The gathering was very different from any Buckkeep celebration. There was no seating of the guests according to rank or favor. Instead, the food was set out and people helped themselves to it and wandered the room as they ate it. There was roast mutton on spits kept warm near the hearth, and trays heaped with fowl cooked whole. I sampled from a platter of smoked candlefish, seasoned and crisp and remarkably tasty. Outislander breads seemed to be dark and unleavened, cooked in huge flat rounds. Diners tore off a piece of an appropriate size and then heaped it with sliced and pickled vegetables, or dipped it in fish oil and salt. All the flavors of the foods seemed overly strong to me, and much of it was pickled or smoked or salted. Only the mutton and the chicken were freshly killed, and even those had been seasoned with some sort of seaweed. The eating and drinking, the talking and the music and some sort of juggling contest, with betting, all happened simultaneously. The roar of raised voices was near deafening. After a time, I became aware of something else. Young Outislander women of the Narwhal Clan were approaching not just our guardsmen but even Civil and Cockle. I saw several guards grinning fatuously as their young partners led them outside or up the shadowy staircase.
Are they deliberately luring Dutiful’s guard away? I Skilled anxiously to Chade.
Here, it is a woman’s prerogative, he replied. They do not have the same customs regarding chastity. The guardsmen were warned to be cautious but not cool. The Prince’s warriors and companions are expected to be available for the evening but only if they are invited; it would be a breach of hospitality if they approached a woman who had not first signaled her interest. If you have not noticed, there is a lack of men here, and far fewer children than there should be for this many women. An empty womb filled on a wedding night foretells a lucky child, here.
Was there a reason I was not told of this before now?
Does it bother you?
After a moment of surreptitious peering, I located my old mentor. He was sitting on one of the bed benches, nibbling on a fowl’s leg and conversing with a woman half his age. I caught a glimpse of Civil and his cat disappearing into the upper reaches of the house. The woman who led him was at least five years older than he was, but he did not look intimidated. I had no time to wonder or worry where Swift had vanished to; surely he was too young to be of any interest to these viragos. In that moment I realized that Dutiful was leaving the mothershouse in the company of a gaggle of the Narcheska’s girlish friends. Elliania did not look particularly pleased, even though she still held his hand and led him out of the door.
It was not easy to follow him. A woman with a tray of sweets stepped between me and the door. I managed to feign a thick-witted indifference to her offering of more than the sticky confections as I helped myself to a handful in a boorish display of greed and ate them in two mouthfuls. Somehow this flattered her, and she set the tray aside and followed me as I ate them. She was still at my elbow when I reached the door. “Where’s the backhouse?” I asked her, and when she did not understand the Six Duchies euphemism, I mimed what I sought. With a puzzled look, she pointed out a low building to me and returned to the feasting. As I walked toward it, I cast a wide glance for Dutiful. There were several couples in the courtyard, in various stages of dalliance, and two boys carrying water from the well back into the mothershouse. Where had he gone?
I saw him at last, not far away, sitting beside Elliania on a grassy rise near some young apple trees. The other girls had settled around them in a ring. These were girls not yet women, as their loose hair proclaimed. I guessed that their ages ranged from ten to fifteen or so. Doubtless, before this night, they were Elliania’s playmates for years. Now she has left their companionship behind her with her change to woman’s status.
Not quite, Dutiful informed me sourly.They have evaluated me as if I were a horse bought cheap at the fair. “If he is a warrior, where are his scars?” “Did he not have a clan? Why does his face not bear her tattoo?” They tease her, and one of them is quite a nasty little vixen. Lestra is her name, and she is Elliania’s older cousin. She is mocking Elliania, saying that perhaps she is a woman and even wed in name, but that she doubts that she has ever been kissed. Lestra claims to have been kissed several times, quite thoroughly, even though she has not bled yet. Fitz, have the girls no shame or reticence in this land?
I grasped it on an intuitive level. Dutiful, it is a driving-out. Elliania is no longer one of them, and so they will peck and tease her tonight. Doubtless it would have happened in any case; it may even be seen as a part of her womanhood ceremony. And then, needlessly, I added, Be careful. Follow her lead, lest you shame her somehow.
I have no idea what she wants of me, he replied helplessly. She glares at me out of the corner of her eye, and yet holds to my hand as if it were a line thrown to her in wild water.
As clearly as if I sat beside him, the words reached me through our Skill-link. The girl who flung the challenge was taller than Elliania, and perchance older. I knew enough of women to know that age alone did not determine their blood time. Indeed, save for her loose hair, I would have guessed her a woman already. Lestra spoke saucily, taunting Elliania with, “So. You’ll bind him to you, so no one else can have him, but you dare not even kiss him!”
“Perhaps I do not wish to kiss him yet. Perhaps I intend to wait until he has proven himself worthy of me.” Lestra shook her head. She had little bells wired into her hair and I heard the jingle of her mane as she said mockingly, “No, Elliania, we know you well. As a girl you were always the most meek and least daring of us. I daresay you are the same as a woman. You don’t dare kiss him, and he is too timid a man to take one for himself. He is a smooth-cheeked boy, masquerading as a man. Isn’t that true, ‘Prince’? You are as timid as she is. Perhaps I could teach you to be bolder. He does not even look at her breasts! Or perhaps they are so small, he cannot see them.”
I did not envy Dutiful. I had no advice to offer him. I sat myself down on the low stone wall that marked the edge of the young orchard. I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed my cheeks, as a man does when he has had too much to drink and seeks to drive the tingle from his face. I hoped folk would think me drunk and leave me sitting. I did not relish watching Dutiful go through his dilemma, but I dared not leave him. I sagged my shoulders and set my head as if staring into the distance while watching out of the corner of my eye. Dutiful made an effort, speaking stiffly. “Perhaps I respect Narcheska Elliania too much to take what she has not offered.” I could feel his steely determination not to look at her breasts as he said this. His awareness of them, bared and warm so near him, was taking its toll.
He could not see the look Elliania cast to one side. That answer had not pleased her. “But you don’t respect me, do you?” the little minx taunted him. “No,” he replied shortly. “I do not think that I do.”
“Then there is no problem. Show your boldness and kiss me!” Lestra commanded him triumphantly. “And I will tell her if she is missing anything worth having.” As if to force him to the act, she leaned forward suddenly, thrusting her face at him, even as one sly hand flew toward his groin. “What’s this?” she crowed mischievously as Dutiful shot to his feet with an exclamation of outrage. “There’s more than a kiss he has waiting for you, Elliania. Look at it! An army of one has pitched a tent for you there! Will the siege last long?”