspoken
thoughts over the last months. When Dominic had convinced me to
stay at La Sapienza for my full six months, to decide whether I
wanted to be a sibyl or—the alternative he had not dared
suggest—his wife. And when I had failed at La Sapienza, and should
have quit, and Dominic was secretly glad, because I would be
free.

“But you didn’t know,” I said aloud, but
softly, not so angry. “You wouldn’t say anything to me, because–
because you—” I didn’t like thinking about it, much less talking
about it, how difficult it had been for Dominic to gear himself up
for the ordeal of marriage. I could sympathize with his reluctance,
yet it hurt all the same.

“No, Amalie.” Dominic’s voice was harsh. “It
was not my desires that were in question, but yours.” He too was
remembering those months of my seminary training, when I had
worried the idea of marriage around in my mind, full of doubts and
fears.

“Then why couldn’t you say something?” I
said. “
Ask
me?”

“Beloved,” he said, “I am a man, and
vir
, and women’s sensibilities are so alien.”
Interesting
, he was thinking, resting in communion after the
lovemaking,
but very different
. “And when I came home
yesterday, and there you were waiting for me at the gate, my
betrothal gift in your hair, what could I think but that you were
giving me the answer? That the question was understood?”

“I’m still not used to this communion,” I
said. “I just wanted to hear it.”

“And when you greeted Stefan with that funny
way you have, when you deliberately held out your hand for him to
touch.” Dominic had not really heard my last complaint, engrossed
in his happy memories. “I thought you did it to show me your reply
instead of saying it in words, the answer to the question I had not
had the chance to ask.” He smiled in the darkness, pleased by his
recollection of the scene, preferring the romance of his
interpretation to the prosaic facts. “You will have my name
tattooed on your arm, as I will have yours, because you are a woman
who understands the love between a man and his companion.”

He would not speak the underlying truth, that
I preferred him
vir
. It was too precious a gift, too
sensitive for us to say it aloud. Just having it implicit between
us was enough.

It was late in the night, closer to morning
and the new day than to the festival evening. The two moons hung
low in the sky, shining through the windows flung open to the warm
summer air. Dominic’s silver eyelids reflected the light—blue,
green and violet—as he lay beside me looking off into his thoughts,
speaking of intimate things. With his beak of a nose it was like
sharing a bed with a nocturnal predator.

I lifted my hand, traced a fingertip along
the magnificent curved arc. “They say a man’s nose is like his sex,
you can judge his size by it.”

Dominic laughed. “I have rarely found that to
be so.”

“It’s true for you,” I said, happy to have
something kind to say for a change.

“And how many ‘noses’ have you compared?” he
said. “Three? Four? I have seen hundreds, and I assure you, it is a
myth.” He rolled over, careful not to put his full weight on me,
and rubbed his face against mine. “Shall we touch noses again, my
lady wife?”

“Yes, please, my lord husband.” It was the
closest thing to a proposal I was going to get this night.

At dawn I woke to his hand on my breast, his
thigh between my knees. He sensed the moment when my mind broke the
thin layer of ice between sleep and consciousness. His kiss pulled
me the rest of the way, his fingers in my sex attempting to rouse
me. I opened my eyes to the faint light. His touch was balm and
electric sparks, both blessing and enticement, but at that hour I
am not capable of full response.

I’m sorry, Dominic,
I thought to him.
In the morning you must please yourself.

Throughout Aranyi Fortress, the couples of
Midsummer night were saying their farewells, most of them in the
way Dominic wanted to with me, although with greater success. Only
those unfortunate few whose jobs required it—farm workers with
animals to tend, kitchen staff on the breakfast shift—rose early on
the day after. For the rest the morning lovemaking was the clearest
way to show that the night’s choice was not regretted.

Dominic waited a few minutes to see if I
would come to life.
Truly, beloved
, he said,
I am not yet
so used to marriage that I can take pleasure alone.

