It began with my mother Rhea, turning in towards us, gathering strips of fine leather between her hands. She wrapped a section around my left wrist, then followed it over to Olei’s right wrist, locking our hands together tenderly.
“This is hardiness, strength, determination, everlasting,” she said sweetly, tears welling in her eyes. Khati followed, unrolling a plait of soft cotton in a deep green that matched Olei’s eyes. She traced the path laid by Mama's leather, dragging her fingers over our skin before cupping our hands in both of hers.
“This is soft tenderness, gentle, subtle, beautiful yet enduring.” I could feel every heartbeat in Olei’s hand, and the growing dampness between our interlaced fingers. My Papa, stepped up, slowly pulling a long strand of wool from his pocket.
“Here is warmth when you are cold, when you are wet. This is land, this is life.”
Lastly Deins approached, opening a leather pouch revealing glittering strands in the moonlight. The tiny, silvery chain glittered a thousand stars in the palm of his hand, which he quickly swept over, and under and around, and again until I felt the entire heavens had all collected on top of my wrist, into this one tiny pocket of time and space. I was overwhelmed. My smile was fierce though my face burned. A hundred tears came streaming over my cheeks, my chin, down my neck and onto my dress.
“Aether and Kote, heavens and earth, if not for their existence we would never know true eternal beauty, to love, forever, and ever…”
I took a breath. I didn’t wipe my face. Olei didn’t either. He turned to me with a curious expression. I wanted to speak. But instead I held my tongue. Without thinking I reached up, to kiss the spots on Olei’s cheeks where his tears had left their watery tracks.
"Kote bless this pairing, may it live, grow strong, and remain true. Aethan bless this pairing, may it stay in love forever," our parents said in rough unison. The crowd repeated once and quieted.
Together we turned, as the crowd cheered and shouted in union, "Kote bless! Aethan bless!"
At first I couldn’t take my eyes off Olei, it felt like a million years and it felt so good. It was only a few seconds, for after we took a step out of silence came a riotous clamor, filled with Koyote cheers and whistles. I knew that behind me Mama cried softly into Papa’s shoulder. But I could only look at Olei.
As if out of thin air, the crowd produced musicians, dancers wearing ribbons translating drum beats and stringed instruments into pulses of color and rhythm. Crying, laughing, leaping people rejoiced around us for the brief journey to my new home.
I wondered for a second if Rhys was perched on his hill, and if he could see the serpentine movement of so many candles winding off into the distance. I hoped he would lift his old haunches from the bedrock and venture towards the game trail that would certainly lead him to a very good party.
Olei was nervous all over. A dancer gave him a mug of wine which he sipped gladly. From the corner of my eye I could see he looked over to see me doing the same. I relaxed my grip on his hand. It was pleasantly sweaty, but I didn’t want to seem tense or afraid. I drank some wine. We danced with the others, we danced together. And with each drum beat colors came out of their hiding places and became more and more vivid; the drumbeats seemed to follow my heart.
From the middle of the crowd rose a man ten feet tall. Yakeh, it would seem, had borrowed himself a donkey to stand on. From the way he swayed it was clear he had been drinking. He clumsily clutched his earthen mug with two hands and hollered for silence, wine slushing over his fingers and onto the poor animal.
“Oi! Hey! Oiiiiiii!” He was shouting, and laughing, pointing fingers at the crowd before calling attention to Olei and me. “I’m going to be embarrassed,” I half whispered.
“Fellow friends, families, lovers and skeptics, tonight we find ourselves gathered in high hopes for my sweet sister and the most gallant of gents, Olei. Aneh, you’re strong, defiant at times, persistent and an absolute beauty – when you want to be. When I was little Aneh knocked out half my child’s teeth for me. But now that I have new ones she tells me she just did me a favor, that I need to smile more so I can show off how darling I’ve become…”
The crowd was stirred by laughter, whether it was at Yakeh’s bad balance or the humor with which he spoke. Once again, I started crying, moved by my brother’s sweet speech. Olei’s only response was to interlace his fingers with mine, and wrap his arm around me, pulling my blushing hot body into his.
