The Serrano Connection (94 page)

Brandy and Stassi had been Ghirian and Vorda's daughters, but Ghirian and Vorda were dead. The blonde woman was Brun, and her father was named something like "rabbit." Out there among the stars was a universe where girls could wear whatever they chose, look men in the eye, choose their own careers and partners. Someday . . . someday she would find it again.

All the way to Sector IX HQ, where she switched to civilian transport, Esmay felt she had a fiery brand on her forehead and back, defining what most Fleet personnel thought of her. She kept to herself as much as possible, trying to think how to explain to her father her precarious state in Fleet. Perhaps the funeral and its aftermath would distract him. For it seemed she was in fact her great-grandmother's heir.

Her previous visit to Altiplano had begun with pomp and ceremony; this time she had the ceremony, but no pomp, and no newshounds. Her father met her in the inbound reception lounge; she almost did not recognize him in the formal mourning garments of black, with elaborate curlicues of black braid on breast and sleeves of the tight short jacket with its black-beaded collar, the full black pants tucked into low black boots with turned-up toes, and the flat black cap with the shoulder-length tassel hanging past his left ear. Left ear, heart ear, direct line of descent . . . that came back to her at once.

He had brought one of the estancia maids to help her into the clothes she must wear. In the ladies' retiring room, she changed from Fleet uniform to the layers of white: long pantaloons under a petticoat, a short white chemise. The outer layers were all black, like her father's. Wide-sleeved black blouse finely tucked down the front, full black skirt, black brocade short vest heavily overbeaded in jet, a wide black waistcloth in a diamond-patterned weave, black-on-black. Women's boots, with the top rolled down to reveal the black silk lining. On her head, a stiff black cap sitting squarely across her brow, with a rolled knob at either side. Esmay had seen this at other Landbride ceremonies; she had never expected to wear it, and she had never witnessed the whole ceremony—outsiders never did.

The weight of the clothes burdened her almost as much as the secrets she carried.

Slowly, in a cadence old as the mountains, they walked from the reception area to the shuttle bay. She was used to being a half step behind him, if not more; but now, slow as she walked, he would walk slower.

It was real. She was the Landbride. For no one else would her father slow his steps.

On the shuttle down, he spoke briefly of the arrangements, then left her with a sheaf of old-fashioned paper . . . the family copy of the old rites in which her great-grandmother had lived her long life. Esmay read carefully. She could have a coach—she
would
have a coach—but the more she could do by herself, the better. She had never witnessed the ceremony of Landbride's Gifting, though she had heard others talk of it. At the shuttlefield, it was just past sunset, with a fiery glow behind the mountains. By the time they were out of the city, night closed around them; Esmay switched on the light in the passenger compartment and kept reading. Then her father touched her arm, and pointed ahead. Esmay switched the light off and peered into the darkness.

On either side of the road, flickering lights resolved into rows of black-clothed figures holding candles . . . the car slowed and stopped. Her father handed her out. Esmay this time was first in lighting the candles at the shrine . . . remembered without prompting the words, the gestures, the entire ritual. Behind her, she heard the respectful murmurs.

They walked from there, slowly, up to the great entrance and up the long drive, and the others closed in behind them. The house loomed, darker than the darkness around it. Then candlelight appeared from inside—the family, each carrying a candle. Esmay entered a chill dark space where normally light and warmth held sway. No fires would be kindled until after the ceremony; luckily the new rules had allowed fire and light during her travels, until she arrived onplanet.

She walked through the house, and lit one of the tiny candles in each room—a promise of the Landbride's coming. Then through, and out to the Landbride's Gift, the heart of the holding, and the place where the first Landbride in her heartline had made claim long, long ago.

There the priest waited for her, with the basket that held the braided coil of her great-grandmother's hair. Esmay shivered suddenly, her imagination caught on the possibility—no, the certainty—that someday her own unruly hair would be coiled in such a basket, its strands, however short or meagre, braided formally and tied off with silk cord.

Her great grandmother's body had long been buried, of course, and the new pale gravestone set above it. But her hair awaited this final ceremonial dance. No musicians played. In the dark night, by flickering candlelight, Esmay led the women of the estancia in slow procession around each Landbride's gravestone, starting with the oldest, and ending with the latest. The men, standing around the margin of the space, stamped a slow rhythm, but did not follow.

When the dance was done, Esmay took the silvery braid from its basket and held it high, turning to show it to everyone.

"The Landbride . . ." came the hushed whisper from many throats. "The Landbride has died . . ."

"She who was Landbride is no more," Esmay said.

"She has gone into darkness," the people said.

"She has returned to the land," the priest said. "And her spirit to the heavens."

"Her power is released," Esmay said. She untied the silk cord, and untwisted the strands of the braid. The night wind sighed down off the mountains, cold around her legs even through the layers of clothes. Candle flames streamed sideways; a few went out.

"Into the heavens . . ." the people said.

Esmay untied the second cord, at the top of the braid, and held the loosened braid high in her open hands. A gust of wind picked up one strand, then another. She heard the next gust coming, shaking the trees around the glade. When she felt it, she leaped up, tossing the hair free . . . and landed in darkness, all the candles blown out.

"Now is the death; now is the sorrow born!" In darkness and windy cold, the people cried out, and burst into the formal wails of mourning. One voice, quavering, old, sang the story of her great-grandmother's life, a counterpoint to the mourning cries. It had been a long life; it was a long dirge, and it ended only when the darkness crept back under the trees with approaching dawn. Light strengthened moment by moment; one by one the mourners fell silent, until at last there was no sound nor movement. Far off, it seemed, a rooster crowed, and another answered.

