Ever (5 page)

Next to my loom is my basket of yarn, a chipped plate, a reed stylus, and a mound of clay in a bowl of water covered by a damp cloth. The clay is there in case I want to plan a change in my rug or design a new one.

With the plate on my lap, I scoop out a handful of clay and flatten it.

“My next rug will be of Admat's altar in the reception room,” I tell Mati. I pick up the stylus and begin to draw. After a few minutes I stand. “I have to see the altar.” Mati knows that sometimes I must look at my subject so I can portray it accurately.

She nods.

When I get there, I open the street door. Nia is awake, watching Hyte pass by.

“I thought I heard . . .” I say. “I thought . . .”

“No one has come.”

Once I am back at my loom, my eyes linger on the wool in my basket. Some shades blend into their neighbors. Others glow against them. I love bright blue next to violet—morning dancing with twilight.

I take up my clay. Half an hour passes.

“Mati . . . I have to look into the reception room again.”

“Go.”

Nia is annoyed with me. “I know my business, little Mistress. You needn't supervise me.”

I retreat. I draw for a quarter hour, then push back my chair. This time I'll see that Pado is safe.

But Mati sees through me too. “Stay. As Admat wishes, so it will be.”

“As he wishes, so it will be.” I set aside my clay and work on the marriage rug, hoping that weaving will cast its usual spell over me.

Soon the peace of a craftswoman enters me, and I feel the pleasure of Mati's company. I become absorbed in designing my pattern and moving my fingers. Mati doesn't knot, because she makes cloth. I knot, because I make rugs, but we are both weaving. Knotting is weaving too.

Knot. Cut with my weaver's knife. Knot. Cut. Knot. Cut. Count as I go. Change colors. Finish my row. Pass my weft through and pack it down. Begin again.

Mati stretches. “Kezi . . .” She lifts a layer off a pile of cloth at her side to reveal a blue woolen tunic, appliquéd along the bottom with bands of purple wool. The fringes
on the purple sash are eight inches long, strung with amber beads. I'm surprised I didn't see her sewing it.

“Do you like it?” She holds it up.

“It's beautiful.” I've never seen such a pretty tunic. Mati will look wonderful in it. I'd love to try it on. I'm taller than she is, but it would fit me too.

“It's for the wedding,” Mati says.

“We can't go!”

“Your pado and I will stay at home, but you may go. A servant will accompany you. Here. Put it on.”

“It's for me?”

“For you.”

I take it and hold it on my knees. “Oh!” Mati must have beaten the cloth a thousand times to make it this soft.

She pats my lap through the tunic. “I'm thankful to be alive today.”

I lean across my new tunic and hug her.

“Go. Try it on and show me how you look.”

I drape the tunic carefully over my arm. Mati hangs the sash around my shoulders. I start for my bedroom. When I pass the kitchen, I hear servants chatting as they prepare dinner.

My thoughts turn to the wedding. Until yesterday I'd
thought of little else. Belet is marrying my uncle Damki, Pado's youngest brother, a widower fourteen years her senior. Everyone agrees it is an excellent match. Belet's pado doles out spices to all the families in Hyte. Uncle Damki is handsome. He owns as much land as Pado, and he is almost as kindhearted.

Still, if Belet survives bearing children, she will surely outlive Uncle Damki by many lonely years. Aunt Fedo had a much older husband, who died before I was born, and she is alone except for us. She doesn't let us see her sadness, but I know she's sad sometimes.

I want a husband near my own age. My thoughts go to Elon. I've seen him many times in the palace processionals and outside the temple. He's tall and I'm tall. His hair curls naturally, and he's unlikely ever to need a wig.

Of course, I don't know him well. I don't know any young men well, but I have asked a few questions of my friends. One knows someone who knows someone who is his relative, and I have collected a little information.

Elon's parents died when he was a boy. His uncle's house, where Elon lives, is twelve streets away from ours. I've walked there to look. The house also has a red wooden door set into the street wall. A reception room probably lies behind the door, and beyond it a shaded in
terior courtyard and branching rooms, rugs scattered here and there.

The uncle, who has no sons of his own, has a palace position, like Pado. He buys wooden furniture from the traders who come to Hyte, because few trees surround our city.

Somehow Aunt Fedo knows about Elon. “My owl eyes,” she said once, “have seen you wriggle at him.”

“I don't!” I was furious. “Aunt Fedo, I never wriggled!”

Pado has said nothing yet, but no girl with wealthy parents reaches sixteen unmarried. Before the end of this year I'll be a wife.

As Admat wishes, so it will be, I think. I enter my bedroom.

OLUS

I
N HER BEDROOM
Kezi spreads the new finery on her bed and smooths it flat. Smiling, she pulls one cloth shoulder higher on the bed, then drags it lower. She does the same with the other tunic shoulder. I'm puzzled.

Her hands skip to the hem. She lifts the hem on one side and tugs that side over the other. The empty tunic is dancing! She releases that side of the hem and lifts the other.

She is charming. I smile with her as the tunic's hips switch from side to side. When the dance is over, she lies on the bed next to the tunic and gazes up at her ceiling, her smile fading, but her hand caressing the fabric.

I wish I could see thoughts.

After five minutes she jumps up and reaches down to remove her everyday tunic. I never look through clothing, and I will not watch her undress, but I'm eager to see her in the tunic. I withdraw my eyes.

KEZI

A
T TWO INCHES
above my ankles, the new tunic is the right length. The neck is scooped. The wool molds itself to me. The tunic is modest, but just barely. It is a dress a bawdy mati would make.

I wind the sash twice around my waist and tie a bow to the side, as is the fashion. Slide to the left, bend my left knee. Slide to the right, bend my right knee. I wonder how the tunic looks when I dance. I wonder if Elon will be at the wedding and will see me dance.

Admat, I pray, gazing to the side of the bedroom altar flame, give me a husband I can love. Give me a husband who will love a dancing wife.

The flame wavers, which could be a good sign, a bad sign, or no sign at all.

OLUS

N
IA HASN'T LEFT
her post. No one has attempted to enter.

Merem is in the counting room, telling Senat that Kezi is putting on the new tunic. He sets down his stylus and follows her to the courtyard. Merem sits at her own loom, and Senat sits at Kezi's.

She must be clothed by now. I glance into her room, prepared to look away, but there's no need. She is holding her round copper mirror and tilting it this way and that to view angles of herself in the tunic.

She is lovely. Her skin is bronzed, a little oily, so she seems to shine. Her eyebrows, her lashes, and her hair are as dark as the Akkan walnut tree, but her eyes are the golden brown of autumn oak leaves. Her nose bulges a little at the end—an olive nose, Hannu would call it.

Kezi's jaw is narrow, but her cheeks are rounded. I think of kissing her cheek and then her lips.

The impulse surprises me. My brother Lumar chases after mortal women, but I don't.

She returns to the courtyard, where her parents beam as she enters.

“Thank you for the finest tunic in Hyte.”

“I should have used a different dye for the sash.”

“The purple is perfect.” Kezi turns for them, a slow dance step. “Is the fit right?”

Merem cries, “You're so pretty!”

Kezi blushes.

“Kezi,” Senat says, “your mati tells me you're fond of that boy Elon.”