He was an early riser in both senses, up with
the sun, ready for love. I felt his great need and rolled on my
back, spreading my legs.
Come on, then,
I said.
It is
Midsummer still, and you must have your full share of it.
In
communion I would experience his pleasure even if my own body could
not match it, would be able to enjoy vicariously the climax that I
could not reach directly.

Dominic accepted my offering with gratitude.
Soft to his hardness, yielding to his force, with the lassitude of
sleep clinging to my flesh, I half dreamed an arousal to him that
was of the mind more than the body. I could give him a lover’s
thoughts, if not an active body.

Later, when the morning was half gone, I woke
for the day, alone in the bed. Soft rain misted the windows, a
gentle watering, good for the ripening crops that this festival had
honored. I yawned and stretched, beginning to feel the soreness
from the night’s activity. But it was a good soreness, not too
much, not really painful. As I had hoped, our communion, overcoming
the disparity of our bodies and relative strength, made it possible
for us to be lovers.

There was a knock at the door and Katrina
entered. “Margrave Aranyi sent me,” she said. “He thought you’d
like help settling in.” She was carrying a bundle of my things.

I rubbed my eyes. “Settling in where?” I
stood up, naked, and Katrina was there for me with a robe—soft gray
wool lined in creamy pearl silk. When I opened the door to the
corridor, groaning at the thought of making my way to the bathroom
that was no doubt occupied, Katrina anticipated me.

“Your bathroom is in here,” she said,
pointing to what I had assumed was a closet.

It was the most luxurious bathroom I had ever
seen. Exquisite mosaics covered the walls, naked women cavorting
and washing each other in ways more suggestive than hygienic. The
bathtub would have warranted a visit from the Terran water police—a
multi-level lake, with steps and shelves, that could be filled with
enough water to irrigate several fields. I had already learned in
my explorations that Aranyi Fortress, like all the ’Graven
establishments, recycles and reuses the water from these
extravagances, and I stared with longing as I sat on the toilet.
The answer came as I washed my face. Dominic must have taken us to
the Zichmni Suite.

“Did you have a good time last night?” I
asked Katrina when I emerged.

Katrina blushed and looked at the floor.
“Yes,” she said in a whisper.

We were not to talk of it, I saw. Festival
night is the great shared secret. Once it is over, we must act as
if it has not been, otherwise marriages would falter and people
would pine for lovers beyond their reach. Dominic had indeed made
an exception, spending the entire night with his betrothed.

“Well,” I said, “let’s settle in, then. Lead
the way.”

Katrina hesitated. “Don’t you want to have a
bath?” She permitted herself a familiarity. “If this were my room
I’d be in there so long Marcin would have to fetch me out at
night.” She brought her husband’s name into every conversation she
could, proud of the handsome, wealthy farmer who had chosen
her.

“That’s the privilege of Zichmni,” I said. “A
personal lake that nobody else can enjoy.”

“Zichmni? The Zichmni Suite is on the other
side.” Katrina nodded in the direction of the landing on the
opposite side of the stairs.

I remembered the layout that I had worked so
hard to learn. This room was close to the family’s suite of rooms,
the Margrave’s bedroom and the companion’s room I had assigned to
Stefan, as directed by Eleonora. Finally it dawned on me. “This is
’Gravina Aranyi’s room, isn’t it?”

Katrina must have thought I had truly fucked
my brains out during festival night. “Yes, my lady,” she said,
watching me warily, like an unpredictable animal that might attack
on a whim. “Margrave Aranyi said there was no point in your staying
in a guestroom any longer. And anyway, there’s people still in
there from last night,” she added with a giggle. Katrina, new
enough to marriage that she was still more a bride than a wife, was
reveling in the freedoms of adult sexuality.

In the carelessness of morning fatigue, I
found myself sharing her thoughts: her satisfaction, both with her
lusty companion of last night and in her continued desirability
this morning.
Two men in the bed of Lady Amalie’s guestroom,
when Katrina goes in to get her mistress’s things. One of them,
dark and handsome, a dissolute face but young, asks her to join
them. She makes a polite demur, smiling to show she intends no
offense. The other one, fair and slender, says to his partner, ‘If
you wanted a woman why did you spend the night with me?’ The first
man answers, ‘In the morning, silly. Don’t you want a woman in the
morning?’ The men argue about it, laughing and kissing, fumbling at
each other under the covers, and Katrina gathers up what she can
before they make up their minds, and slips out.