The priest with his tall black hat had turned his back, to face the sunrise. The women helped Esmay back through the crowd, into the curtained tent she had not seen for the darkness. Quickly they stripped off the black vest, waistcloth, skirt, blouse, boots. Over the pure white underclothes, they helped her into the Landbride's traditional outfit: white blouse, with wide pleated sleeves ending in a hand's width of frothy lace; white skirt pinstriped in green; white doeskin vest embroidered and beaded in brilliant color with flowers and vines and fruit . . . and to top it all, the hat with its two blunt points, from each of which a gold tassel fell past her ear to her shoulder. Around her waist, the scarlet and purple striped waistcloth, folded and tied precisely. In its folds, a narrow belt to which was hung on her right hip a sickle's curved blade, its metal varicolored with age, but its edge still gleaming. On her left side, slung from a shoulder strap, she had a pouch of seed. Soft green boots, lined in yellow silk, would come later—for the first, she would go barefoot.

Back outside, the risen sun streamed through the trees in long red-gold shafts, but the dew beneath her feet felt icy cold. Someone behind her struck a bell, and at its lingering mellow tone, the priest turned to face her. He raised on outstretched hands a long sharpened stick. The men moved to stand behind him.

"From night comes day," the priest said. "By the grace of God. And from the death of one comes the life of another, as the seed in the ground dies to live as the grain that blows in the sun."

Esmay lifted her arms in the ritual gestures.

"Does any here challenge the Landbride's lineage?" the priest asked. "Or is there cause she should not be wed?"

Silence from the people, and the nervous chattering of a treehopper, who cared nothing for ceremony. The priest waited out a full count of a hundred—Esmay counted it out in her own mind—then nodded.

"So it shall be . . . this bride to this land, to the end of her life, or her willing gift to her heir." He held out the digging stick.

The next part had seemed ridiculous and more theatrical than archaic when Esmay read it, but wearing the old costume in the early morning light, with the digging stick in her hand (far heavier than she expected), and the sickle and seeds . . . it felt right in a way she had not imagined.

She strode out into the little circle of grainland kept for this purpose, and planted carefully each year. Though the season was wrong, and what she planted would not grow, it still felt connected to some larger ritual which would work, which would bind the land to her, and her to the land. She was not sure she wanted that, but she was sure what she had to do.

With the digging stick, she pried up the three holes at the corners of an equilateral triangle, pushing through the earth until they were big enough. Old stains on the tip of the digging stick made clear how deep was the right depth. Her helpers picked up the loosened clods and put them in a copper bowl. Then, taking the old sickle blade which would have no handle until this was over, she laid the edge of the blade to the palm of her left hand. It hardly hurt at first, and the blood ran redder than her sash into the bowl, into the clods of earth, darkening them. When it was enough, the women nodded, and she held out her hand for someone to bind in the kerchief that would henceforth be laid under the kitchen hearthstone.

Her hand was beginning to throb. Esmay ignored it, and hung the sickle back on her belt. Then she spat into the bowl, onto each clod. The women nodded again, and she stepped back. They poured a few drops of water from a jug of springwater and, using paddles carved of wood from orchard trees, kneaded the earth and blood and water into a ball.

Esmay took five seeds from the sack and dropped them carefully into the first hole—and the women laid a small lump of the mixture in the bowl on top of it. Again . . . and again. Then the women set the bowl on the ground in the triangle, and divided the remaining lump into five smaller ones, each carefully shaped into a loaf, and laid a tripod of sticks over them, with a tuft of dry bristlegrass atop. The priest approached, and took from around his neck the crystal that formed the center of his scapular, the symbol of the star. But so early in the morning, it could not focus enough sunlight . . . no. For one of his assistants brought forward a pot, in which was a coal from the fire on the hearth, kept live since that fire had been quenched.

The fire, fed carefully, baked the earthen loaves hard and dry. While it baked, the musicians began to play, wild heartrending dances. When it was baked, the Five Riders came forward. Esmay broke the lump apart, and each took a section, mounted, and rode away. They would place the loaves in the boundary shrines, where the earth from her planting, her blood, and her spit, would declare the land hers. It would be days before the last one, far to the south, was set in its little stone house.

By now, the smells of food had wafted across from the kitchens; with the Landbride's dawn, fires could be lit, and cookstoves heated. Fresh hot bread, roast meat . . . Esmay sat on a throne piled with late flowers as the feast was carried out to her guests.

When the crowd around her thinned, her cousin Luci came up. "I have your accounting," she said. "The herd has done well."

"Good," Esmay said. She sipped from the mug someone had handed her, and felt dizzy from the fumes alone. "Could you get me some water? This is too strong."

Luci laughed. "They want to follow the old ways into the bedding of the Landbride, do they? I'll bring you water." She darted off, and was back soon, this time with a handsome young man at her heels.

"Thanks," Esmay said, taking the jug of cool water.

When the long ceremony was over, Esmay's stepmother led her to the suite her great-grandmother had occupied. "I hope you will stay awhile," she said. "This is your home . . . we can redecorate the rooms—"

"But my room's upstairs," Esmay said.

"Not unless you wish it. Of course, if you insist . . . but this has always been . . . it's the oldest part of the house . . ."

She was trying to be tactful, and helpful; Esmay knew that, just as she knew that she was too tired, after all this, to discuss anything calmly. What did it matter, after all, where she slept?

"I think I'll lie down awhile," she said instead.

"Of course," her stepmother said. "Let me help you with these things."

Her stepmother had hardly touched her, as near as she could remember—it felt strange indeed to have help from her. Would she have helped, years ago, if Esmay had let her? A disturbing question, which she might reconsider after a long nap. She was in fact a deft maid, quick with the fastenings, and she knew exactly when to turn away, the outer garments folded carefully in her arms, and leave Esmay alone.