Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Power Play
This book is merrily dedicated to
Maureen Beirne
Good Friend Staunch Ally
Cheerful Companion Experienced Tour Guide for many kindnesses for many years
1
Yanaba Maddock and Sean Shongili held hands in a darkness illuminated only by the glowing eyes of hundreds of animals and the flames of hundreds of candles. The drumming had stopped now, replaced by the sweet lapping of sliding water, the beat of many hearts and the breathing of many creatures. One pulse was louder than all the drums had been, one breath a wind that guttered and flared the candles with each respiration.
‘So how do we do it here?’ Yana whispered nervously to her love and the father of her unborn children. ‘Does the planet give me away or what?’
Sean smiled and winked, ‘No-one has that right but you, love. Let's just say that the planet acts as witness and honorary best being.’
‘…best being,’ an echo sang from the cavern walls, ‘best being…’
He stopped walking and she stopped beside him. All she knew was that they were getting married, Petaybean-style.
She'd been so busy with her new duties as Petaybee's administrator over the last two months that she hadn't had enough time to enquire as fully as she would have liked into the rite or folkways of the Petaybean marriage ceremony before it was upon her. Sean's niece, Bunny Rourke, one of Yana's chief informants on matters Petaybean, had told her that it was a special sort of latchkay with a night chant at the hotsprings. Yana had attended the break-up latchkay when she first arrived. This occasion differed in that the night chant was at the beginning of the latchkay instead of at the end. As at all latchkays, there would be much singing, although probably more at this particular one. Both Sean and Yana were to prepare a song for each other. Songs were how Petaybeans celebrated or commemorated all their most noteworthy experiences. The mode was mostly either a rhyme scheme to some ancient Irish air or a free-verse poem chanted Inuit style to the accompaniment of a drum. Yana, whose heart was full but whose mind was too crowded with administrative details while her body was having to make physical accommodations to her pregnancy, had finally created her song. Other than that, she simply hoped that things would go well and allowed herself to be led through the proceedings by the people she had trusted more than once with her life.
Two hours earlier Kilcoole's premiere couturiere, Aisling Senungatuck, had arrived with the gown she had created for Yana - rabbit hides crocheted together with woollen yarn in a long, panelled design with a flared skirt, scooped neck and long sleeves. The crocheted lace inserts were heavily decorated with beads made from scavenged wire and the little Petaybean pebbles found in certain streams. Tumbled, polished, and drilled, the stones were lovely and translucent. The gown was yellow, the Petaybean wedding colour, Aisling explained, Because most of the plants make yellow dye. The rabbits were contributed from the collecting places of all the village hunters. Sean's vest was a darker shade of the yellow, trimmed with beaver fur and blue and white beads.
Now the motes of light formed a circle around the two, and Clodagh Senungatuck, Aisling's sister and village healer, stepped into the centre with Sean and Yana. Yana noted with some amusement that as many of Clodagh's orange striped cats as could crowd around her feet did so, their eyes eerie and iridescent in the candleglow.
‘Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock, we've come here because we understand you got somethin' to say to all of your friends and kin here where the planet hears you best, is that right?’
‘It is, Sean said. ’I have a song to sing for you all.’
‘Sing for us,' soft voices said from the shadows, accompanied by an underlying rumble of throaty feline purrs, the whicker of the curly-coats, and the affirmative yips of the dogs.
‘Sing,' the echo said.
Yana had no idea how many bodies were clustered into the cave that day. The line seemed to stretch clear back to the village and included every man, woman and child, horse, cat, the larger track cats, everybody's dog teams. She could have sworn that she saw wild game emerge from the brush and join in the procession just before Clodagh led them into the darkness of the cave behind the hotsprings waterfall.
Sean cleared his throat. The candleflame shadowed the chiselled planes of his face and softened the outline of his mouth as he began speaking.
Yana's mouth went suddenly dry. Something soft and furry rubbed against her bare ankles. Her stomach gave a heave and she wondered could the baby be moving so soon, pushing her to speak. She took Sean's hands as much for support as encouragement and clung to them so tightly that she was afraid she'd leave bruises, except that he returned the strong grip. That gave her the courage she needed. She felt suddenly light-headed and needed to hold on to him to keep from floating to the top of the cave.
Sean took her in his arms then, and kissed her, letting his body rest against her belly which, although firm and a bit fuller and rounder than usual, wasn't that noticeable yet.
Then Clodagh clapped her hands and everyone dispersed leaving Yana and Sean alone in the cave but not in darkness. As the candles departed, a warm soft glow pulsed throughout the cavern and he eased her to the rock which seemed to melt into a comfortable bed as she and Sean made love. They always enjoyed that occupation but here, now, in the cave, where the planet was also part of this communion, she felt as if she had never before been so consumed by the passion that always fired up between them in the act of love. Sean felt it too, for his hands were tender, possessive in a fashion she would once have resented, exciting in ways she had never experienced. The climax was so extraordinary that she wept and knew, from the wetness of the cheek he pressed hard against hers, that he also had been rocked by the intensity of their consummation. For a moment, she thought she had died.