“I love you Aneh! You are unique as the day is new and you’ll always be the brightest star in my universe!” His words flew out of his mouth as he went down, feet in opposite directions, to plant his face directly atop the donkey’s ass.
I ran towards my brother, pulling Olei with me, our wrists still bound. A couple of bubbly girls had come to his rescue first and now held him by the torso rather flirtatiously. They giggled as he struggled to regain his balance. I could hear him making light of himself to make them laugh more, “Why, yes, I am quite a poet,” and “You should see my other donkey tricks.” It made me smile.
“C’mon,” Olei tugged gently. He sneaked us inside of our dimly lit new home. I turned to take it all in, which meant Olei turned to follow me.
“It’s beautiful. You did this?”
“Yes…almost all of it. My mother dried these flowers, and my father inlaid these stones with me. This iron work here too, my father did that.”
I felt I had nothing but stupid things to say. So I said nothing. My eyes must have been as big as my fists, which seemed to make Olei even more nervous. He spoke for me. Words in the air were a kind of comfort.
“I’m sorry I don’t know what to say….I’m nervous, and I don’t know you,” he said. I looked at him briefly before turning my gaze to the floor.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to disappoint you. I’ve never been so scared…I mean, I’m happy but…terrified,” I admitted.
“What were you crying for, earlier?” He asked.
I paused to try and think, I looked up. “I don’t know. I couldn’t control it. All this emotion was spreading so fast through my body. Since I met with Rhys I feel like I've been standing in a doorway that leads to the unknown, feeling so scared. But now that I've passed through it I feel safe, like everything will be okay.”
Our conversation was abruptly halted by the crashing open of a door.
“Ahah! Here they are!” Yakeh stumbled in. I shook my head and pursed my lips but I was happy to see him again. Olei moved to help the drunk fool.
“You can’t hide yet!” he continued “You two are not finished at all. Mama! Papa! C’mon!” Four parents scuttled in, toting wine and giddy mid-age merriment.
I started without thinking, “I don’t understand why this part happens after so much drinking has happened. Couldn’t someone get hurt?”
“Aneh,” Papa was giggling, “You’ll understand, someday when you tie your child to another’s. This is the fun part!”
Hesitantly, Olei and I brought up our bound wrists where Mother and Father alike could have a hand in cutting each band, winding it and knotting it about each of our wrists. Deins carefully clipped and pinched the ends of the silvery chain with some tiny iron tool he had brought. And as quickly and loudly as they came, they were done.
“We’ll leave you two for the next part,” they chuckled as they exited.
“We can just lie together, or talk. I have some really good tea, and there’s wine, of course….” Olei was just filling silence, which was fine with me. I moved around the table and clumsily, I hugged him. He returned the embrace then took a step back, cupping my shoulders with his rough hands.
He smoothed out the back of my hair with his long fingers, I felt him parting it with his thumbs. The gesture was tender. I hugged him tighter.
“Can we go outside on the other side of the house? I'd love to look at the sky from there.” I asked, suddenly self-conscious. I didn't want the light from the candles to show my face.
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“Yes please, let’s.” The patio felt much less confining. The stars illuminated everything as well without the moon to steal their sparkling show.
“I know it's early, but I have to make a confession to you," I started. He looked down at me, eager to hear. "My heart has never stopped like that…when I first saw you, tonight.” Olei looked at me like I spoke another language. He seemed the kind who lived happily oblivious to their own beauty.
"You're so very handsome," I continued awkwardly and without control of my own words, "...I just hope I can be as pleasing to you."
Olei said nothing for a moment which made me worry I had already said too much. He shifted his eyes up towards the sky; the bright band of the stars like a river of milk wandered through the sky. He traced its path with his eyes down to the horizon, before making his way back to me, where I watched, worried. I bit my lip. Taking a deep breath, Olei gently pressed his palm to my jawbone, running his fingers over my cheeks and lightly touching my lips with his callused thumb. Olei met my parted lips with his own, in a kiss that lifted my heart out of my chest and heaved it up into the heavens.