I marveled at my shy maid. “What if they had
both wanted you? What would you have done?”

Katrina laughed again, unsurprised by my
knowledge of her thoughts, still in last evening’s receptive mood.
“Midsummer night’s over,” she said. “It was just talk. And you
can’t force anyone, not during festival.” Pulling her mind away
from her agreeable recollections, she returned to her morning’s
duties. “You probably don’t want to go back there now.”

“No,” I said, “I guess not.”

On this practical note I moved into my room.
My first bath in what I came to think of as ’Gravina Aranyi’s Lake
took a long time, and I almost expected Dominic to come in and haul
me out. But when I went downstairs at last, driven by famine, I saw
that the household and our guests were in no great need of company
or conversation. All over the castle, temporary couples from the
night before were breaking up, reforming into their permanent
relationships. Men and women flitted half-dressed out of rooms and
ran back to their own quarters. Servants returned slowly to their
duties; guests straggled in to a late breakfast and prepared for
the journey home.

In the breakfast room, rows of hangover
remedies were laid out on the sideboard: a raw egg unbeaten in a
cup, with a splash of spicy, salty sauce and some of that pine
resin that flavors the substance euphemistically called coffee. It
may cure hangover, but I’m sure it causes something worse. Most
people entered the room, took a cup, gulped the contents, and sat
quietly to let it work. There was only light breakfast
food—porridge, bread, fruit and cheese. Dinner would be the first
serious meal of the day.

People spoke in low tones; it was
unconscionable to raise one’s voice with all the aching heads and
rebellious stomachs that surrounded us. Sir Nicholas Galloway
strolled in, boomed a greeting to his wife, groaned at the effect
on his own throbbing head, and was shushed on all sides.

At dinner I took my place at the high table
without complaint. Any dread I had of meeting Sir Nicholas and Sir
Karl again was assuaged when I saw their bland faces and received
their polite, reserved greetings. The women were the same, friendly
but distant. We nodded to each other and sat in silence, waiting
for the food to be brought. There was no talk of the night’s
activities, only a few muted discussions between family members as
to when to head home.

Dominic and Stefan arrived together,
Dominic’s left arm flung around the boy’s shoulder, hugging him
close. “You see?” he was saying. “You didn’t fail; it simply takes
a woman’s touch to heal a woman’s injury.”

Stefan nodded seriously, grasping Dominic’s
hand. “Now we can practice again,” he said, touching the hilt of
his sword and leading Dominic’s hand to rest on his own.

“After the healer finishes,” Dominic
said.

If they had staged that little conversation
for my benefit, I was too hungry to care. Our first full sit-down
meal in twenty-six hours was all I could think of. I ate like a
starving hyena, and I’m afraid my table manners did me or Dominic
little credit, but this was, thankfully, not a moment when I was on
display. Everybody else was attending to his plate. The hall was as
peaceful today, the few phrases of conversation punctuated only by
grunts and chewing sounds, as it had been cacophonous last
night.

Josh appeared halfway through the meal,
looking ten years older and ten pounds lighter, and ate in much the
same way that I was disgracing myself. Eleonora greeted him with a
malicious laugh.
I knew Naomi would be too much for you,
she
thought to her husband.

Wait until you see her
, Josh said,
grinning in his thoughts without looking up from the food.

Naomi came in shortly after, was served by a
nervous woman who had exclaimed in disgust at having to set another
place when everybody was almost finished, then almost choked in
fear when she saw it was the witch. Naomi looked the same as ever,
serene and sleek, neither unusually tired nor hungry. She ate a
huge amount of food very quickly, though, and raised her eyes from
her plate only once, giving a cool smile to her lover of last
night, and, in the same look, a nod of acquiescence to Dominic.