Their palanquin passed a market of stalls larger than the market at Sorrow and still the city went on. Palaces, temples, apartments, hovels, hives, factories, stalls, mansions, parks. Gaet stopped their hurry once to indulge her, telling the Ivieth to wait. The inside of the building he showed her was full of printing presses spewing out pages. A boy passed with a cartload of books for the bindery. It made her feel lost. She would be lost in all that printed chatter and no one would ever hear her voice. Once she glanced around and Gaet was gone. She panicked but he appeared again almost immediately with two cups.
“A little juice for us. We deserve it.”
She sipped while they continued. The hill of mansions which held Gaet’s home on one of its winding streets amazed her. She had not realized he was rich. Strange emotions were overtaking her. She felt like bowing at his feet — and she never grovelled before anyone! With effort she kept her head erect. It did not suit her image of herself to be so awed by splendor. He took her by an arm through the massive wooden door into the inner patio. She had never seen such luxury outside of a temple. It could almost be a place of Ritual Suicide.
He cocked an ear. “I think we have this mausoleum to ourselves.” Then he raised his voice. A great warble came out of his mouth that would have carried across a mountain valley. He cocked his ear again. “Even the servants are out. Well, let me offer you Greetings.”
“I’m most honored to be your guest.” She bowed and smiled at him.
They heard footsteps. “Gaet! You brought her!”
“My one-wife Noe,” he announced, “taking her time as usual.”
Oelita bowed stiffly.
“So you are the one who has been causing us so much excitement.”
“Isn’t she a feast for an empty stomach?” he extolled.
“One-husband has a vulgar sense of humor,” answered Noe warmly.
“Hoemei must come home tonight if we can reach him.”
Noe’s eyes twinkled. “We may never see him again. He has been caught by one of Aesoe’s Liethe.”
“God’s Leer!” roared Gaet. “Hoemei? You can’t be right! Is he sexing her?”
“He’s been suggesting some very strange positions to me in our recent lovemaking.”
“I’ll have to go over to the Palace and fetch him after our bath.” Gaet was laughing. “Rescue him is more like it.”
“Who are these Liethe?” asked Oelita. “I’ve seen them following our Stgal at five paces, but I know nothing about them.”
“The Stgal they would follow at five paces. Anything to please a priest.” Noe’s voice held veiled contempt for a woman who would try to please a man who would require her to walk behind him. “For our men they dance naked.”
“Only when we least expect it,” insisted Gaet defensively. “The last time I was at an Aesoe party they danced the Sunset for us and I don’t think we got to see a thumbnail’s flash of skin!”
“But you looked!” teased Noe. She turned to Oelita and explained. “The Liethe Sunset dance begins with the dancers in pale blue. They change costumes on stage, with a magician’s cleverness, so that you are never fast enough with the eye to see how they do it. The costumes go from sky blue to yellows, to oranges and brilliant streaming reds, then fade to purple and finally spangled black. The men, of course, jockey for position to steal what glimpses of flesh there are. If all he saw” — she poked her husband with an elbow — “was a thumbnail-sized patch of breast or thigh, poor Gaet got the worst of the jockeying.”
“One of these days,” said Gaet darkly, “I’m going to sell you to the Liethe.”
“No you won’t! You love me too much. Besides they wouldn’t buy me. The Liethe bodies are undecorated.”
“They might need you for leather and soup.”
“The Liethe don’t scar their bodies?” Oelita was scandalized. “And they show themselves to men like that?”
“It is a wicked city, my little coastal barbarian.” He turned to Noe. “Do we have hot water?”
“Come with me. You’re both filthy.”
The bath house was already steaming. Oelita marveled that pipes brought the hot water to the raised stone tub. Gaet was smiling broadly. “I’m relaxed already,” he said dipping his finger into the water while Noe began to pull off his boots.
It was almost frightening for Oelita to undress in such luxury — as if this were to be the final bath. The room was entirely done in tiles of earthy browns with a rough texture that promised safety even with soap underfoot. The pipes were burnished bronze. There was a huge carved kaiel to hold the towels, its hontokae inlaid in gold. Oelita, trembling, began to disrobe.
But she stopped in embarrassment when Gaet signaled covertly that she was breaking ritual. These Kaiel! she thought furiously. Do their rituals never end! She was ashamed that she was ashamed, that she did not know the ritual. Noe had not noticed her mistake.
“Guests do not undress themselves,” whispered Gaet, coming to help her with gentle hands.
“You have fine artists on the coast,” Noe said, admiring the lines which enhanced the womanliness of Oelita’s body.
Noe had shampoos ready, and perfumes, and delicate soaps made from rare beetle oils, and sponges of a scrubby texture so delightful that Oelita vowed she was going to abduct one. Noe took great familiarities with her husband’s body and when he tried to sass her she stuffed soap in his mouth so that his laughter produced a shower of bubbles. Oelita felt put out, cut off, watching them. Noe was his wife, for sure, but she, Oelita, was his lover!
She did not care what the rituals were! She took a sponge and began to wash Gaet herself. He was hers, too! Noe took no offense but transferred her attentions to Oelita. The washing was a casual caress, an easy intimacy. Noe even kissed her lightly on the back of the neck. It was a strange feeling. She felt shared.
She had thought once of marrying a man. She had had many lovers, more than she could remember, but her relationships were all one to one, as if she had somehow never left her adolescence. I’m too much of a loner. She was enjoying being shared. It made her feel part of everything. For too long she had struggled in her outside world, even though the struggle had been rewarding.
She was almost not scrubbing him now. She was touching him with her fingers. She smiled at him the smile she used to seduce men and then looked out the corner of her eyes to see if Noe watched. Noe was watching, and Noe smiled at her glance in a way that seemed to say: don’t we have a nice man? For the first time in her life Oelita smiled at a woman with the smile she used to seduce men, and felt confusion. Noe responded by washing her face. I wonder who he’ll sleep with tonight, me or her?
“It took you all long enough to get here!” said Hoemei coming through the threshold. He picked up a sponge. “I can see these women are being too gentle.” And he began to scrub his brother. “Let’s see if we can get some of the stink off you. Silence of God, where have you been!”
“We went over the White Wound. A roundabout way to boil potato soup.”
“You what? You let him take you there?” Hoemei stared at Oelita in astonishment. “The last time we went over the White Wound there were ten of us who set out and only seven of us who came back. That ordeal by climbing terrified me to the roots of my hair. Of the seven of us, only Joesai has ever dared go back.”
“We were babies then. I got the itch.”
“Do you know Joesai?” Oelita asked warily.
“Same creche,” Hoemei laughed. “He’s been giving you trouble?”