It took a few days for my heart to come back down into the realm of earth. I lay in bed, fitted into the curve made by Olei’s sidelong body. He looped one hand around my stomach, the other passed under my neck. I weaved my fingers into his and worried for a second that we were so close my untamed hair might suffocate him.
I wondered if I’d get up before sunrise, or maybe an hour after, or half the day? It didn’t matter, I felt happy. Everyday would happen and so far, we made sure to make the best of it. Olei worked the potato fields and tended the goats. He sheared the shaggy ones while I weeded and let the chickens out to find insects and take dirt baths in the shade. These chickens did not come when I called, but I loved them anyway. Khati was a sweet woman and I loved her like my own mother. Deins spent his days working metal in his hut. At night he liked to wear loose stained skirts and take sips of the hard potato liquor popular in Koyote. Sometimes I’d sit by him and he’d tell stories and smile, laughing at Mana, my new family's dog, chasing his tail.
At night Khati took time to show me how to weave on her loom the soft wool from the sheep or the thick and stubborn wool from the curly goats. In the winter I would learn how to spin. Later I would begin teaching all I knew about herbs and bees to little Koyote children. In the meantime I had to be careful that I wouldn't have a child of my own yet, though I found myself thinking that it wouldn't be so bad to have one, now that I was in love with someone I could easily envision as a father.
Chapter 6
Yossinda
I left the kitchens of the Red Keep heavy hearted. The brilliant blue sky, alight with the sun of spring and the green buds sprouting new life seemed to mock the sadness of the day.
The night before, one of the Five Great Saans passed away. SaanKote, the Saan of the earth element, voice and face of the Unmarked Ones, brother to the remaining Four Great Saans. In my heart I felt a light go out and the space where that light burned felt empty, hollow, hurting. I knew that SaanKote was now beginning his walk in the afterlife with the Unmarked Ones and that he would reappear in this life, for us, in the earth.
I'd heard rumors from servants who had slept in the keep that they felt the earth quake in the early evening, just as our Beloved SaanKote left this realm. I exited the kitchens and walked through the narrow outside corridor that separated the courtyard of the Domi from the great hall of the Red Keep. Even in this slender passage way had become warm with the heat of this pretty spring day. I turned into the gatehouse only to stop in surprise. There were people, hundreds of them, quietly pooling into the commons. They moved quietly and sinously like a giant river eel, funneling towards the blessing yard on the south side of Saan Citadel. Of course, I thought, there would be a farewell blessing for SaanKote tonight, so we can bless his life on earth and pray for his safe passage into the next life. I would never miss an opportunity to worship and pray, especially today, so I joined the mass.
I was overwhelmed as we rounded the entrance to the blessing yard by the sheer volume of people, the massive blue banners with the symbols of the Saans painted in gold hanging from the windows, battlements and balconies of the Citadel, and the eerie silence we proceeded in. From the corner of my eye I caught my sister lurking in a doorway fingering a tiny metal box – her Tinea box – and flirting with some young servants. She never stops, I thought, Good Aethan save her.
The ever solemn, ever stoic statues of the Unmarked Ones stood huge and decorated next to the balcony where the Four Saans would give their blessing. The faces of the Unmarked Ones, blank and bowed, towered three stories above us. Their arms folded across their chests in the sign of the Saans: an embracing X. These statues gave me goosebumps. I imagined the Unmarked Ones were just as tall when they once walked with us humans so many thousands of years ago, shrouded in white and full of compassion—just like in my dream.
At once the quiet crowd got quieter. A BrotherSaan was on the balcony with his hands in the air. His heavy dark blue robes made his outstretched arms look like wings which he then crossed over his chest before bowing his head. Though I couldn't see his face from where I stood I imagined it was tired and sad.
The Four Great Ones stepped out. Everyone crossed themselves and bowed again. The Saans returned with exaggerated movements, low, long bows.
SaanAethan stepped forward and spoke in a voice that boomed throughout the blessing yard.
"People of SaanSanti, beloved and faithful citizens, it is with great sadness we find ourselves here today. We have lost a brother, a leader, a gift from the elements and the Unmarked Ones. SaanKote, our kindred Saan, a voice of the holiest spirits, may you be walking with the Unmarked Ones already. May you forever live in peace and without suffering."
I started crying, I couldn't help it. I wiped my tears and runny nose on my sleeve. I didn't care who saw.
Each of the Four Great Ones came forward to offer their words of wisdom, their condolences, their blessings. All were as elegant with their words as SaanAethan I'm sure, but I became light headed after crying so much and couldn't make out their exact words.
"Yossinda," Yeidi had come up from behind to join me. “Who would think the death of an old man would have you such a mess? They will choose another Saan."
“I know,” I sniffled. “May the unmarked ones bless him,” I added.
"I heard talk in the Citadel today. It won’t take too long to replace him. And you won’t have to live without all of your precious Five much longer.”
As she finished saying these biting words she pulled out her little tin of Tinea and slipped a finger in.
"Yeidi, why now?" I asked, emotion rising in my voice.
"It's just a little Yossy, don't get upset again," the rudeness in her voice offended me. Getting stoned at a time like this and brushing me off in the same moment!
We walked in silence. Yeidi left to go back to work in the Citadel, I returned to the Kitchens.
Chapter 7
Aneh
Many happy months had passed for Olei and me. As was often the case in Koyote, Rhys had read truth in the stars and I had fallen in love with my mate.
I was surprised by how much I thought about him and how anxiously I awaited our time together, even though we were never separated for more than a few hours. I loved his ropey muscles and sun baked arms and the way he squinted when he laughed. I forgot about his crooked teeth and went blind to any imperfections I may have once noticed.
Though work was hardly scarce in the late summer, one day we decided to rest. We had meant to spend the day lounging in the shade, telling stories and sipping cool tea, but before long Yakeh arrived, hoping as usual to get a glimpse of Olei’s sister, Ive.
Though I could’ve predicted it, Ive was not around when Yakeh arrived. He shared his disappointment openly.
“Where is she always leaving to?” He asked.
“She leaves a
s soon as she hears that you’re coming,” Olei responded jokingly.
“That can’t be the truth. Who wouldn’t want to spend time with someone as handsome as me?” Yakeh grinned and slapped me playfully on the back.
I smiled, “Well, I’d rather not stick around and wait to find out. Let's go for a swim!”
After loading a satchel with some dried fruit, hard bread, and goat cheese, we left the tranquil porch for one of my favorite destinations. We didn’t take the road, instead we traveled over the scrub until we got to the dried up wash. From here we could easily pad up the eroded stream banks, wandering over exposed sandstone until we reached a narrow canyon filled with cottonwoods and willows. Felled trees and leaves littered the pathway between big red rocks. We stopped for a moment to bask in the sun and let the dogs cool off in some mud. I took some time to collect rocks and arrange them into a rainbow which I nestled up against a little ledge on the side of a big boulder.
Olei sauntered over and leaned against my shoulder. His chest felt good against my back as he pressed a kiss to my neck. I pointed to my creation.
“It’s a rainbow,” I said like a child before laughing.
Our journey continued up the meandering canyon, where the towering walls shaded us as we followed the twists and turns. At the end of the canyon spilled the washer woman waterfall. They said this was the only place in Koyote where you could wash your linens from brown to white. Eager to cool off, I pulled off my top layer and climbed to the top of the falls. I jumped into the emerald pool below, followed by Olei who did an elegant dive. Yakeh flopped in just to make a big splash and get all of our clothes wet.
“So Yakeh,” I asked while we floated in the water, “When are you going to visit Rhys?” He grinned like a little boy, his blushing face just visible above the water.
“Rhys said I should come back when I grow up a little bit….something about being nicer to my sister…” Olei chuckled and I laughed a little, but I was confused.
“You’re not joking with me Yakeh? He said you’re not ready?”